I love the sketches that John Bird and John Fortune do on the Rory Bremner show on Channel 4 in UK. Here’s that hasn’t appeared, one I’ve written for them, should they chose to use it, prepared largely from actual conversations recently in connection with the Post Office plans to close up to 2,500 post offices across the country.
- George Parr, you are a senior manager with the Post Office, responsible for managing the closure programme across the country?
- That is correct, yes.
- Well, Mr Parr, could you explain to me how closing post offices will enable you to maintain or even improve the service you provide?
- Ah, well, you see, the Post Office is not a service.
- Not a service? Well what is it then?
- It’s a business. We’re there to make money for our shareholders.
- I see. So you’re not all that interested in whether people are actual able to access the services they require, in order to post their mail, or cash their pensions?
- Well, yes, of course, we are … but only if there’s something in for us, too.
- You mean profits?
- Well , yes….
- Well, now, Mr Parr, perhaps you could explain how you can be extending your business, and making profits, by closing branches?
- Well the problem is that the branches we plan to close don’t make money, but we will still be open for business, through our outreach facilities!
- Outreach facilities? What are they?
- Well you see, in remote locations, we provide outreach facilities, either through a mobile van, parked in a particular location, or through someone providing a service in, say, a village hall.
- Vans in lay-bys? Isn’t that rather vulnerable to crime and robbery?
- Ah, well, no , you see, because they are unmarked vans!
- I see… so they don’t advertise the fact that they are mobile post offices?
- No!
- So how do people know that they are there?
- Well, you see, they can look them up on the website … or they can just tap on the window and ask the driver!
- But wouldn’t that lead to all sorts of people disturbing van drivers in lay-bys and finding that they were actually just window cleaners or delivery drivers?
- Well, yes….
- And if you provide a sub-postmistress in a village hall …
- Yes?
- Well, isn’t someone sitting alone in a village hall, with a case full of cash, waiting for people to come in, isn’t that person rather vulnerable to being attacked and robbed?
- Ah, no, you see because e don’t tell people they are there!
- You don’t tell them that they are there…
- No, we keep the times and location a secret!
- You keep it a secret …
- Exactly… but say, an elderly lady wants to cash her pension; she will have the phone number of the sub-postmistress, and she can ring her up, and they can arrange to meet at the village hall, at a specified time, and transact their business, privately nd without anyone knowing about it.
- I see…. But that sounds rather like the arrangements made by a drug addict to meet their supplier in order to obtain some Class A drugs. Is that really how we should be providing post office services in the 21st century?
- Oh, but I don’t think your comparison is a fair one!
- Really?
- Oh no! I mean, in most parts of the country it’s much easier to obtain recreational drugs than it is to buy a postal order or cash a giro!
- George Parr, thank you very much.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
It's French!
Getting the bus ready for our trip to the coast; which is why it’s grey and cold and rainy throughout the country at present; don’t book your holidays at the same time as us.
The Magic Bus is back from a two week stay on the forecourt of the people who sold it to us. We had a new CD player fitted, and the water pump on the domestic system replaced. That’s about two hours work. I know. I thought boatyards were slow.
I asked the guy several questions about the Bus, like
“Why is there an irritating whining noise when you turn on the lights?”
“It’s French”
“Why is there no intermittent wipe?”
“It’s French”
And so on. Each time the answer was the same.
“It’s French”
Sorry, France.
The Magic Bus is back from a two week stay on the forecourt of the people who sold it to us. We had a new CD player fitted, and the water pump on the domestic system replaced. That’s about two hours work. I know. I thought boatyards were slow.
I asked the guy several questions about the Bus, like
“Why is there an irritating whining noise when you turn on the lights?”
“It’s French”
“Why is there no intermittent wipe?”
“It’s French”
And so on. Each time the answer was the same.
“It’s French”
Sorry, France.
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Son of Rambow
Went to see “Son of Rambow”, courtesy of aforementioned cinema managing son. OK, but not I think a great film. Some very good bits, but, as son often says, you see most of them in the trailer anyway. It has its moments, with some reflective scenes on childhood, growing up and friendship; some very funny set pieces and effective special effects; it rather lost its way in the middle when the focus is off the relationship between the two boys. I think the best thing that can be said, though, is that the cinema was fuller than for any recent film we’ve watched there, and we had been promoted from Screen 6 to Screen 5, so it was bigger. The majority of the audience was young, with lots of kids. They were watching a British film not an American blockbuster, and they were enjoying it.
Monday, 21 April 2008
Looking for Mr. Woosnam
“Speak to Mr Woosnam, please?”
“No , there is no-one of that name here.”
“Yes, please, Mr. Woosnam”
“No, I just said, Mr Woosnam does not live here.”
“I have special offer for Mr Woosnam”
“Look, I just told you, MR. WOOSNAM DOES NOT LIVE HERE, NEVER HAS LIVED HERE!”
