Sunday 22 April 2012

Running the Race

Apparently it's Earth Day. I'm somewhat confused, as it seems only last month that it was Earth Hour - and I'm worried that if anybody introduces "Earth Week" we're all gonna be sitting in the dark for a long time.

I won't provide you with the link to the Earth Day website as it takes forever to load and I'm guessing that's due to the amount of merchandising on it.

So instead we're celebrating London Marathon Day today. Some are attending worship wearing space blankets, some dressed as pantomime horses or Wombles. Hnaef is coming dressed as a deep-sea diver, and we're hoping he'll be in his seat sometime next Sunday.

Our theme will be "running the race". The life of faith is a marathon rather than a sprint, so we must be spiritually fit, eat lots of spaghetti the night before, and take on plenty of liquid. I'm not sure where we're going to go with the second of those - unless we open a new concept in Trattoria Church - but Young Keith and Charlii unfortunately managed the third down the White Horse last night. We shall be switching on the extra-strong spotlights in the Moot House this morning and explaining that the photophobic, quivering wrecks before the congregation are an example of what can happen if you don't train for your spiritual life, and instead get over-hydrated.

I really blame Charlii. Young Keith is normally such a quiet, sensible lad.

Incidentally, this BBC link tells us that you can buy a new LED lightbulb to celebrate Earth Day. In the States, they will start at £30. Which is quite a cost to achieve the same impact on CO2 emissions as simply watching half an hour's less telly a day. We do have an LED prototype bulb in the Moot House. It costs you a load of money, is unreliable and rather dim. We're thinking of calling it "George Osborne".

7 comments :

  1. My whole house has LEDs and they're very bright...I'm excited not to have to worry about how to change the bulbs that are 25 feet in the air for 25+ years. My electric bill went down considerably as well.

    On a separate note, I have begun a one-person crusade against xxxxx Day. Mothers Day, Earth Day, Grandparents Day, Valentines Day (the worst poser of them all), etc. First, many people believe and practice that one should only reverence the xxxxx on that particular day and no other. Which may be true depending on the state of one's relationship with Mom, but is generally regarded as being "shallow". And giving a care about the rock you're living on only once per year is just simply daft. Secondly, many are what we in the States call "Hallmark Holidays" to mock the company that invented them and strategically placed them throughout the year in order to increase their revenue evenly across the fiscal year. Capitalism created Valentines Day because an exec at Hallmark charged a young man with the task of figuring out a new holiday that fell in February and the rest is history. It ended up being the men's equivalent of Eve's Apple, setting the stage for women's disappointment in their consistently unromantic partner for years to come. A source of endless stress and striking fear in the hearts of men all over the U.S.

    There is no Valentines Day or Earth Day or any other xxxx Day in this household. My spouse and I exchange love daily and I celebrate this pale blue dot in the universe every single chance I get.

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  2. My friend Tim Chesterton in Canada really does run a Spaghetti Church, and on Saturday evenings as you suggest.

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  3. Capitalism created Valentines Day because an exec at Hallmark charged a young man with the task of figuring out a new holiday that fell in February and the rest is history.

    Hmmm. Hallmark founded 1910 (), Far from the Madding Crowd published 1874, I think there's a hole in your chronology there.

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    1. Chris, sound reasoning. So Thomas Hardy kicked off Valentine's day? I never knew, but then he was a clever bloke.

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    2. I don't think he can have kicked it off, his using it as a plot device implies it was established and well-known.

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    3. Incidentally, that's two Hardy-related comments in two days: do I get a prize?

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    4. It may have been a holiday named in 1874, however, it was Hallmark who propelled it into the holiday it is today. Maybe there is no fervor on your side of the pond, but here, any misstep by a male in the proper observance of this "manufactured" holiday is grounds for divorce or tar/feathering. The Hallmark employee that created the holiday as something that could not be avoided was likely a well-read kid who latched onto the best holiday in February he could find. I'm not sure what the other finalists were, but Valentine's Day has made the card companies a fortune as well as all the other related businesses. I actually get more spam for Valentine's Day sales than Christmas. So, I stand by my previous statement that Valentine's Day, to the insane level it is celebrated here, is a capitalistic-manufactured holiday. I would posit that St. Francis' "holiday" is also well-known amongst church-going folk and likely Mr. Hardy, but males are not guilt-ridden to purchase their sweetie some kind of furry creature to celebrate the day. Nor are the stores filled with statues of St. Francis (replete with birds on shoulder) and other sappy junk months prior to the observance day. That's because the holiday, being in October is overtaken by Halloween, another holiday hijacked by commercialism and turned into a market-frenzied insanity.

      February, being a dead month for the card company needed something...and St. Valentine was on the top of the list of holidays to exploit.

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