And #1: Most often, the winner is the guy who recognizes sciamachy when he sees it, and stops.

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One last quote for 2006, from the insert of the latest Swingle Singers album, Unwrapped:

The last track is, appropriately enough, the arrangement with which every Swingle Singers Christmas show closes, the Japanese song Hotaru No Hikari sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne:

Hotaru no hikari mado no yuki
Fumi yomu tsukihi kasanetsutsu
Itsushiha toshi mo suginoto wo,
Aketezo kesa wa wakare yuku.

(Translation)
With the light from fireflies and the reflection from snow outside the window
We would read books for months and years;
As the years stole by
On this graduation morning we shall open the door into new years and be parted.

We were pleased to discover that in Japan the tune is widely known although the Japanese version is used in a different context. The words were orginally meant to be sung by students at graduation ceremony at the end of a hard year of study. The themes of looking back over the past and saying goodbye whilst preparing to go on to new things have meant that the song is sometimes played by restaurants as a signal to customers that the evening is over and they should go home! In Japan, it brings tears to the eyes of the audence but, whether or not we understand the precise meaning of the words, we cannot fail to be moved by its beauty.

Happy 2007!