Vicarage phone numbers used to stay the same for ever. OK, they may have a few digits added on the front as STD or area codes or whatever changed; but essentially you knew the Vicarage number. People in the little town have been used to ringing the same number, and getting through to the Vicarage, since Adam was a lad. Three numbers at first, then six, but with a familiarity that was comforting and reassuring. Then, for some reason, we don’t know what, either someone this end forgot to tell BT, or BT stopped reserving numbers, but, for some reason, when I arrived, the number had CHANGED.
This apparently small change had a number of consequences. First, the number which had been the Vicarage number was re-allocated to a nice man and his wife who had just come to live here. For a while, they couldn’t understand why they were getting phone calls about arranging funerals; enquiries about baptisms; and faceless Church of England bureaucrats wanting things called “Annual Returns” and “Statistics for Mission”. Then it dawned on them. They had been given the former Vicarage number. We developed quite a good relationship, once we had twigged what was going on. I referred to him as my Telephone Receptionist. He learnt a lot about what I do, and the hours of the day that people think it is acceptable to ring the Vicar. I tried to help him look on the bright side by pointing out that things could be worse; he could have been given a number formerly used by a Chinese takeaway, or a taxi firm.
Then I started getting calls. For Mr Woosnam. By the accents, from places as far away as Bangalore, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur and Gateshead, people were anxious to contact Mr Woosnam and tell him of the special offers they had in available for him, if only they could get in touch. I had been given Mr Woosnam’s former telephone number.
This went on for three years.
Gradually the calls dwindled. And then stopped. Until today. I was just scrambling some eggs, listening to “You and Yours” on the radio, and the phone rang. “Mr. Woosnam?” AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Mr. Woosnam, if you are out there; I’ve got some really interesting offers if you care to get in touch.
“No , there is no-one of that name here.”
“Yes, please, Mr. Woosnam”
“No, I just said, Mr Woosnam does not live here.”
“I have special offer for Mr Woosnam”
“Look, I just told you, MR. WOOSNAM DOES NOT LIVE HERE, NEVER HAS LIVED HERE!”
Vicarage phone numbers used to stay the same for ever. OK, they may have a few digits added on the front as STD or area codes or whatever changed; but essentially you knew the Vicarage number. People in the little town have been used to ringing the same number, and getting through to the Vicarage, since Adam was a lad. Three numbers at first, then six, but with a familiarity that was comforting and reassuring. Then, for some reason, we don’t know what, either someone this end forgot to tell BT, or BT stopped reserving numbers, but, for some reason, when I arrived, the number had CHANGED.
This apparently small change had a number of consequences. First, the number which had been the Vicarage number was re-allocated to a nice man and his wife who had just come to live here. For a while, they couldn’t understand why they were getting phone calls about arranging funerals; enquiries about baptisms; and faceless Church of England bureaucrats wanting things called “Annual Returns” and “Statistics for Mission”. Then it dawned on them. They had been given the former Vicarage number. We developed quite a good relationship, once we had twigged what was going on. I referred to him as my Telephone Receptionist. He learnt a lot about what I do, and the hours of the day that people think it is acceptable to ring the Vicar. I tried to help him look on the bright side by pointing out that things could be worse; he could have been given a number formerly used by a Chinese takeaway, or a taxi firm.
Then I started getting calls. For Mr Woosnam. By the accents, from places as far away as Bangalore, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur and Gateshead, people were anxious to contact Mr Woosnam and tell him of the special offers they had in available for him, if only they could get in touch. I had been given Mr Woosnam’s former telephone number.
This went on for three years.
Gradually the calls dwindled. And then stopped. Until today. I was just scrambling some eggs, listening to “You and Yours” on the radio, and the phone rang. “Mr. Woosnam?” AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Mr. Woosnam, if you are out there; I’ve got some really interesting offers if you care to get in touch.
Thursday, 17 April 2008
A Short History of the Moon
Scientists have succeeded in growing a pot of marigolds in something similar to lunar soil. I predict that this will give a kickstart to British settlement of the Moon, as there is nothing an Englishman wants more than his own little front garden with a hedge round it. This will be followed inevitably by the second front garden, and the first dispute over whose responsibility it is to cut the hedge. As the Moon is gradually covered in grass we’ll all have to join a rota to go up there and take turns to cut it. Some entrepreneur will have the bright idea of the first golf course on the Moon, followed by the first golf club, followed by the first attempt to bar aliens from using the bar because they don’t have ties. The first front garden has long since been tarmaced over to provide a parking space for the first Moon teenager’s lunar buggy, a trend that continues, which accelerates lunar warming to the extent that the Moon eventually becomes uninhabitable by humans. Take my advice. Don’t go there.
