Into the Schrodinger's-cat world of the speed laws, where a criminal is complaining that she is being treated as a criminal. Reminding me of the "Occasional Conformity Act" which "1066 And All That" defined as the only law at its time that you could choose when to obey it.
Alhough the criminal respects the law, she keeps being fined for breaking it. In fact, if she breaks the law much more, she may be put into the situation where she won't be able to break the law again. At least not without breaking a different law. Although some of us might think that there's no obvious reason why a criminal would worry about breaking the laws, the criminal assures us that if she breaks the law again, the new law she'd have to break to break the law, isn't the sort of law she'd break.
Unlike the law she'd have to break to be put in the position where she'd have to break the other law to break the first law. She reckons she can't help breaking that law.
The criminal tells us that nobody can help breaking the law which if she breaks it she won't be allowed to break the law. Ignoring the fact that, right up to the point where she breaks that law, she isn't breaking that law. So she actually spends quite a lot of time not breaking the law it's impossible not to break.
The law it's impossible not to break is estimated to have saved 4 lives. Presumably due to all the potential criminals choosing not to break the law because that would make them criminals. Even though it's impossible not to break that law. And everybody breaks it. Well you would, wouldn't you?
In fact the criminal could suffer less from breaking this law if she went on a course to learn why you shouldn't break the law. Except she can't because she broke another law.
Meanwhile the criminal tells us she's being penalised for breaking the law. So she may be incapable of keeping the law, but at least the criminal understands the way laws are supposed to work. Just not the speed limit. Which isn't a real law.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
Today's Digging of Ceremonial Holes will be held in the Moot House, in the ritual sand pits. The ground is too hard outside.
Likewise, the Baptism service in the brook is being moved to the indoor swimming pool. I know the existence of an indoor pool will come as a surprise to most of you. But we keep it quiet so non-Druids don't know about it. If everybody starts using it, it plays havoc with our auras.
The Prayer Walk will now be round the sand pits in the Moot House. We'll project some pictures of beaches on the walls to remind you that you should have spent your money on a nice trip for some summer sunshine. Instead of supporting the Thatching Fund.
A lot of Beaker Folk have been asking, if Amanda Platell doesn't like native English people like Stormzy, why she can't go back where she came from. I guess they probably don't want her. And this isn't a case of immigrants (Australians) stealing the locals' jobs. Who'd write for the Mail?
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
What on earth is it with Tunbridge Wells? Home of the Ordinariate priest who got excited over the love life or otherwise of the Bishop of Grantham. He also suggested that +Grantham's domestic arrangements could "stretch the the fabric of the C of E to beyond breaking point." Personally I reckon that happened years ago. At any rate, the fabric of the C of E seems pretty much like it was in 2016 when I first commented on the matter.
Now Peter Sanlon tells us that, since the Diocesan Director of Ordinands* in Southwark Diocese is a lesbian, it's likely that straight men will never be selected for ordination training. Which makes you wonder how she ever got the job in the first place. If nobody ever selects somebody of a different gender, or a different sexual orientation, why hasn't every priest always been a married man like St Peter? How did the Southwark DDO sneak in, in the first place, if that's how it works?
Or maybe Peter Sanlon is suggesting that lesbians all hate men. That would be ridiculous, to suggest he stereotypes like that. But then he has previously seemed to equate paedophilia with homosexuality. So, you know.
He also tells us the problem with bad shepherds is that they go around whitewashing things:
It is a perennial temptation for shepherds – that is ministers and lay leaders like us – to hope futilely that a lick of whitewash will cover over the fatal structural flaws we are sitting on
Now I don't know about you, but I'm shocked to hear that's what shepherds do. They may use a bit of sheep dip. They used to use reddle - and maybe still do in parts of Wessex for all I know. Whitewash? While sitting on a a sheep with fatal structural flaws? What kind of shepherds are these?
It could be that Peter Sanlon has just mixed his metaphors. But best play it safe. If you're a Kentish sheep farmer and you see Peter Hanlon heading for your flock with a pot of white paint, get them safely in. That's my advice.
* Official potential vicar talent-spotter
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
So the votes are in on the Beaker occupation of the British Isles. And, let's be frank, it ain't pretty.
Turns out that the arrival of the Beaker Folk coincided with an abrupt decline in the population of the indigenous people. I say "coincided" as the scientists are careful not to say the Beaker Folk just wandered in and ate them all. Perhaps, like the European colonisation of the New World, it was just an unfortunate importation of new diseases the original inhabitants had no immunity to.
And, of course, a fair amount of genocide.
"Yeah, we wiped out the energy of our entire race and got invaded. But at least the Sun God was satisfied with our work."
What it all means is that we are all the descendants of immigrants. Not one of us can seriously claim to be mostly descended from the people who walked across from the continent in the days when a prehistoric Nigel Farage was wondering how he was going to take control of the border with Doggerland. So anybody who says immigrants should go back where they came from, should start checking the flights to Poland.
