Oh Lord! 2

A lot of friends and colleagues think I was being hard on Rowan Williams over the sharia law row. So let’s have another look at it. He is basically a good guy, liberal, intelligent and “one of us”. Agreed. And I don’t begrudge him the opportunity to discuss the law with lawyers, and it’s great that he’s bright enough to do it. I’m glad he’s so clever; better than that prat George Carey, who never misses an opportunity to have a go at him. George had no brain; this guy’s got two. And now that I’ve had more time to look at what he actually said, I might find some common ground, though being in favour of disestablishment I doubt it. I know he wasn’t proposing laws to allow people to chop criminal’s hands off, of course not. But I also fear for what the evangelical Christians, fundamentalist Muslims and all the rest might wish to do with what he seemed to propose. Can anyone think of examples where religious exceptions and opt-outs have been used for liberal progressive purposes? No. All the examples I can think of are occasions for religious institutions to protect their cherished positions of privilege, discrimination or inequality. And is it not in fact one more example of the bony hand of Thatcher reaching forward into our time, when an archbishop can use the words “choice” and “marketplace” when discussing the laws of the land?

What I really have a problem with is people telling me that it’s all because I haven’t understood what Rowan said, or that I should take time to read all the full transcripts, or that I should give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s an archbishop and very very clever. Well I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure what I and others heard live on BBC Radio. If I got it wrong I think that’s his problem in presentation, not mine in reception. And I’m not the only one. The fact that we’re all arguing about it without being terribly sure whether we really understood what he meant means that he has failed to make his case, surely.

I have had to think on my feet when churchwardens, ministry team members and people in the street ask me what the hell’s going on. This is annual parish meetings season. In the past fortnight I’ve had to talk three people out of resigning. One of the men who cut the grass also said he didn’t want to carry on, but perhaps he was just sick of mowing. When this happens I don’t have time to go off and do research and get my head around all the carefully nuanced subtleties in learned articles and websites. I need answers. Quick. And it may well be an orchestrated media campaign but, hey, we have to understand that this is the world in which we operate.

Now that I’ve calmed down again, I think Andrew Brown was writing for me on the first weekend and subsequently. Sensible stuff. Now please, bishops and archbishops, give us a break for a few weeks, eh? Let’s try to get through March without another public relations disaster, shall we? We’ve still got the Lambeth Conference to come. Oh joy.

Publication of the Month 5

One more dip into the February Publication of the Month, “Borsetshire Bride and Groom” with the Bishop of Lincoln (“Are you getting a big enough slice of the wedding market?”) Here’s the editor’s choice of “innovative ideas”, written in his own distinctive style. First, roses, quoted exactly as written:

“our favourite foliage without a doubt is a bouquet entirely composed of roses clumped together and featuring one colour really tightly packed in with just a hint of greenery to embellish can be used to brilliant effect and will guarantee you look positively rosey all day long!”

Or, as if you haven’t spent enough already, what about buying a load of brollies to dish out for free?

“For all the planning in the World, (sic) you still can’t guarantee fine weather on your special day! Never mind, these personalized umbrellas are a super idea!” (Specially printed with No-one’s Gonna Rain on My Parade!)

Enough. Into the recycling bin with you.

Unsettling Picture of the Week

Unsettling asthmatic animal picture of the week.

Ear ear 3

No, I do not plan to have the other one trimmed to match.

Ear ear 2

What a bunch of ghouls. It seems everyone is fascinated by operations stories. In answer to the many enquiries, yes, I'm fine. Here is a perfect ear. Mine used to look a bit like this, only bigger. Now it has less scapha and helix, but still has plenty of navicular fossa. Rather like it's been chewed by a small animal while I was asleep. Okay now?

Ear ear

Then Two; on Monday I went in to hospital for planned day surgery on my ear. A bit of background. Last year they thought I had a “nodule” (for which read “polyp” or even worse “growth”) on my vocal chords. This, they thought, might be the cause of speaking and singing problems. Then the next time they put the camera down – nothing! Gone! A few months after that, a little lump turned up on the outside edge of my left ear. Well, you can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? You think it’s a coincidence that this should turn up so soon after the first one disappeared? I don’t think so! The little bugger has migrated; moving around, so that we can’t zap a moving target!

The Great Man said it had to come off, as there was a slight chance that it could be a rodent ulcer, which is not very good, but not too bad, but more likely it was something a bit better, beginning with c that’s about fifteen letters, which is without a doubt better than Something Worse beginning with C and six letters.

So in I go, with all the stuff to stay the night in the event of Something Going Wrong. It turned out to be the full production; lights, sounds, costumes and quite a big cast. And you get to stay awake and watch everything! I seem to have a strangely detached approach to this sort of thing, and, from what others say, maybe a fairly high tolerance of people operating on me while I’m conscious. The local anesthetic is the most painful part; after that all you feel is discomfort, as if someone is trying to wrench your ear off. “You OK there?” they cheerily ask, to which the expected answer I suppose is “Oh yes, fine!” (that’s what I said, anyway). It’s rather like finding out about trimming a steak from the point of view of the steak. As it’s your ear, you can’t see anything, but you do hear Noises. These include metal noises, as of knives; squishy and squelchy noises, which, you realize, is stuff that is normally inside you, coming out and running down your neck; and small gun type noises, which is the sewing machine, I presume. But it’s all over in fifteen minutes, and they give you tea and toast. And that toast is one of the tastiest meals I’ve had in ages.

There there

I’ve not been posting much for a week or so because two things happened which got in the way. One, I had an asthma attack. This was the full works, exercise-induced, brought on after a little light garden tidying (I like to do a bit every year, whether it needs it or not). I’ve never had asthma before, so this came as a bit of a surprise. While I wheezed and coughed Tigger carried on with the clearing up, and then turned her attention to unblocking the hoover. Eventually she suggested ringing the doctor. I agreed. “My husband’s having a severe asthma attack!” she said, “Shall I bring him in immediately?” They agreed. If it’s that bad, I thought, why didn’t we go twenty minutes ago? I was on a nebuliser for half an hour, and am now kitted out with the inhalers and stuff, and stuck with this for the rest of my days, no doubt. The thing about being married to a nurse is, if you survive the initial emergency and the refusal to pay any attention to my plaintive cries for help, you eventually get superb after-care. We got back home, supper cooked for me and an early night. And that’s it as far as the garden is concerned.