On Top of the World
The drive is ten and more miles from the little town, climbing all the time. The day, cold and frosty to start with, is turning to weak Spring sunshine. A buzzard on a fencepost stays put, watches the car pass. Kites circle overhead. We cross the dyke, a wrinkle of turf, gorse and stunted trees marking the ancient Mercian boundary. Hardy Clun sheep cling to hedgerows out of the wind, their new lambs clinging to them. Eventually we get to a rough track, and now the church is in sight. We bump over the last few yards, on a rutted track leading to the church farm and the tiny lychgate. We’re at 1300 feet, or more, up here. The same height as the M62 summit, but it feels much higher. The view over England and Wales is stunning. There is no sound.
I’m working, because part of my job is to come and inspect these places. I’m to see that they are still here, I suppose; check the silver, check the registers, ask questions to make sure everything is well kept and in order. The little church is built like a byre. Wooden screen like a cattle stall. No electricity. No heating. The only silver is the little chalice and paten, wafer thin, dated 1664, two years after the Book of Common Prayer was published. It’s wrapped in some oil cloth and kept in a small, ancient safe. The church is always open. There is no key. They don’t worry about thieves out here these days, so much as oil rustlers; the rise in the price of oil means it’s worth siphoning off a tankful from an isolated farm or homestead.
I’m supposed to ask if there’s a plan of the churchyard. There never is. The churchyards are never full, though they have been in use for more than a thousand years. Generations buried and their descendants buried with them. Each new grave turns up bones. The thick vellum covered registers, started in the 1840’s, are barely half full.
Someone is supposed to visit and examine parish churches every three years, plus every time a priest leaves and arrives, just to make sure everything is still present and correct. But we’re a long way from anywhere out here, and systems have a habit of slipping. I add my signature and details to the inventory. The previous entry is dated 1976.
I’m working, because part of my job is to come and inspect these places. I’m to see that they are still here, I suppose; check the silver, check the registers, ask questions to make sure everything is well kept and in order. The little church is built like a byre. Wooden screen like a cattle stall. No electricity. No heating. The only silver is the little chalice and paten, wafer thin, dated 1664, two years after the Book of Common Prayer was published. It’s wrapped in some oil cloth and kept in a small, ancient safe. The church is always open. There is no key. They don’t worry about thieves out here these days, so much as oil rustlers; the rise in the price of oil means it’s worth siphoning off a tankful from an isolated farm or homestead.
I’m supposed to ask if there’s a plan of the churchyard. There never is. The churchyards are never full, though they have been in use for more than a thousand years. Generations buried and their descendants buried with them. Each new grave turns up bones. The thick vellum covered registers, started in the 1840’s, are barely half full.
Someone is supposed to visit and examine parish churches every three years, plus every time a priest leaves and arrives, just to make sure everything is still present and correct. But we’re a long way from anywhere out here, and systems have a habit of slipping. I add my signature and details to the inventory. The previous entry is dated 1976.
Monday, 14 April 2008
Finding your Voice
And to a meeting of a group of women who, by the group name and their general demeanour, clearly wish to be considered Thoughtful and Up With Things, and not like those other ladies groups that do flower arranging and try out Wartime Recipes. They were too. Thoughful, I mean. Nice people. I did a taster session for the life story course and told them a bit about my writing. The opening is a bit like going to AA (I’m told). “Hello, this is my name, and I’m a writer”.
I told them about journaling, and the local magazine column I do, and then mentioned blogging. Blank looks. I explained about the internet and Facebook and Blogger, and incomprehension was replaced by horror on some faces. Surely, very dangerous, one said. I tried to explain that it didn’t need to be, and how I write anonymously, because I feel free to express myself. Everyone now looked very suspicious.
Why do I find this complicated and hard to explain? Here I’m racingdemon, but that’s not really me, or entirely me, and there’s another me, or even several me’s (now I sound mentally ill); all this is based in reality, but a slightly adapted form of reality, and it may not have happened in this order, and I probably didn’t think of the various examples of rapier wit and dazzling humour until I got home and started to write. I don’t write posts directly on line, but on the word processor, and work on them and edit them, so it might be a few days before something appears on the blog. “So you lie, and make things up then!” said one of them. “If it’s true, and not scurrilous, why do you hide your identity?” said another. Oh dear, I’m not doing very well at this. Anyone out there got any better explanation?
Read Lucy Mangan in the Guardian, and there are some good examples. This week she writes about starting a vegetable patch, and her boyfriend and parent’s reactions. Do I believe that everything was said verbatim? No. Was the gist of it true? I expect so. Did it make for an entertaining column? Certainly.
Is what we bloggers write fiction, or fact, or faction? Sometimes all three. Anyone remember David Lodge writing his series of articles in the Independent on Sunday, around 1991, “The Art of Fiction”. I have the Penguin paperback with the collected articles. He says that writing is “essentially a rhetorical art …” where the writer “persuades us to share a certain view of the world for the duration of the reading experience, effecting when successful, that rapt immersion in an imagined reality, that Van Gogh captured so well in his painting “The Novel Reader””. Wow, yes.
