For part of my life I lived for many years in a monastery. Singing, particularly of plain chant, was important, and the monastery was divided, with a monastic, unworldly sense of the implication of its metaphors, into ‘the choir’ and ‘the scrubbers’. I excelled. Whatever vocation I had, it certainly included being an eternal scrubber. For many years I spent fifteen minutes a day with a patient friend who attempted to teach me to sing the Gospel for the third Sunday before the Epiphany. Standing in the monastery basement and earnestly inhaling the smell of monks’ football boots and sandshoes and unwashed football jumpers, I could never get this simple piece of plain chant right.

I continue to sing off-key, much to the delight of the children my monastery never intended for me. This is my last Abbreviations column. Because of ill health, I have resigned from ABR. But apart from that, I believe that all columnists should retire after three years. Or sooner. Attention Philip Adams and Max Harris. In this last column I shall be more self-indulgent than usual. This column commenced as an information sheet. When it was handed to me, I dutifully typed out various badly written press releases until I could stand it no more and started giving my opinion. Now I find I am repeating myself. Boring for my mother and any other readers. So, I sing again off-key and start with some of things I have done off-key that relate to the joys and agonies of editing.