How To Not Study

The upcoming TMA (that's Tutor Marked Assessment to the uninitiated) poses the question:
How far do you think observing a religious activity, such as a festival, can help you to understand the part a religion plays in the life of an individual or a community?

To be honest I haven't a got a scooby-doo. I suppose that if you look at the Hadj for example then the sheer scale of that activity, with over 5 million people visiting Mecca annually, then you can draw some conclusions regarding the individuals who take part and, possibly, the communities from which they come. The event can therefore, for the sake of this excercise, be viewed from two perspectives; firstly as a major part of the Islamic religion and secondly as a component of the spiritual life of the individual pilgrim. As to what these conclusions will be ... well you'll have to wait and see. I'm going to try and get busy on this over the weekend but you know how it goes, temptations of the flesh and all that (I should be so lucky).

Talking about pilgrimages; everybody should make at least one visit in their lifetime to Croatia. I hate working here but it's a great place to visit. Last night, as happens every Thursday, there was live music in the caffe-bar below my apartment. On the basis that I won't get to sleep anyway with the noise coming up through my bedroom floor, I usually go down there and enjoy the music. It's a regular trio, one guy on acoustic guitar and vocals and two other guys providing counterpoint. The music is Croatian folk music with a heavy emphasis on sentimental Dalmatian songs about travellers far away from old Dalmatia dreaming about the olive groves, sunshine, and friends back home. The whole bar joins in and it seems to me that there is not a song in the trio's repertoire that everybody doesn't know off by heart. Still they never seem to tire of listening to them.

The trio (Trio Bura) finished up about midnight and were taking it easy at the table next to ours when unexpectedly they started forth singing unaccompanied in the classic folk style here called 'klapa'. One friend of theirs joined in and we now had the pleasure of a klapa quartet. It was so spontaneous and unexpected, and the quality of their voices was just superb. They sang, I think, four songs in this manner and I have to say it was an unalloyed joy to be there. Lovely people. You should come over here some time and see for yourselves. It's a pilgrimage you would really enjoy.