I’ve just finished Ian Banks “Raw Spirit”. Banks is a novelist, but this is part travelogue, part memoir, part biography, as he tours Scotland in various cars, visiting distilleries, sampling whisky and writing down his thoughts, reactions, reminiscences, and stories. I haven’t read any of Banks novels (sorry Ian); I don’t drink much whisky; I’m not a great fan of Scotland (only been three times; too many midges; Banks writes about them at one point); I’m not that interested in cars, and Banks on driving. So why have I read it? What makes the book good, indeed hard to put down, is that in the process of writing, and throughout the whole book, Banks Finds His Own Voice. One of the best examples I have of this illusive gift. When I write, I am constantly trying to find out how to do this, and how to sustain it. Sometimes I think I manage it for a paragraph or two, often I don’t.
John Fairfax and John Moat, founders of the Arvon Foundation, wrote on writing some years ago: “It is by working, by writing, by practicing the art long and regularly that the writer develops his ear, ie that sense which eventually enables the writer to hear where the power of the word lies, and ultimately, his own voice.”
Epictetus wrote, “If you wish to be a good writer, then write.”
Surely that is what the great democratic exercise of the blog is all about, giving all the chance to practice and practice at all times of the day and night, anywhere in the world, and to give us the chance to read and comment on one another’s efforts.
With this group, it was in the free writing exercises and the opportunity to just let the pen run across the page, to let the ideas come, almost bypassing the conscious mind, to find their own voice, as if they were in relaxed conversation with one trusted friend, that the group enjoyed themselves most and, I think, saw the point. So it was worth going. And a good supper too.
I told them about journaling, and the local magazine column I do, and then mentioned blogging. Blank looks. I explained about the internet and Facebook and Blogger, and incomprehension was replaced by horror on some faces. Surely, very dangerous, one said. I tried to explain that it didn’t need to be, and how I write anonymously, because I feel free to express myself. Everyone now looked very suspicious.
Why do I find this complicated and hard to explain? Here I’m racingdemon, but that’s not really me, or entirely me, and there’s another me, or even several me’s (now I sound mentally ill); all this is based in reality, but a slightly adapted form of reality, and it may not have happened in this order, and I probably didn’t think of the various examples of rapier wit and dazzling humour until I got home and started to write. I don’t write posts directly on line, but on the word processor, and work on them and edit them, so it might be a few days before something appears on the blog. “So you lie, and make things up then!” said one of them. “If it’s true, and not scurrilous, why do you hide your identity?” said another. Oh dear, I’m not doing very well at this. Anyone out there got any better explanation?
Read Lucy Mangan in the Guardian, and there are some good examples. This week she writes about starting a vegetable patch, and her boyfriend and parent’s reactions. Do I believe that everything was said verbatim? No. Was the gist of it true? I expect so. Did it make for an entertaining column? Certainly.
Is what we bloggers write fiction, or fact, or faction? Sometimes all three. Anyone remember David Lodge writing his series of articles in the Independent on Sunday, around 1991, “The Art of Fiction”. I have the Penguin paperback with the collected articles. He says that writing is “essentially a rhetorical art …” where the writer “persuades us to share a certain view of the world for the duration of the reading experience, effecting when successful, that rapt immersion in an imagined reality, that Van Gogh captured so well in his painting “The Novel Reader””. Wow, yes.
I’ve just finished Ian Banks “Raw Spirit”. Banks is a novelist, but this is part travelogue, part memoir, part biography, as he tours Scotland in various cars, visiting distilleries, sampling whisky and writing down his thoughts, reactions, reminiscences, and stories. I haven’t read any of Banks novels (sorry Ian); I don’t drink much whisky; I’m not a great fan of Scotland (only been three times; too many midges; Banks writes about them at one point); I’m not that interested in cars, and Banks on driving. So why have I read it? What makes the book good, indeed hard to put down, is that in the process of writing, and throughout the whole book, Banks Finds His Own Voice. One of the best examples I have of this illusive gift. When I write, I am constantly trying to find out how to do this, and how to sustain it. Sometimes I think I manage it for a paragraph or two, often I don’t.
John Fairfax and John Moat, founders of the Arvon Foundation, wrote on writing some years ago: “It is by working, by writing, by practicing the art long and regularly that the writer develops his ear, ie that sense which eventually enables the writer to hear where the power of the word lies, and ultimately, his own voice.”
Epictetus wrote, “If you wish to be a good writer, then write.”
Surely that is what the great democratic exercise of the blog is all about, giving all the chance to practice and practice at all times of the day and night, anywhere in the world, and to give us the chance to read and comment on one another’s efforts.
