大象传媒

It seems somehow fitting that the New Year should begin with controversy 鈥� I don鈥檛 mean this year particularly, and I don鈥檛 mean what you鈥檒l hear, or not hear, on the morning news. I mean every year, and at the stroke of midnight. Do you stand in a circle with your nearest and dearest, cross arms, hold hands, and sing the traditional song? And if you do, do you sing for the sake of Auld Lang Zyne? I used to, until some years I sang it at a Hogmanay ceilidh in Glasgow.

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It鈥檚 Syne, with an S, not Zyne with a Z, in the Scots language. The correction was offered with impressive clarity by a Glaswegian, and I have not made the mistake again. A happy Hogmanay to all Scottish listeners, even if it is not as you planned. But that鈥檚 not the only controversy. Should you, or should you not, cross hands? I always thought you should until the Millennium, when I saw the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh emphatically not crossing hands as they sang Auld Lang Syne with the Blairs in the vast echoing space of the Dome. Apparently you only cross hands in the听second听verse. But then who better than the Queen to be the careful custodian of our traditions? I thought this when I watched her Christmas Message and she talked about how we like to sing carols, 鈥渁s long as the tune is well known,鈥� almost as an aside.

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Her Majesty does not really do asides, especially not in her Christmas Message, a sort of national sermon from which all preachers might learn the virtues of brevity, clarity and simplicity. Deceptive simplicity? I don鈥檛 think that remark was only about carols, each year more obscure with stars dight in royal beauty, and pages bringing pine logs thither, and gloria in excelsis. It made me think of the deep currents running under our daily lives, giving pattern and purpose. We come and go, like waves rising and breaking on the surface, but we鈥檙e part of something bigger than us 鈥� there before we were, there after we鈥檝e gone 鈥� a swell still bearing tidings of comfort and joy and peace and auld acquaintance. Wherever you are, whoever you鈥檙e with 鈥� a happy new year.听

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