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by Edwina Charles <\/strong><\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Jubilation \u2013 Rejoicing \u2013 Smiles all around \u2013 not a single sad face \u2013 Families with colourful children, buzzing about like happy bees in a spring-field of gorgeous flowers … there is even a genuine Mayor with the golden chain of office hugging his shoulders, as in the Elizabethan Festival time of merry making \u2013 but thank god without their loose morals …<\/p>\n And we are only in North London\u2019s single sumptuous Arts Centre (named The Arts Depot<\/em>), in midwinter (6th<\/sup> February 2016, 7 pm) not even Springtime or Summer, yet already blossoming with extraordinary warmth, and enthusiasm, and sheer love \u2013 I have never been anywhere experiencing so much genuine love all around \u2013 extraordinary, and remarkable.\u00a0 I cannot decipher how the organizers had achieved such effervescent atmosphere, but it was unfailingly there in the air … I wouldn\u2019t have minded parting with my heart there and then if someone had needed it for a transplant!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And who were the organizers?\u00a0 The North London Hospice<\/em> (NLH), a most humanitarian organization brimful of specially trained nurses and doctors, helped by countless self-sacrificing volunteers, altogether a team of angels,\u00a0\u00a0 who make whatever left of a terminally-ill patient\u2019s life bearable and joyous, looking after their families in grief, comforting and consoling them as much as the suffering patient soon to be gone forever … and all for Love and nothing else!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Incredible \u2013 especially in our cruel world of money-greed and thieving bankers, yes, indeed it is incredible, but absolutely totally true and free … But even such NLH-angels are forced into scraping and sweating to raise impossible amounts of hard cash every year<\/span><\/strong> to keep their humanitarian service free for all \u2013 the NLH being multi-faith (including those of no faith at all).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It all began in 1984, from the flat (in Muswell Hill, London<\/em>) of a kind Jewish lady Harriet Copperman, inspired by Dr. Chris Handley, the founder of the idea, and Melvyn Carlowe, a triumvirate of magnificent people who restored the universal faith in human dignity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Caring for the old, the infirm, and the terminally-ill presents governments with massive problems.\u00a0 The Nazi solution is simple (one for the idiots) \u2013 kill them all, build crematoria instead of hospices!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But if we, sane people are not careful, we may yet see those days we thought were gone for-ever, return with a vengeance… A clinic in Switzerland, the country of high capitalism, global tax-avoiders, \u00a0and shameless looting of Jewish wealth by the Nazis, charges money to murder voluntary distressed patients in back garden wooden shacks, naming their Nazi act as \u201cEuthanasia\u201d, a classical Greek word even the Nazis would be happy to use for their Holocaust of the Jews …<\/p>\n <\/p>\n NLH needs over \u00a36 million every year<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 similarly another, Farleigh Hospice<\/em> (FH) in Essex, founded by Cicely Saunders in the 1950s, the first of its kind.\u00a0 Miss Saunders made herself qualify in 3 different professions<\/strong> (as a nurse, a social worker and ultimately a doctor) to realize her exemplary passion for helping the dying \u2013 it seems she was in love with her first patient, David Tasma \u2013 a Polish refugee<\/strong> … what a moving, heart-warming lesson to all the Brits in our midst who wish today\u2019s refugees ill, escaping from countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria) destroyed by our own Arms industries<\/strong>. \u00a0The FH needs to raise unbelievably over 8 thousand English pounds (\u00a38,376 to be precise) every day<\/span><\/strong> to carry on its angelic work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let us return to our own NLH \u2013 it had the brilliant idea of fundraising by organizing the first North London talent contest, at North London\u2019s premier theatre, the Arts Depot<\/em>, with … 200 participants<\/strong>, among them endless Caribbean-style Steel Drum bands, groups of Americanized cheerleaders, a very talented singer\/songwriter Nicola Mousicos, a ballerina (Emma Berens) who calls herself rather self-deprecatingly The Dancing Grannie<\/em> who could do the splits as well as any under-age Chinese acrobat!\u00a0 I am sorry I cannot mention all the two hundred by name…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The competition was won by a curious group of 7 cellists, calling themselves Massive Violins<\/em> \u2013 a nice pun on the cello as a big violin!\u00a0 They sang a medley of songs from the famously politely anti-Nazi feature film The Sound of Music<\/em>, including the world-famous Edelweiss<\/em> (= nobly white).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The DJ Dean Martin, and choreographer Tracie Harlow compeered the evening with sweet kindness and warmth, flanked by wonderfully professional judges Jordan Rakei, Elizabeth Harris, Maggie Paterson, and Jemma Brown, unfortunately forced to be less critical, always encouraging, on such occasions \u2013 talent shows are a bit of vegetable soups, truly a Russian borscht<\/em> where any veggie ingredient is thrown in which is handy to the housewife at that moment of cooking.\u00a0 I loved the joke by the Massive Violins<\/em> (quoted in the program) that they were invited but declined participating in Britain Got Talent<\/em> TV show, \u201cworried about being beaten by a dog!\u201d, as a real silly dog did win it once!<\/p>\n For my tastes and highly critical judgment, the clear winner of the evening was indeed Miss Loussin-Torah Pilikian, <\/strong>just graduated (last year) from the University of York<\/em>, with first Honours Degree <\/em>in Philosophy.\u00a0\u00a0 Miss Harlow introduced her with great warmth, and humour, saying that she better get her Armenian right, as Loussin\u2019s father is in the audience and may create trouble afterwards … adding that \u201cLoussin\u2019s mets-mama<\/em>, her Armenian grandmother\u201d was looked after by the NLH team, hence, Loussin\u2019s desire to pay back with a … song, as her own affectionate tribute of love to the team.\u00a0 It was a tearful moment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And Loussin came to the stage, a stunningly beautiful young lady of 21, an … edelweiss<\/em> flower if one could ever be found in London \u2013 a large white flower in her hair, the symbol of the aristocratic Yorkists in the War of the Roses…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And she sang an Etta James<\/strong> classic At Last<\/em>, pitch-perfect from the first note to the last, with an amazingly beautiful timbre<\/em> of a mezzo-soprano, deep and powerful like old wine or mature port, perfectly articulated, projected and modulated.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If I were an Indian and believed in re-incarnation, I would insist that Loussin is the great Marion Anderson<\/strong> incarnate \u2013 Marion was the first and still unsurpassed interpreter of what used to be called Negro Spirituals<\/em>, the proto-source of modern Soul<\/em>; thank God for the Internet<\/em> that you can see\/hear Marion Anderson\u2019s miraculous greatest masterpiece of all time \u2013 They Crucified my Lord<\/em>; here are two separate Links of the same (in case one won\u2019t connect)<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6kEvdwXM-Hc<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/c2.staticflickr.com\/2\/1542\/24927656202_fe84d9f2cd_b.jpg\")
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