With this group, it was in the free writing exercises and the opportunity to just let the pen run across the page, to let the ideas come, almost bypassing the conscious mind, to find their own voice, as if they were in relaxed conversation with one trusted friend, that the group enjoyed themselves most and, I think, saw the point. So it was worth going. And a good supper too.
Who Do You Think You Are?
The other day a couple of us got together and, in an hour and half, planned out something we’ve been wanting to get started for ages. We met at the old chapel, where the town keeps its archives, and registers, and local history collection, and mapped out a weekly two hour drop in session for family history enquirers (increasing all the time post BBC series); a quarterly family history group offering, as they say, topics of interest; see if we can get a group together to do the life story course; and a heritage open day event in September on the Saturday when English Heritage encourages us all to get our churches, castles, windmills, forges and everything else we can think of in terms of heritage buildings open to the public. All done by 12.30 and then into the Little Pub with the Big Brewer for lunch with delicious beer and scrumptious sausage flan (sorry quiche).
Saturday, 12 April 2008
Always read the label
Hey, folks, in line with my new policy of slothfulness, I watched the Anglo-Welsh rugby final (Leicester Tigers hammered - boo hoo) and, as I approach 100 posts and 25,000 words of fine prose, learnt how to LABEL stuff. Yes, I know ... no, no applause, really ... just enjoy ....
A Border Spring
A Border Spring is always a mixed bag of weather. From day to day, hour to hour, the weather changes. A Barratts liquorice allsorts box of of weather. A meteorological Woolworths Pick and Mix. This Spring is no exception. Yesterday, the day began steel grey and still. Snowflakes, some of the largest I’ve seen for years, began falling gently, with not a breath of wind. In no time we had a covering of an inch. It turned to rain; sheets of the stuff, and the lanes filled with rushing streams and rivulets. By lunchtime all this had cleared to bright blue skies, warm sun and sharp clear air. A strong wind got up during the afternoon and rattled the windows and fences for a couple of hours. By evening, the greyness had returned, and night fell. All seasons in one day.
In Praise of Sloth
It’s Saturday and I don’t have to get up and out straight away, so it’s tea in bed and morning radio. Later I’ll be doing the prep for tomorrow’s services, plus finishing writing the training notes for the ministry team training session early next week, plus going up the town to the market and having the five conversations up the street and the six conversations down the street that make living here so delightful. And there’s a concert in church tonight, which includes a Schubert Mass, so that’ll be fab. But this is now Day 13 on duty, and I do rather look forward to a couple of days off at the end of next week. We knew that when I decided to take time off in blocks that that would be good, because we could use the time off better, but it would lead to long working spells. I find this is becoming more difficult to sustain as I get older, but I still prefer it to just 24 hours every week (the English clergy only take one day a week), which is just not enough for me to unwind and really recharge my batteries.
“The three toed sloth is not well-informed about the world. On a scale of 2 to 10, where 2 represents unusual dullness and 10 extreme acuity, Beebe (1926) gave sloth’s senses of taste, touch sight and hearing a rate of 2, and its sense of smell a rate of 3. If you come upon a sleeping three toed sloth in the wild, two or three nudges should be sufficient to awaken it; it will then look sleepily in every direction but yours. Why it should look about is uncertain since the sloth sees everything in a Magoo-like blur. As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound. Beebe reported that firing guns next to sleeping or feeding sloths elicited little reaction. And the sloth’s slightly better sense of smell should not be overestimated. They are said to be able to sniff and avoid decayed branches, but Bullock (1968) reported that sloths fall to the ground clinging to decayed branches “often”.
How does it survive, you might ask.
Precisely by being so slow. Sleepiness and slothfulness keep it out of harm’s way, away from the notice of jaguars, ocelots, harpy eagles and anacondas. A sloth’s hairs shelter an algae that is brown during the dry season and green during the wet season, so the animal blends in with the surrounding moss and foliage and looks like a nest of white ants or squirrels, or like nothing at all but part of a tree.
The three toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. “A good natured smile is forever on its lips” reported Tirler (1966). I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but ….. looking up at sloths in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of my scientific probing.”
Yann Martel, Life of Pi (2002)
So, sorry, but I don’t understand. This animal has given its name to a DEADLY SIN? How did that happen? Tom Hodgkinson (“How to be Idle” and “How to be Free”) blames it on those damn pesky hard-working guilt-ridden nose-to-the-grindstone make-an-effort no-pain-no-gain you-get-out-what-you-put-in devil-makes- work- for-idle-hands puritan protestant EVANGELICALS that have done this! The Sloth is not a Deadly Sin, but a Role Model.
