Quiet, calm, deliberation

This has recently come to rest on my desk , where I photographed it this afternoon as I was about to start studying (once again)  the Continuity Bill and all its associated documentation  in preparation for two committee appearances about the Bill  on successive days this week as well as the  Bill's formal Stage 1 proceedings in the Parliament on Wednesday afternoon.  Then I am off to London for a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee at which we will attempt , once again, to resolve the impasse in negotiations on the UK Bill. 

It  is, apparently, a fund raising brick for an English cathedral appeal and I was given it by a senior civil servant a couple of weeks ago, someone I have worked with , on and off, for much of the past decade.   

He and I share a fondness for English, Irish, Scottish & Welsh composers of the 19th & 20th centuries and the quotation on the sides  (you can of course only see 3 of 6 here ) is from Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Gondoliers"

In a contemplative fashion,
And a tranquil frame of mind,
Free from every kind of passion,
Some solution let us find.
Let us grasp the situation, 
Solve the complicated plot —
Quiet, calm deliberation
Disentangles every knot.


Exactly....and thanks.