Tuesday 27 February 2007

Taking up challenges when drunk

When I decided to pay a surprise visit to a good friend in Sweden, I didn't expect that the weekend would end with me wearing a red choir robe and singing in Latin in front of a member of the Swedish royal family. However...

The friend I'd gone to visit is a church organist. On Saturday night, during a night in the pub, my friend's wife told me she didn't think I'd be up to singing the Latin version of the Lent Prose - an ancient hymn sung at this time of year. I begged to differ, thinking (under the influence of several £5 pints of lager) that my distant A Level in Latin would see me through. I protested that I was up to the task.

The next morning, through my hangover I came to terms with what I'd taken on. What I didn't realise as I processed into the English Church in Stockholm was that I'd be singing in front of none other than Princess Lillian, Duchess of Halland, a Welsh-born member of the Swedish Royal Family.

One minute you're having a few drinks with a couple of mates, the next you're in a foreign church singing a sacred hymn in a dead language in front of an elderly member of Europe's aristocracy.

I think I just about got away with it but it was a salutory lesson in what you say when you're three sheets to the wind.