Last night we watched the Lowestoft Players presenting ‘Anything Goes’. Written by Cole Porter, it’s set aboard the luxury liner S.S. American sailing from New York to London.
Billy Crocker, a stowaway, is in love with Hope Harcourt, who’s engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. Nightclub singer and former evangelist Reno Sweeney, and Public Enemy Number 13, Moonface Martin disguised as a priest, add to a colourful set of passengers and crew.
The plot is contrived, with mistaken identity, romance, unexpected revelations, misunderstandings and witty dialogue. In the end, in typical comedic fashion there are weddings and a happy ending. We thoroughly enjoyed the evening!
I’m reading about English carpenter and clockmaker John Harrison (1693-1776), who’s famous for making increasingly accurate clocks and inventing a device for solving the problem of how to calculate longitude whilst at sea.
Having made his first clock in 1713, at the age of 20, with the mechanism made entirely of wood, he spent his life time designing, building and improving clocks. His quest was to create a seagoing version of his wooden pendulum clocks.
His first design, presented in 1730, took him five years to make. Having tested this first sea clock in 1736 he then moved to his next design that took three years to build and two to test in 1741. He constantly worked on improved designs, making significant advances in time-keeping technology…
Cole Porter saw mistakes as an opportunity for humour; there was always the assurance that mistakes would be resolved and eventually work out happily. John Harrison saw mistakes as learning opportunities, motivation for improvement, requiring continuing patient endeavour.
The Biblical narrative is full of people who made mistakes… Jacob, David, Peter, Zacchaeus… the prodigal son… with some there is humour, with all there is opportunity for resolution, to create rightness from wrongness, to learn from mistakes and constantly improve with determination and patience.
And I reflect on the mistakes that I have made, learning from Cole Porter, John Harrison and my Bible.
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