I had tried shooting prayers at unknowing fellow travellers in the train. There was a chap opposite me who was particularly fidgety. He seemed agitated as he worried on some obviously very serious accounts. He played unnecessarily with his mobile phone but shooting prayers did not work.

Then right at the end of the journey he returned a pen to the guard who had lent him one. A wonderful charming smile of thanks came over his face. Perhaps the prayer helped or perhaps, probably, I first misjudged him as we often do.

Later that day, after rushing about taking my daughter to Heathrow and speaking in the 1922 Committee, I had a short break from rushing in the 6PM Mass in the Crypt. All night the Taize chant kept coming back to me and then the next morning I couldn’t remember any of it.