I have to take issue with the comments that the pre-Beaker people were the ones who "built Stonehenge", however. I mean, yes. They started it. But if their population was declining from 3,500 on, then they weren't building Stonehenge III were they? Unless that was what wore them out. There are many mysteries to solve as now the dating suggests that either a weakened, depopulated Great British population still managed to build a huge stone monument, or in fact the Beaker Folk rocked up from the Continent. mopped up the locals, rolled up their sleeves and started shifting giant sarsens around - all in a century or two.
So there are many mysteries yet to sole. So I can keep making stuff up with ritual effect. Bradford University's Ian Armit's comments worry me though...
"In the centuries after the Beaker burials the DNA shows that the earlier Britons did not just come slipping back out of the woods."
Does he mean... they're still there?
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
If it wasn't CS Lewis, then it was somebody who did an awesome impression of him at college, who told us that the problem with the present time is that it assumes everybody else was wrong, and the current bunch are right.
And so Matthew Avery Sutton, not even waiting till Billy Graham is cold, stomps in to tell us that Graham was "on the wrong side of history".
Which reveals that Dr Sutton has a pretty poor concept of what "history" means. Or, more importantly, that he doesn't realise it hasn't ended yet.
What side is history on? Ultimately, history is on the side of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Of futility, failure, decline and death. Viewed from the end of history, we will see that pretty much everything was a waste of time - a chasing after the wind. That the victories that were won, were short-lived. That joy is fleeting, and the best any of us can hope for is temporary bubble of stability and happiness in the midst of despair.
In this respect, Billy Grahams' view of history was more consonant with the reality of things than any progressive view on life. If he thought you should do what you could, while knowing that true happiness only comes at the restoration of all things - then he was at least 50% right. Maybe 100%. Whereas Matthew Avery Sutton's view of life is doomed to utter failure, and we all know it.
What really upsets Matthew Avery Sutton seems to be that Billy Graham's solutions to problems weren't statist. "Individuals alone can achieve salvation; governments cannot. Conversions change behaviors; federal policies do not." It's a fundamental rift in outlook this. And I probably need to use an insight from CS Lewis again to consider it.
If Christianity is true, then states and governments are temporary whereas individuals last forever. On the other hand, (my words) if Christianity is false, then both are temporary so what the hell. Who cares? Let's eat drink and be merry and relatively kind to each other, for tomorrow we die.
Worth remembering that, whatever his political influence, Billy Graham was a churchperson not a politician. So when Matthew Avery Sutton complains that Graham "criticized civil rights activists for focusing on changing laws rather than hearts" - well, yeah. What Sutton is saying is that he'd rather the law made people behave well than that they wanted to. Which, yeah, is pretty indicative of a statist view of life. Of course, the thing about states is they're not all as nice as the one M Sutton thinks we should have. Some states are frankly a bit crappy. Wouldn't it be nice if we all loved each other?
In the end, Matthew Avery Sutton's piece basically tells us the important piece of information that he didn't agree with Billy Graham. But only one of them, as of today, is dead. I wonder about the piece - did Sutton write it ages ago, and then wait for Graham to die? Or did he write it in a hurry, asked to knock a few hundred scathing words out? I hope it was the latter. Sutton has an excuse for its laziness and unexamined assumptions if it were the latter.
But I'll tell you this. A liberal deciding who is on the right side of history, two years after the Brexit vote and 15 months after the Trump one, with Putin in the Kremlin, Assad in Syria and Erdogan in Turkey may wonder where history is. And when the newspaper publishing his piece has a failing business model and is losing money hand over fist they may also wonder which way that arc is bending. Personally I'm more on the liberal side. But the idea we're heading for a liberal utopia strikes me as being as unrealistically eschatological as anything you're likely to hear.
So Billy Graham is dead, and Matthew Avery Sutton isn't yet. One day we may (or may not) find out what side history is on. But if your view of the Kingdom of God is that it's coterminous with the State, I'm guessing it's not on your side. States are temporary. Individuals last forever.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
You know how it is. It's Wednesday. Prime day for panicking about Sunday. You're a preacher struggling with a sermon. We all do it. And you need an illustration but you're out of inspiration. How are you gonna enlighten, educate and entertain without at least one enlivening anecdote?
Fear not, little ones. Follow any of the steps below and your sermon will be improved. And lengthened by anything up to five minutes.
- Go for a journey with the bare minimum of fuel. NB this journey must be on God's Work. Otherwise your just limping home with a teaspoon in the tank will be a mere coincidence.
- Feel a bit sad. And then feel a bit better again.
- Develop an illness. Bear it bravely.
- Be rude about UKIP. You're vanishingly unlikely to be complained about at hustings. Next time.
- Go down to your local car park. Drive around praying for a space. Eventually your prayer will be answered. NB for best results, do not close your eyes while praying.
