Service notes: The Cathedral, Barchester -- Liturgy of the Table

Either Blogger or a bad connection ate my long and, of course, brilliant posting on the rest of the liturgical atrocities at Barchester Cathedral, and I don't have the slightest desire to write it all over again. So let me instead hit the highlights:

• Cheesy music: At the offertory the Gospeler led us in a Philip Bailey song. (Not, alas, "She's an Easy Lover," which I suppose might have been appropriate if the lectionary had been different.) She was shaking a maraca.
• Tag-team concelebration: The Dean said the Words of Institution for the bread. The Assistant did them for the wine. The Dean made the oblatio gesture when saying "we offer you these gifts," but the Assistant made the sign of the cross over the gifts while saying "Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit." It looked ridiculous. I had never seen tag-team concelebration before; now I understand why all the liturgical manuals forbid it.
• Constant interpolation of verbal directions: Apparently "Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith" isn't clear enough. It has to be "Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith, saying together." Umm, 'saying' just repeats 'proclaim' and 'together' just repeats 'us'. Why not go all the way and say "Let us together proclaim and say the words of the memorial acclamation, namely, the following, which we will say together and speak in unison"? TRUST THE BOOK.
• Calling people by name while administering Communion: I hate that. Visitors either get asked at the altar rail what their name is, which is tacky, or they just don't get addressed by name, which excludes them. TRUST THE BOOK.
• Randomly doing the Rite One words of administration as "traveling words" while moving from the end of the communion rail back to the beginning: What is that all about?
• More cheesy music: If I had wanted to sing Gaither music during the Lord's Supper, I'd still be a Baptist.