Asperges me

Yesterday morning I caught a fascinating programme about Satie by Alistair McGowan. Towards the end, he stumbled over a reference to the ritual brush† used at a  funeral (and other ceremonies) to scatter holy water. I've never had any dealings with such an implement, though I know what to do with a thurible. ['This thing is loaded and I know where to wave it.' 'Do your worst kid. It'll never get past the censer' (sic)]

<autobiographical_note date_range="1971-1972">
And when my college choir had to sing at a service in the Round Church, a very High Anglican Church at the time, my background as an RC altar-boy caught up with me – and there was I thinking I'd left it behind at the age of 10, when the cassocks got too short (like most 10-year-old schoolboys' of the time my calves were bare, and an overshort cassock made me look like something out of the Bash Street Kids) – and I wielded the umbrellino.
</autobiographical_note>

So my only Asperges-related reflex is that after I have washed a  paintbrush, and am shaking it dry, this tune comes to mind.

Notes from the word face 

But today's business is more  weighty than papist earworms and wet paintbrushes. After a last-minute check, I've just pushed the Publish button for V3 of #WVGTbook. This has appeared:

And I can't make it free until it's live; so I expect it will be available for free download some time tomorrow. I'll let you know when it is.

Onwards and upwards – after a bit of R&R.

b
†PS re the price of that one. Hyssop I said, not brass-handled genuine horsehair lovingly plucked by hand, no doubt, from a pure white unicorn, '£83.83 inc. VAT' (and after P&P you'll be lucky to get much change from a ton!) Just hyssop FFS.

Update 2017.09.10.20:45 – Deleted outdated footer from very old post. The completed book is here.