- Have lots of friends who don't mind you sharing their personal situations.
- Find a random word in the passage. Doesn't matter which. Wring every possible meaning and ambiguity out of the word's meaning in the original Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek; its usage in Middle English; that odd little second meaning of its translation into Latin; the way that in the Tagalog they had a bit of a problem with translation; the way the King James Version translates it as something totally different and is clearly correct.
- Recount the one time you were both witty and holy. Again.
- Walk up to 1,000 people and ask if they want to be saved. One may well say "yes". They may have said the same to those Mormons yesterday, as they just like pleasing people. That doesn't matter. If you're really lucky the police will stop you for causing a disturbance. And now you've got a sermon illustration and you're a news story.
- Remember that time you went to a Billy Graham mission.
- It must be some kind of anniversary of Princess Diana? Mention how great she was.
- Explain why God is a bit like something God really isn't much like.
- Explain a difficult concept (eg the Trinity) by analogy with a concept you don't really understand (e.g. the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics). Pray there are no physicists in the congregation.
- Have a child so you have a source of amusing stories. If you're in more of a hurry, borrow a pet. Pets are less likely to hate you for it when they grow up.
- Throw in a hideously heretical analogy for the Trinity. Thus distracting attention from the thin-ness of the rest of the sermon.
- Complain how everyone on trains is looking at their phones and avoiding human interaction these days. Neglect to mention what the Evening Standard* was basically invented for.
- Go for a walk in the countryside but forget to take your map. Thus enabling you to explain how you trusted God and got home safely. Ideally do this somewhere safe, like Buckinghamshire or Suffolk. Not Yorkshire where you could fall off a cliff in the dark And people would instead use you as a sermon illustration to needing a light unto your feet.
* Metro, Telegraph, Beano according to local conditions. Your mileage may vary.
Just want to calm Beaker Folk down. They were panicking that possibly the Woodwose had gone feral again.
It's just Marston Moretaine going through Lent. Three years ago he gave up meat, and put on 2 stone by eating crisps to compensate.
Two years ago he gave up meat and crisps - and put on 2 stone by eating chocolate to compensate.
Last year he ate about 6 hundredweight of peanuts making up for not eating meat, crisps or chocolate.
So this year he's given the peanuts the push as well. And it takes a horrendous amount of cheese straws to make up for that loss of snack-based calories. Four packs a day, as it turns out.
Trouble is, all those cheese straws seem to have affected his biochemistry. Eight inch long body hair. And howling at where the moon would be, were there a moon.
It's only 6 weeks till Easter. And we're all counting the days.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
At that time Jesus came from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the place where John was. John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. When Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven open. The Holy Spirit came down on him like a dove. A voice came from heaven and said: “You are my Son and I love you. I am very pleased with you.”
Then the Spirit sent Jesus into the desert alone. He was in the desert 40 days and was there with the wild animals. While he was in the desert, he was tempted by Satan. Then angels came and took care of Jesus. (Mark 1:9-15)
What I am about to describe is illegal. Please don't do this.
Everyone has done this.
You're on a long journey and you're driving along quite happily and you discover that there's just a bit of dirt on your windscreen - just a bit, not like the scene in "Back to the Future" where Biff drives into the manure cart. And you try and wash it off and you discover there's no washer left in the wash bottle in the car. And the wipers just spread the dirt around a bit but not - you know - too much. So you're still driving happily but you have got a bit of a grubby windscreen. Which is annoying.
The correct thing at this point is to stop at a handy services, petrol station or supermarket and fill the wash bottle up. Then drive on, happy in the knowledge that you can see through the windscreen. That is the right thing to do. It's the legal thing to do. I would be failing in my duty of care were I not to point out that this is the legal and safe thing to do.
Some people at this point might drive on.
And there's a bit more dirt around on the roads, or they've been gritting and the other cars are kicking it all around a bit. And now you can't actually see out the screen much anymore. But you can see one little clean spot. And it's only 120 miles to Halifax. So you peer through the clean spot and crack on.
This is illegal. Please don't do this.
You really need to stop. And clean the screen. Because otherwise you might miss the thing up in front that you need to avoid. You might even, while peeking through the little clean bit in the screen, miss the fact you should have turned off at Junction 26.
Lent is a recognition that we can get a bit busy - a bit distracted - our view can get a bit obscured.
(Be aware this video has a rude word. You can guess which one.)
We get into the stuff in our life. We look too much at small stuff. We let worries and little niggles - or even good things - get in the way of seeing the important things. We need to stop. Clean off the windscreen. Get a proper view of life.
Jesus was coming out from his baptism. And he would have been full of adrenaline. Excited - flushed with the revelation that his Father had made about his nature. Easy in those circumstances to just plough on and start preaching, you'd have thought.
Instead Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert. And there he was tempted by Satan. We know what the temptations were from the other Gospels: the desire for power; to make life easy for himself; to do the spectacular stunts instead of the work that his Father had sent him for. He had to get it straight in his mind - he wasn't on this earth to be a conquering warrior. He was here to be a suffering servant.