“The three toed sloth is not well-informed about the world. On a scale of 2 to 10, where 2 represents unusual dullness and 10 extreme acuity, Beebe (1926) gave sloth’s senses of taste, touch sight and hearing a rate of 2, and its sense of smell a rate of 3. If you come upon a sleeping three toed sloth in the wild, two or three nudges should be sufficient to awaken it; it will then look sleepily in every direction but yours. Why it should look about is uncertain since the sloth sees everything in a Magoo-like blur. As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound. Beebe reported that firing guns next to sleeping or feeding sloths elicited little reaction. And the sloth’s slightly better sense of smell should not be overestimated. They are said to be able to sniff and avoid decayed branches, but Bullock (1968) reported that sloths fall to the ground clinging to decayed branches “often”.
How does it survive, you might ask.
Precisely by being so slow. Sleepiness and slothfulness keep it out of harm’s way, away from the notice of jaguars, ocelots, harpy eagles and anacondas. A sloth’s hairs shelter an algae that is brown during the dry season and green during the wet season, so the animal blends in with the surrounding moss and foliage and looks like a nest of white ants or squirrels, or like nothing at all but part of a tree.
The three toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. “A good natured smile is forever on its lips” reported Tirler (1966). I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but ….. looking up at sloths in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of my scientific probing.”
Yann Martel, Life of Pi (2002)
So, sorry, but I don’t understand. This animal has given its name to a DEADLY SIN? How did that happen? Tom Hodgkinson (“How to be Idle” and “How to be Free”) blames it on those damn pesky hard-working guilt-ridden nose-to-the-grindstone make-an-effort no-pain-no-gain you-get-out-what-you-put-in devil-makes- work- for-idle-hands puritan protestant EVANGELICALS that have done this! The Sloth is not a Deadly Sin, but a Role Model.
Friday, 11 April 2008
A scheduling clash
Like the UN Secretary General, I have informed the Chinese government that I am not available to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games due to a scheduling clash. I shall be attending my grandmother’s funeral that day.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Chapter 2
The Third Little Maid has kindly sent me one of Ron’s Gargoyle cartoons. Aw, they're not really that bad!
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
My haircut
“How’d you like the new ear?” I said, proudly. “Oh, yes, not bad”, she said, slightly quizzically. “It was you!” I said. “Me?” She said. “Yes, you said I should have it seen to!” “Oh!” She said, “Very nice! Same as usual?”
The Magic Bus goes forth!
First outing for the Magic Bus, over to the Tuesday market. Lovely drive through the border countryside, looking its best, dressed in green, lambs gamboling, all of which we can see because we’re high up above the hedges. Down into town, and into the central car parks. A new feature of our journeying; checking which car parks have height restricting barriers and which ones will let something as big as us in. We go straight in and park, reversing perfectly into a space. We congratulate ourselves and head off into town, to the market hall where a couple of Salvationists run the café. All day breakfast and a copy of the War Cry, with giant cups of tea. Excellent. Then it kind of dawns on us all at once that …. no-one put a ticket on the Bus!
A sprint back to the car park confirms our worst fears; a black and yellow Excess Notice stuck right in the middle of the windscreen. First day out, and the Bus already has a criminal record.
The logbook summarises thus:
Miles traveled – 40
Fuel - £60 (they delivered it with less than no petrol in the tank)
Fine - £30
Total- £90
Weather – fine, turning to rain
A sprint back to the car park confirms our worst fears; a black and yellow Excess Notice stuck right in the middle of the windscreen. First day out, and the Bus already has a criminal record.
The logbook summarises thus:
Miles traveled – 40
Fuel - £60 (they delivered it with less than no petrol in the tank)
Fine - £30
Total- £90
Weather – fine, turning to rain
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Another Chapter
When a group of local clergy get together, it’s called a chapter meeting. The name conjures up strange images from early Doctor Who episodes, of people in black robes in a candlelit cave going around in circles making incantations. In fact, a chapter meeting is nothing like that. Our chapter enjoy nothing better than having breakfast together. They’ll meet and eat cornflakes and toast and drink lots of coffee and the whole thing will go on for a couple of hours before anyone will call them to order and do any work. This drives me nuts. When I took the chair I suggested that we start at 9am with a eucharist and then coffee and then business from 10 until 12. It didn’t go down well, but they do it reluctantly.
This week’s meeting was slightly worse than recently, which have all been quite bad. The problem, my problem, as I have analysed it, is that I have broken the club rules. Let me explain. Most organizations operate like a club. There’s a constitution, rules, and there’s a way of doing things. And if you belong to the club, the convention is that you don’t bad-mouth the club and its members outside of the meetings. And you probably shouldn’t do it inside either if you want to retain your membership card. Unfortunately, I don’t follow the rules. A lot of my fellows have been through public school and a decent university. They know about clubs. I didn’t have that kind of education. I went to secondary modern school and then the local grammar. My family were steelworkers. When I was ordained, I felt that I was an imposter. The behaviour of some of my colleagues confirmed this impression. Even after all these years, I still can’t shake off the feeling that I don’t really belong, that I shouldn’t be here.
