I have heard that Kenneth Stevenson has died. He shot straight from being a parish priest in Guildford to being the Bishop of Portsmouth - one of the 26 bishops that currently sit in the House of Lords. He had to give up this post around two years ago because of his illness. He has a site here

http://kennethstevenson.org.uk/about-kenneth-stevenson/

Looking on that site I see that he and another bish edited a book with Rowan Williams on Anglican spirituality quite recently which has some good reviews. I remember he brought R Williams to Gfd to lecture when he was a relatively obscure Welsh bish. KS wrote loads of books himself - often on the topic of liturgy and the eucharist - he was a Dr of Divinity as well as having a PhD. Nonetheless I was surprised at the time when he was catapulted from being an ordinary parish priest into the Anglican hierarchy. I went to his enthronement - I think that's the term - in Portsmouth. I am not sure I ever read any of his books but on the basis of the lecture I did buy one of RW's which turned out to be quite hard work.His daughter has become an opera singer - she was friendly with my son in the junior school.

http://www.alexandrastevenson.co.uk/

She has a company called Open Door Opera which looks pleasingly whacky

http://opendooropera.posterous.com/

As they put it

Open Door Opera is busy pulverising dusty old opera stereotypes and cheerfully squashing the school of 'stand there and sing' with a brightly coloured, inter-disciplinary mallet.

We are a company of singers, conductors, composers, directors and designers brought together by the conviction that opera can and should be enjoyed by everyone. We present opera in a totally original way, fusing music, voice, physical theatre, light, design and location to produce truly magical storytelling.

It is our aim to unleash the full potential of opera. We present new operas by fantastic living composers, and reveal established classics in a radically new light. We use spectacle to enhance the communication of the stories we tell, but we don't rely on it. We can put on an opera anywhere, from traditional venues to underground...