That's where Lent comes from for us. It's not about joking around about the fact you've not had a bar of chocolate for 4 weeks. It's that in looking to be simple - in giving up some everyday things that we don't need but quite like - we can keep reminding ourselves that there are more important things. The point of Lent isn't that we learn to live without Ferrero Rocher. It's that we give ourselves the space to make things clear.
There's a trap in project management. Some people don't understand what project managers are for. They, after all, don't produce anything. I've never understood what they achieve by their existence in organisations. What do they do? And yet, if you ever see a project that runs without any kind of person who's been given the job of checking progress - it tends to run into the sand. Project managers are the ones who, while chasing to ensure the small stuff happens, have the ability to stand back, look ahead, and see what the real objectives are all along. I think Lent's a bit like that.
But Lent is important because it also guards us against spiritualising our bad behaviours. A few weeks ago I was rude about the title of Eve Poole's book, Leadersmithing. And Eve was gracious enough to send me a copy to read. There's a lot of good insight in there - insight for business leaders but actually others as well. And quite a bit, surprisingly perhaps for a business-focused book, which is spiritual.
Eve points to a misuse of the idea of "kenosis". Kenosis in reference to Jesus is the idea of emptying - of giving up his divine rights. Charles Wesley said Jesus "emptied himself of all but love". So in the desert, the deceiver is trying to persuade Jesus to claim his divine rights - put on the full magic show. While Jesus is determinedly setting himself on the path of servanthood, of service, ultimately the path that leads to the cross. Of sacrifice.
But Eve points out that for many church leaders, that idea can become destructive. Because that sacrificial idea becomes a kind of pride. "I've been to seven meetings today and now I'll have to write my sermons in my day off" becomes, not a warning sign, but a badge of honour. Eve's writing for "leaders". I'd say that can be all of us. When Jesus's call to follow him somehow becomes the route to doormatdom. To being proud of our busy-ness, our tiredness, the fact that some how despite being in a whirl of activity, we've got nothing done. Or we've been in the office early and got out later than everyone else - been to a dozen 121s and team meetings and progress meetings - and yet the inbox is just a day longer. Yet that makes you feel good. Because aren't you dedicated?
Lent, like Sabbath, is a guard against that. A reminder that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing.
......................
After the devil left him, the angels cared for him. And Jesus left the clear air of the desert, and headed into world of humans again. He'd taken time out - faced the things that were important. He had a clear view.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
Once again the racists of the Interwebs are claiming that Cadbury's eggs are "halal certified". As usual, at this time of the year, backed up by the claims of twerps such as Godfrey Bloom, that Cadbury's have stopped calling them "Easter" eggs.
Well, if you're a Muslim who's wandered over here, please check with your local imam. I'm just an archdruid. But this is my view on the matter.
Most chocolate is halal. Not because a special prayer has been said over it. You don't have to slaughter little chocolatey creatures in a ritual way. But because chocolate is, fundamentally, vegetarian. Or, at least, lacto-vegetarian. Milk, cocoa powder, sugar - they're all halal. By definition. So most chocolate eggs likewise. Only if the chocolate contains gelatine does the halal or haram nature of the chocolate come into it.
So Cadbury's Easter eggs are halal by definition. If you're the sort of pea wit that boycotts halal products on some kind of twisted principle, feel free. But be aware that, on the same basis, the following products are generally halal:
Baked beans
Milk
Bread
Flat caps
Union jack flags (should you choose to eat one)
Butter
Eggs
Flour
Pizza bases
Pitta bread
Toast
Onions
Tap water
Basically, if you want a non-halal diet, you need to stick to vodka and bacon. Which sounds attractive but may not be sustainable long-term.
That photograph of "halal certified" Cadbuy's chocolate? It's from Malaysia. A Muslim country. They probably like to be careful over there.
And the idea that Cadbury's are taking the Easter out of the Easter egg? Well, a new discovery has recently been uncovered in the Egyptian desert, from a tomb just outside the Valley of Kings:
Inscription from an Egyptian tomb (4th Dynasty) -
"Thoth complains that Cadbury's have removed the word "Easter" from the egg"
They've been moaning about it a long time.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
Many modern steam irons are made with large amounts of plastic. Just have creased clothing instead.
If you are a regular user of medical syringes - why not buy your own reusable syringe, crafted from bull's horn or mother of pearl? Unfortunately the current syringe sterilizing equipment has a high percentage of plastic, but scientists are already working on a bamboo version.
Does your mobile or "smart" phone have plastic in it? Why not replace its telephonic operation with shouting? Or drive or fly to see the person you want to talk to. Instead of using it for Social Media, just go to the Houses of Parliament and shout abuse at politicians.