Our guest speaker this week was the diocesan director of education, who is supposed to be looking after our rural schools, someone about whom I have had cause to complain, publicly, in recent months. He set out the rules once again; we do not speak against a colleague to people outside the “club”. I’ve already done this. Many times. All in good causes. I feel there is a higher imperative here. Truth and justice. When he has stuffed up, I have been on to him to tell him so. So it was quite clear as the meeting progressed that I had Broken The Rules. That I had Transgressed Big Time. The members did not like it.
Of course, at the end of the meeting, he spilled the beans about how he really felt, how he had been badly treated, how he couldn’t say what he really felt because he had a family and school age children and lived in a tied house and had ten years more to work. In other words, the system requires us to suppress how we really feel and try to give an impression of peace and harmonious relationships. No public dissent. Very unhealthy.
The diocesan newspaper tries to do the same thing in print. “It’s like bloody Pravda, this thing!” said someone the other day, “Tractor production is up once again, economic targets have all been exceeded and here are pictures of our happy smiling womenfolk working to bring in the harvest as the motherland continues to flourish! Who are they trying to kid? We have to learn to read between the lines to work out what’s really going on.” The average Church of England diocese.
This week’s meeting was slightly worse than recently, which have all been quite bad. The problem, my problem, as I have analysed it, is that I have broken the club rules. Let me explain. Most organizations operate like a club. There’s a constitution, rules, and there’s a way of doing things. And if you belong to the club, the convention is that you don’t bad-mouth the club and its members outside of the meetings. And you probably shouldn’t do it inside either if you want to retain your membership card. Unfortunately, I don’t follow the rules. A lot of my fellows have been through public school and a decent university. They know about clubs. I didn’t have that kind of education. I went to secondary modern school and then the local grammar. My family were steelworkers. When I was ordained, I felt that I was an imposter. The behaviour of some of my colleagues confirmed this impression. Even after all these years, I still can’t shake off the feeling that I don’t really belong, that I shouldn’t be here.
Our guest speaker this week was the diocesan director of education, who is supposed to be looking after our rural schools, someone about whom I have had cause to complain, publicly, in recent months. He set out the rules once again; we do not speak against a colleague to people outside the “club”. I’ve already done this. Many times. All in good causes. I feel there is a higher imperative here. Truth and justice. When he has stuffed up, I have been on to him to tell him so. So it was quite clear as the meeting progressed that I had Broken The Rules. That I had Transgressed Big Time. The members did not like it.
Of course, at the end of the meeting, he spilled the beans about how he really felt, how he had been badly treated, how he couldn’t say what he really felt because he had a family and school age children and lived in a tied house and had ten years more to work. In other words, the system requires us to suppress how we really feel and try to give an impression of peace and harmonious relationships. No public dissent. Very unhealthy.
The diocesan newspaper tries to do the same thing in print. “It’s like bloody Pravda, this thing!” said someone the other day, “Tractor production is up once again, economic targets have all been exceeded and here are pictures of our happy smiling womenfolk working to bring in the harvest as the motherland continues to flourish! Who are they trying to kid? We have to learn to read between the lines to work out what’s really going on.” The average Church of England diocese.
Friday, 4 April 2008
Ear ear! 5 (and the last)
A nice letter from the Great Man about the trimmed lug-hole. It’s chondrodermatitis helicis chronicis. The name is longer than the missing bit of ear. Entirely benign and not related to any known form of tumour or growth. Which is what he said it probably was. But it’s nice to know, and I get to see him in a couple of weeks as well, so that’s good service in my book.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Mail on Monday
Sorted out the mail for the past ten days or more on Monday, because I refuse to go through it all on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and on Easter Day we are celebrating the Resurrection, and on Easter Monday all the clergy I know including me clear off for a few days R&R. So when you get back there’s a pile of stuff.
By the way, while I’m on, did you know that more phone calls are now made in a single day than were made in the whole of 1980? And only forty per cent of UK workers take their full holiday allowance? Well ya do now!
Anyway, there’s all the usual junk mail, of course, even though I’ve joined the Mail Preference Scheme (I was telling a gay friend about how this had changed my life, and it took me ages to work out why this smirk was spreading across his face. Honest!). Still stuff like Maintenance & Equipment News, which seems to be sent to every clergyman (Why?). And I love looking at all the different titles and offices I hold. Rector. Vicar. Parish Priest. The Incumbent. The Father! (but never the Son or the Holy Ghost, curiously). The Minister. The Communications Manager. The Director of Mission. The Office Manager. The Administrator. The Householder. The Occupant. Anyway, all that goes in the recycling. That cuts it down a bit.
Then the personal stuff. Take that through to the dining room table.
