Singing for a knighting

I am happy to report that the Suspicious Cheese Lords' little gig last night went very well. And yes, it really was little: we sang only Josquin's Ave Maria to celebrate the knighting of Robert Aubry Davis by King Albert II of Belgium. Beforehand the ambassador and his wife greeted us (it was at the ambassador's residence, so here we are walking into this enormous museum-mansion with stunning architectural detail in every corner and doorway, serious art on the walls, amazing furniture, etc.) and bade us take refreshment. Mmmmm, Belgian ale. And noshies! The chicken liver pate was a revelation. And seeing as how I hadn't yet had dinner and had barely had lunch yesterday, I made a meal of the various pates, cheeses, fishies, and compotes on toast, plus the more mundane mini-quiches and some sort of shrimp concoction on (what else?) Belgian endive. And then with the knighting (RADman was the third of three gentlemen knighted for contributions to the arts in Belgium and to Belgian arts in the U.S.) and then with the singing and then with the schmoozing. It occurred to several of us Lords that the venue is precisely what we need to cultivate—no more of this singing on stage crap, we need salons! Enormous sitting rooms with a grand piano to stand in front of! Potential billionaire patrons in attendance! More Belgian ale and now little dark chocolate cauldrons filled with lemon curd. We chatted with the cultural attaché and invited the ambassador (who's been recalled from his post to Belgium next month) and his wife to dinner at Stately Cheeselord Manor. Skip (our founder and pres.) tried to monopolize the ambassador's time, even tasking him to provide Old French pronunciations for some of our lyrics. All in all, it was a very pleasant evening hangin' with the haves.