Re-use the plastic windows in any mail that gets past your Junk Mail ban by gluing together and using them as home-made condoms (may not apply to Catholics)
The modern Cybermen contain more plastic than their 1960s ancestors, who were basically wrapped in tin foil and wearing their pants on their heads. Only watch old episodes of Dr Who, which you will have to wait to see on some kind of UK Old type channel. Don't buy the episodes on videos or DVDs, which contain plastic.
Local Authorities provide plastic bins for recycling purposes. Bury them in the garden and use wicker instead.
Bottle openers and corkscrews often contain plastic parts. Instead of buying them, open beer bottles with your teeth and push the corks into bottles with a (bamboo not plastic) chop stick.
Remove all the televisions in your house and dump them outside a farm gate. Replace them with a nice bamboo-framed picture - but make sure the painter didn't use plastic handles on their brushes.
Many cars have plastic trim. Rip it out and replace it with hand-tooled leather or walnut. Ideally, organically-sourced walnut from a sustainable walnut forest. Don't be content with only doing this to your own vehicle. Flag down passing cars and refit them as well. Explain to the owners that it is for their own good.
Does your bleach come from the supermarket in a plastic bottle? Insist instead that the retailer pours it into your cupped hands, and carry it home.
Replace all the plastic plant pots in your garden with nice terracotta ones. Ideally hand-cast somewhere they don't have plastic. There is a real danger of the pots picking up microplastics in a non plastic-free environment.
If your church's Communion set is made in Tupperware, why not use gold or other precious materials instead? Try not to catch the eye of the redundant Tupperware representative as they queue up to receive.
Instead of plastic dog-poo bags - consider having your favourite pet stuffed. Also far better for the environment without all that meat consumption.
Burn your old vinyl record collection in your solid-fuel stove. Saves on the gas bills and there's no way that plastic is ending up in the stomach of a squid.
Embrace "Curate Living". If your house has UPVC double glazing, consider instead ill-fitting glass Georgian sash windows.
Instead of using a plastic remote controller, change the channel on your bamboo-framed picture with a snooker queue.
Plastic is frequently used in electrical plugs. Next time you buy electrical equipment, insist they use plugs made from aluminium. Aluminium is lightweight and easily recyclable. OK, it is not an electrical insulator. But you can't make omelette without electrocuting some eggs.
If in searching your kitchen you find thousands of plastic drinking straws, stick them together to make a model of Boris Johnson. It's bound to be at least as plausible as the real one.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
No, they don't. Obviously. Although who knew the British Plastics Federation exists? But who couldn't love a website that has a "Polymer Zone" and a "Plastipedia"? Although both sound like the kind of places priests swear blind they accidentally wandered into during a day out in London.
But today I am interested in the Church of England's advice on a "Plastic Free Lent" - expressed as a Lent Calendar. Let's all go fisking shall we?
It's not that reducing plastic is a bad idea. Microbeads - dreadful things. Plastic bag charges - brilliant. But. "Carry your own non-plastic cutlery" - that's what Young Keith was doing that time he got arrested in Hackney. Saying you're just off to a bring and share doesn't cut it when you've a quiche knife in your "bag for life", I can tell you. "Choose milk in returnable glass bottles Many areas have local dairies that provides milk in returnable glass bottles rather than plastic or plastic coated cardboard." Tell you what would be handy - telling us which areas. Which local dairies are these? I presume that the Church of England is thinking of those local dairies in the 1970s.
"Request takeaways use your container instead of their disposable one." - Because there's nothing the local Chinese needs on a busy Saturday night more than some environment-saving vicar turning up with their family heirloom Lazy Susan and requesting that the Sweet and Sour Chicken, Satay Pork, Crispy Beef and Vegan Tofu be kept strictly separate.
"Use a bamboo toothbrush or a toothbrush with recyclable heads and try to find dental floss that doesn’t come in plastic packaging." A bamboo toothbrush can be found online for £1.44. For 5p more you can get a four-pack from Superdrug. Apparently there's a rumour the Church of England is Middle Class. Now I'm thinking we need to check Anglican's teeth, as they save up for the next toothbrush.
"Look around your kitchen and see what plastics you can replace Use a dish brush with a wooden handle and compostable bristles." Now I'm sorry. First up - what the hell is a dish brush? What Beatrix Potter story was one of those last used in? And more importantly - if you look around your kitchen and there are plastics there, bloody use them as long as you possibly can. I'm not sure what Ritual of Disposing of Perfectly Good Plastic Tools the good old C of E is planning to publish, but you can be sure that it will be less environmentally friendly than keeping the perfectly good things you already own until they're worn out.
"Use a blender made of glass If you find yourself needing to purchase a new blender in the future, try and go for a glass alternative if possible." - See, this is where the whole "Calendar" concept falls apart. It's odd enough setting aside the 5th of March as the date to throw away all your plastic cooking implements. But this is the advice for the 7th. What are the chances that your (plastic) blender will give up the ghost on that specific day? And what are the chances that, if it doesn't, you will remember when if finally does in 4 years or whatever? And - the killer this - what happens if on the 5th of March when you looked around your kitchen to dispose of all plastic items, you saw the plastic blender then and replaced it with a wooden dish brush? What good is the advice on the 7th March then, eh?
