Win a beautiful 2011 organ calendar

Click here for competition details

25% Christmas discount on Martin's latest CD!

Orders and decorations WILL be worn ...

New products in Organgifts.com

Organgifts.com brings you a new range of business cards, posters, mugs, thankyou cards, and several new organ calendars for 2011 !

• What's a loo to do with this?
• November Competition - win an organ calendar
• 25% Special discount on Martin's new CD!
• Christmas Shopping ideas
• Website wombling
• Earthquake Catch-up

1.What's a loo to do with this?

Nearly 40 years ago David and Althea Bridgeman-Sutton visited a rural railway station in New Zealand, and the sight that greeted them in the Ladies' Waiting Room (note the segregation!) was enough to warrant them taking a Polaroid photo. After a recent mention of the need for orders and decorations to be worn at a special occasions got David thinking back to that bizarre New Zealand discovery - and his resulting article you can read in this month's Musings and Amusings"

2. November Competition - win an organ calendar

This month's competition is simplicity (like its deviser) itself: with multi-choice answer possibilities such as "one of Jenny's infamous curries" and "Riesling Orgelbau" it's clearly not going to be one to stump Stephen Hawking. So you have nothing to lose by answering the 4 questions, to enter the draw. Entries close at the end of November, so enter now, here

3. Special discount on “Great Australasian Organs VII” CD

From now until December 24th you can buy Martin's latest CD recorded on the Rieger organ in the Christchurch Town Hall for a 25% discount! Available in five currencies (NZ , Australian and American dollars, Euros and British pounds. ) Get this super discount only from Martin's website CD "G.A.O." page, where you can also read extracts from his programme notes.

4. Christmas shopping ideas

Discounts and coupons abound in our Zazzle organgifts.com shop too. Calendars have a 30% discount if you use the code "2011CALENDAR" at the checkout. For other discounts, visit the coupons page here when looking for a bargain. At Zazzle you can customise most of the goodies there, so you can add the name of a recipient of a gift, choose the style and size of a mug, or change the message inside a card and so on. Our thank-you cards have been popular so I live in hope that some listeners out there have appreciated the efforts of their music directors and organists during the year enough to send them

5. Website wombling

• Ahah! It had to happen - a random act of culture, using an opera company, a large department store and a very, very, very large organ... See this stirring event by the the Opera Company of Philadelphia in Macy's:"Hallelujah!" Random Act of Culture
• Not normally one to indulge in political thinking (or even thinking if it comes to that), I still can't help passing on this brilliant take-off on US politics. Thanks to Gilbert and Sullivan, as usual, . . . The very model of a modern US President
• Perhaps it's the sleep deprivation but I'm feeling the full weight of my 21 (cough, cough ) years these days. So I need all the help I can get to use my computer as effortlessly as possible. Here are some good tips for those of us who are over 18: 7 Steps to make Computers Accessible for the Elderly And if you're still stumped, the Howtogeek.com website can rescue even the most befuddled of brains when you've scrambled your registry or zapped your doodads. I can't live without it.
• Un petit surprise this one: Organo Pleno, from French radio, and a section hosted by Benjamin François. Click on the headphone symbols to the right of the page to listen to archived interviews and concerts, and with luck you will hear the rather bizarre play-in of an organ arrangement of Leroy Anderson's superb "Typewriter". Oh, alright, why not have a look at a concert performance of the same piece?
• Tuck this one away for your post-festive-season-tummy-trimming needs: A walrus does a workout with his/her trainer. An example to us all.

6. Earthquake catch-up:

And rest assured, the thousands of aftershocks (actually 2913 at the time of writing) have failed to disturb the organ in the town hall. It even remained faithfully in tune after the biggie 7.1. We are moreorless settling down, and when a tremor happens, it's more of an earthquiver, than a quake (Memo: except for last night. That will teach me for putting up the pictures again). Thanks to all those who have been concerned. Looking on the bright side, we can now claim to live in the City That Rocks.

And don't forget to enter the competition!

Chirps

Jenny