Then, aha! Letters from the diocesan office! Every year in Holy Week, the office posts out stuff timed to arrive on Good Friday! Why? Do they not have a liturgical calendar there? Do they not know what we’ll all be busy doing? One is important; a stiff and formal letter about Chancel Repair Liability (I’ll leave you to google it and see for yourself rather than provide a link; your jaw will hit the deck; all about a parish in Warwickshire that found an old law and got £95,000 out of a couple who had the misfortune to have a house built on glebe land). The attachment is five pages of legalese, some lawyer’s way of explaining whether any of us could or should be looking for our own pot of gold in any of the local executive mews developments or affordable housing schemes. The letter ends, as so many of them do these days, with the thinly veiled warning to churchwardens that they’d better pay careful attention, as “any members of the PCC who act in breach of their duties may be required to make good any loss the PCC incurs out of their own personal resources”. Charming. Just what hard-pressed volunteer church officers want to hear, especially those who are attempting to keep their farms solvent and are up all night lambing, those who are retired and on fixed incomes, and those who have time to read this when they’ve finishing campaigning to keep rural schools, post offices and hospitals.
By the way, while I’m on, did you know that more phone calls are now made in a single day than were made in the whole of 1980? And only forty per cent of UK workers take their full holiday allowance? Well ya do now!
Anyway, there’s all the usual junk mail, of course, even though I’ve joined the Mail Preference Scheme (I was telling a gay friend about how this had changed my life, and it took me ages to work out why this smirk was spreading across his face. Honest!). Still stuff like Maintenance & Equipment News, which seems to be sent to every clergyman (Why?). And I love looking at all the different titles and offices I hold. Rector. Vicar. Parish Priest. The Incumbent. The Father! (but never the Son or the Holy Ghost, curiously). The Minister. The Communications Manager. The Director of Mission. The Office Manager. The Administrator. The Householder. The Occupant. Anyway, all that goes in the recycling. That cuts it down a bit.
Then the personal stuff. Take that through to the dining room table.
Then, aha! Letters from the diocesan office! Every year in Holy Week, the office posts out stuff timed to arrive on Good Friday! Why? Do they not have a liturgical calendar there? Do they not know what we’ll all be busy doing? One is important; a stiff and formal letter about Chancel Repair Liability (I’ll leave you to google it and see for yourself rather than provide a link; your jaw will hit the deck; all about a parish in Warwickshire that found an old law and got £95,000 out of a couple who had the misfortune to have a house built on glebe land). The attachment is five pages of legalese, some lawyer’s way of explaining whether any of us could or should be looking for our own pot of gold in any of the local executive mews developments or affordable housing schemes. The letter ends, as so many of them do these days, with the thinly veiled warning to churchwardens that they’d better pay careful attention, as “any members of the PCC who act in breach of their duties may be required to make good any loss the PCC incurs out of their own personal resources”. Charming. Just what hard-pressed volunteer church officers want to hear, especially those who are attempting to keep their farms solvent and are up all night lambing, those who are retired and on fixed incomes, and those who have time to read this when they’ve finishing campaigning to keep rural schools, post offices and hospitals.
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
Several phone calls run together
Yes, well it is a while …. 12 March? That long? Well it must be if you say so ….. I know … well this and that; my mother was ill, so I went to see her, and that was unscheduled, and in the middle of Holy Week, so it took a bit of doing … no, of course I don’t resent it, I love my mother, it just takes a bit of setting it all up …. Well, I’m glad you enjoy the blog; but there are other forms of entertainment …. No, I can’t find anything on TV either, but you could get a book to read…. Well, I always have several on the go; enjoyed the Life of Pi recently … well I found time on the train, going to see my mother … so, no , it wasn’t all bad, it gave me a bit of space to read, granted…. look, this blog isn’t just for your entertainment, you know! … well, for my own fulfillment and my development as a writer, I suppose … well I think it is …. Well start one yourself, why don’t you? …. OK, maybe not …. I’ll try … well, certainly there’ll be a couple of posts this week … don’t know …. trains; I can’t drive all that way … not bad, about five hours …. Could have been worse, could’ve been in Terminal 5! ….. No, Easter was good, in the end …. I think I preached a kick-ass Easter sermon, and then found out that Giles Fraser and Rowan Williams agreed with me … maybe it was the other way round, I don’t think they could have read my stuff ….. yes, I saw Giles article in the Guardian …. well, you did ask … no, I’m trying to be honest … yes, we went off for a few days, and even got the boat out on the river for a day ..brilliant!. and yourself? Good … that’s nice …. You must come over … I’ve no idea, things are going to get busy again …. The Magic Bus is here! Yes! Fab! Tigger is busy doing the nest-building thing inside! Yes! We took it down for the week and drove it back … a few things … it’ll go back next week for as couple of jobs … yes…. probably at the end of the month for a couple of nights, maybe over to the coast …. yes…. well, I must go; stuff to do ….. I will … well, probably in a day or two, if there’s something to write about ….
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