"Do you use disposable
cups at church? Can
you encourage people
to bring their own
mug?" - Well no. But then, if you've ever purchased Woodsware Beryl, it's indestructible anyway.
"Do you have old clothes and shoes that you never wear because they don’t fit or are out of style? Take them to a tailor or cobbler for alteration." Tell you what, the bloke in Timpson nearly died laughing, before he threw me out. But the good news is, I found a cobbler. Unfortunately, it was in Thomas Hardy's novel, "Under the Greenwood Tree". "Buy second-hand
plastic-free furniture" - better still, buy second-hand plastic furniture. That way it won't go in landfill.
"Avoid plastic pens
and giveaways
Try using a refillable
fountain pen or pencils." - Or best of all, a quill. Quills are natural, compostable and easily obtained by grabbing the backside of a passing goose or other poultry. "Avoid the Mini
bar snacks and
drinks
Not only incredibly
expensive but they
all come in plastic
packages or bottles.
Even if you can’t
avoid plastic entirely,
you can resist single serving
sizes." Too right. They're terribly unsatisfying. Buy the full-size. But even then, thanks to shrinkflation, you may need two.
"Put a “No Junk Mail”
sticker on your
letterbox
This will reduce the
number of letters with
plastic windows. It will
also reduce your paper
waste." It will also put the poor soul delivering it out of a job. But don't worry because they'll have company in the dole queue...
"Try and cook as much as
possible from scratch
and take your own
sandwiches and snacks
when you go out." - Which if nothing else is a good way of putting the people at the Chinese out of business when they refuse to serve your take away onto the Beryl plates you brought along to pick up your takeaway.
" Don’t buy new
CDs and DVDs
Stream or download
music, shows, and
films online or
borrow them from
the library or friends." They don't actually mention that if you want the music permanently in these circumstances, the trick is to rip the disks you borrowed off your mates. But I'm sure the C of E won't be too upset. After all, why worry about putting musicians and actors out of work? It'll give the people from the takeaway and the junk-mail deliverer somebody to talk to while they're waiting to sign on.
So the good news is that the advice doesn't give the impression that the Church of England is a bunch of middle-class do-gooders that live in a different century. Oh, wait. Sorry I mean - it does, doesn't it?
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
Look, I've been busy. I'm a working druid and I've been off on an ecumenical visit to the Sheep-Worshippers of Wensleydale. Which is a heck of a commute.
Especially when you congratulate the Head Herdsperson on the lovely picture of a Wensleydale Sheep in the lobby of the Sacred Sheepfold. And she tells you that's actually Rowan Williams when he visited a few years back. Embarrasing.
Shepherd
Sheep
But understandable. Anyway. The thing I've not been blogging about all day. Very important. All over the news. And Twitter. They've done all the jokes already.
No, not the news about the way the Government has put its foreign aid and mental health services off-balance-sheep. Sorry. Off-balance-sheet. Thus making it the client of a bunch of charities that should be independent, friendly critics. And a poor custodian over the sort of bodies that should be scrutinised.
The thing is, someone who is - as one might say - closely linked to this blog has published a book called "Writes of the Church". Which has many, many, spoof letters to my friend Nathan's church magazine.
Copyright precludes that I should quote too much. But let us just say that the esteemed Major J Dumpling, of Tremlett, complains in the book that the toilets the vicar is proposing to have built in the church are unnecessary. In James's words, in his day they just used to go in the graveyard. While his friend Bradley Hadleigh complains that the new children's corner "may attract children".
Well, a few objectors in Wotton-on-the-Edge used both those excuses to complain about the changes. I reckon they've been reading the book.
One, particularly up to date, says that toilets in church are a bit of a fad. I presume he's been running out to go in a ditch since 1963. But you know, to each his own.
Other churches have loos in the building. They're not plagued with smells and unpleasant sounds. Though if they are, I suggest the answer is incense and plenty of bells. But the claim that it's OK the Parish Room has loos isn't a brilliant one.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the church is pretty short of gentlemen and of young people. If you want to make the place welcoming to elderly gentlemen, a toilet within a short distance is a great idea. Not least if that elderly gentleman is leading the service. If having children in church is regarded as a good idea - approved of by Jesus Christ, though not so much by Bradley Hadleigh - then having changing facilities and an easy place to run off when you hear the words "need a poooooooo" is a great idea. And apologies for the use of the phrase "run off", which sounds like what happens if Little Oliver needs to pay a visit, but the church hall toilets are too far away so he ends up doing "it" on a table tomb.
