Hong Kong Singers Carol Singing 2008 – Cherubims & Seraphims Not

There is the roof-raising Handel's Hallelujah Chorus in his 'Messiah', Puccini's haunting 'Un Bel de Vedremo' from Madam Butterfly, and Beethoven's climaxing 4th Movement in his ‘9th Symphony’. These broad, sweeping choral musical masterpieces wrench at our hearts, cause us to pause with eyes closed but heads pointed upwards towards the heavens, and make us feel as though we could have built the Pyramids of Giza alone - in just one day!

And then there is the Hong Kong Singers Christmas Carols Choir. This annual band of motley singers and musos - on various a pilgrimage, a crusade, or a haj - to seek musical fulfillment in the name of Christ Our Father, Saint Nicholas, and The Guinness Clan late of St James Gate Dublin Ireland. With the latter said Clan topping the list of financial beneficiaries of Hong Kong Singers wallets and by default disposable incomes in what is traditionally "The 2nd Half of the Rehearsal"

After a "1st Half" slaving away as trebles, and altos, and tenors and basses - voices across the board emasculated over the course of two hours of rehearsing various Christmas classics - the Musical Director hammering away at an old piano that was last tuned during 'The Boxer Rebellion' of 1900; the motley crew of Singers musos with great relief move on to that much anticipated "2nd Half"

Sometimes 'Grappa's Restaurant and Bar' in Central HK, but often ‘Bulldogs Bar’ in Lan Kwai Fong Hong Kong. Where the Queen Bee 'Jools' is able to, with the help of the Dame and Doyen ‘Karine’, and with absolutely no resistance from that totally responsible icon of Hong Education and Musical Director 'Andy' - pull a pint for all parties at happy hour prices, night, day, and even during Ramadan !

But how does it all start. Well weeks before, when Hong Kong's Party Season has barely begun, the Queen, Doyen, and Director advertise, email, telemarket, and use carrier pigeons to entice this motley lot - "The 4 Principal Parts Horsemen of the Apocalypse of Carols" - to show at the Glenealy School Hall in Hong Kong for initial Monday night rehearsals. After "cajoling this a herd of tone deaf chaff" into submission, new techniques are then used such as those similar to British naval press-gangs, Rome's enslavement of the Gauls, and threats of Chinese water torture to ensure another army of semi-harmonious singers with fine vocal chords but no charisma show for the CD recording - with these 'ringers' recorded and then banished to the dustbin of the "Ghosts of Singers Christmas Carols Past"

And then the true test begins. Having been battered, bruised, and buried in rehearsing such classics as 'The First Noel', 'O Come All Ye Faithful', and 'Silent Night', our "tone deaf chaff" are then thrown to the four winds to fend for themselves at the Discovery Bay Marina Club, Grappa's Central, the Shek-O Golf & Country Club, Saint John's Cathedral, and the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. Bravely but ultimately futiley seeking to beat God at his own game - gloriously praising His and his Son’s almighty and their glory on high and on earth. The "chaff" already knowing full well that the 'Supreme Being' already has a heavenly choir of cherubim and seraphim on his generous pay roll to serenade him in perpetuity

But also fully knowing that although The Hong Kong Singers may as one sound like a band of wailing banshees by comparison to those celestial angels, we have access to the one thing that the Lord would never allow into Heaven. The black gold - Guinness. And for this one piece of luck heaven can take all the cherubims' and seraphims' they can squeeze through the pearly gates because as the old saying goes, "One pint of the black stuff and you can take on the world. Two pints and you can take on God himself !"

This is The Nav. Supping a pint or two of the black Irish gold with his fellow HK Singers "chaff", tipping his hat, and winking at an enviously sober Lord above most un-high