To those who think that a toilet in church is "undignified", there's a door. Helps no end with keeping the unseen from being seen. Meanwhile, has nobody realised that the building is literally surrounded by buried dead people? If that ain't undignified, I don't know what is. Unless it's an octogenarian priest, having staggered (literally) to the end of 1662 Said Communion, getting halfway across the churchyard before realising he'll have to go right on the place where it says "in eternal memory".
And then there's people with disabilities. I presume the toilets in the church will be accessible - because it's the law these days. The ones in the Parish Room? A disabled person might need someone to accompany them across. It might be raining. Obviously I don't know. But it might be that the Church should just show itself to be bloody welcoming to people for once in its bloody life.
So I wish the incumbent, Robert Axford, well. But now the diocese has approved the change, I hope he doesn't get too carried away. Flushed with success, he may introduce modern worship like "As the Dear Pants". He may be tempted to replace the Book of Common Prayer with the Wee Worship Book. He may, on the other hand, sit back and just go through the motions. Maybe once a loo has been introduced, he may have to rename the Standing Committee. We just don't know.
But a toilet in the church? It's a no-brainer, innit? Just a word to the wise for visiting speakers. Switch the wireless mike off when you pay a visit.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
Went down to meet the little-known religious group, the "Sons of Anah".
You all know about Anah, of course. The father of two children - one of whom, Oholibamah, married Esau. We are also informed that, while looking after his father Zibeon's donkeys in the desert, he "found the hot springs."
We're not told why this is seen as important. Which is where the "Sons of Anah" fill in the gap.
In their mythology, Anah is a kind of everyperson. He's most noticeable because his second child becomes the third wife of the less important son of Isaac, Esau. So he's kind of mentioned - mentioned repeatedly, actually, in Genesis 36 - but never really does much. He looks after donkeys, and he has a couple of kids. But he mostly is notable, or not, for finding hot springs in the desert.
So to the Sons of Anah, he's like a kind of patron saint of mediocrity. Finding cold springs in the desert would be really useful. Hot springs - probably not so much. In that sense, say the Sons of Anah, he's as one with the rest of us, who plod on - never really do anything spectacular - and depend for their name being preserved on the earth upon their children.
Weirdly, while the Vulgate, and all the other translations say they were hot springs, the King James Version says he found mules in the desert. And some King James believers go further, telling us that Anah actually invented the mule. Or at least, encouraged the invention of the mule by a horse and a donkey.
Which leaves the Sons of Anah to ask themselves - he either invented mules or found hot water in a hot place. His daughter was the third wife of the wife of a widely reviled tribal leader - a kind of Old Testament Melania Trump. He never did anything spectacular - his most useful action being possibly to have invented a cross-bred equine. And yet his name appears nine times in just one chapter of the Bible. He's the one we can all aspire to be. Completely useless, and yet known to God.
But don't listen to their hymns. Oh boy their hymns are dull. And all about mules.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
Apologies for the lack of blogging lately. I've been a bit caught up with Charlii and Young Keith and the new arrival, Elvis. So quite a lot of time I've been babysitting for little Celestine.
It's Charlii who's got her work cut out the most. What with the crying, the sleepless nights and the endless demands for a drink.
And that's just Young Keith. Elvis is pretty demanding as well.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for Faiz Siddiqui, the lawyer who studied at Brasenose College, and sued the University of Oxford because he says that only getting an Upper Second in his History degree cost him a high-flying career in the Law.
And I've just got the results of the scan back. My heart appears to be pretty much pure flint. So I'm the Archdruid for the job of not feeling sorry for him. Let's go.
After all, it's not like a 2:1 at Brasenose is a bad degree. You could say all the best people got a 2:1 at Brasenose. Toby Young got a First. So that proves it.
The Daily Mail manages a brilliant article where it clearly doesn't know that an Upper 2nd is a 2:1...
"Mr Siddiqui had claimed 'boring' tuition and staff being on extended sabbatical leave had meant he only got a lower 2:1 instead of the higher upper second or first he was hoping for. "
But then it also manages to grab off Google Street View a picture of what I think is basically Exeter College, so I don't think they put their Oxford Special Correspondent onto this job.
And you know the problem for Mr Siddiqui now? He's going to be known as the bloke who lost the case that it was his college's fault he's not a very good lawyer. Which is roughly equivalent to advertising himself to future employers as not a very good lawyer.
On the bright side for Mr Siddiqui. A few years before he picked up his Attila, a shiny-faced, entitled youth called David Cameron left Brasenose with a first in Politics, Philisophy and Economics. He went on to prove that, in at least two of those categories, he was useless. So you know. A first ain't everything.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
So on this occasion I've been drawn in. May as well get the "War on Easter" story in before Ash Wednesday, so we can concentrate on the War on Christmas during Lent.
So what's wrong with it? Just about everything.
Let's look at Cadbury's "Quaker roots". First up, they're not owned by Quakers. It's owned by what used to be Kraft. Kraft don't have Quaker Roots. And if they were showing their Quaker roots properly, they might well not celebrate Easter at all. Many early Quakers were adverse to marking such late innovations into the Christian calendar as Easter.
Cadbury's are, as you might imagine, focusing on something non-Easterish at the moment. A Valentine's Day gift. Valentine, you may remember, is a Christian saint.
But don't worry. They're getting ready to sell some eggs without mentioning Easter at all. At all. For instance, this collection which has no mention of eggs....
Or this "bunny basket" with absolutely no mention of the Easter Bunny. That famous participant in the Biblical Easter Story.
And don't even get me started on this collection of eggs that absolutely doesn't have "Happy Easter" on the box.
And Thornton's? A proper British company in the sense that it's loss making. A family company in that it is owned by Signor Giovanni Ferrero. An Italian. But very much part of a family firm. An Italian family. So buy Thornton's Easter Eggs and put your money into Italian profits. As I say. The world's most useless Brexiter.
I dunno about you. But I'm a bit peckish now. I'd best have an Easter Egg. If only I knew of a company that sells them.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
In many ways the perfect Anglican idea. Outwardly virtuous, utterly impractical and with significant damage for the people who work for the Church.
The issues are pretty simple really. First up, it's Grade 2 listed. Now, you can do some fairly radical stuff to Grade 2 listed buildings. But I can't see those gorgeous staircases and that debating hall going. So not exactly using it to its full potential.
Then, it's facilities are currently rented out as a conference centre when Synod ain't in session (as it normally isn't). So it's making some money for the Church. It's in Westminster so it' going to be charging plenty more as the day rates than it would have to beg for if it moved to Castleford. And Cass already has a Nando's and an indoor ski slope, so it probably doesn't need a load of retired Anglicans turning up every six months and clogging up the 'Spoons.
And then, there's people work in Church House. Now, I'm no expert on the sorts of people that work there. Apart from the one who gave me a dirty look when I tried to get into the Visitor's Gallery in my best druidic hi vis. But how many of those will have been north of Watford, let alone the unrelated Gap? They'll have families and mortgages all over the London hinterland. And while it's easy for a vicarage-dwelling unmarried man like Bishop Phil to make the move from Camden to Burnley - it's not so much when you're on a mortgage in Purley and your other half is a financial accountant in the Isle of Dogs. Just imagine the press if the Good Old C of E starts making people redundant because they don't feel called to break up their families.
So no, sounds great. Very virtuous. Very virtuous indeed. But the people asking for the virtue ain't gonna be the ones making the sacrifices. So feel free to recommend an office block in Kentish Town or Holloway or somewhere else accessible to the people who work in Westminster. And if you do it, sell the building as offices. You'll get more money. And then you can provide far more affordable housing in Peckham that way. As the Sage of Peckham himself once said, "You know it makes sense."
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
Spent this evening looking after Celestine while Keith and Charlii have been busy with the new addition, little Elvis.
And you know how it is. A long evening, watching rubbish telly and keeping a toddler entertained. Especially when, like Celestine, she's asking questions about whether Monarchian Modalism is the same as Sabellianism.
So naturally - you hit the chocolate. I assumed that Keith and Charlii had put in a supply of "fun size" chocolate bars. Until I realised that is the size that full-size bars of chocolate are now.
Now my memory may be playing me tricks. But I'm pretty sure that in the past, Wagon Wheels were wider than the average human mouth. Certainly they weren't so small you could put three in at once, were they? Although I admit that, after 4 hours of "Mr Tumble", I was in need of some comfort food.
Yorkies the same. In the old days, a Yorkie had 6 chunks and you couldn't even bite through it. When I was a kid, they brought out an even bigger bar that was allegedly big enough for "the driver and his mate." I'm not sure what his mate wanted from it. But I guess that with that "not for girls" slogan, there was something terribly homoerotic about the whole thing. Either way - those big bars, if dropped out of a lorry window, were big enough to block the M1 for days.
And Mars Bars. I remember when, if you bought a Mars Bar home, you needed someone with a red flag walking in front of you. These days you have to put them under an electron microscope even to see them.
But you know what's really got my goat? The Maltesers. Am I imagining it, or in the old days did the competitors in "World's Strongest Man" have a task of lifting Maltesers onto pillars? These days you don't even have to cut them in half to eat them.
I tell you. Chocolate ain't the same these days. Or is it just me?
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
A sad Imbolc as we remembered our former Groundhog.
In years gone by, the savage Earless Beaker Bunny would come out, see whether her shadow was visible, savage someone's ankle and then go back into her hutch. But no more.
Former Groundhog
So we had to find an alternative. Sure, we messed around by asking Burton Dasset to stand on the gravel drive. But you know. We needed an unlovely, gormless mammal for the job. And frankly Burton was over-qualified. So we went up the evolutionary ladder, through dormice, wild rabbits and muntjacs.
Just digressing for a moment - did you know there was a British Deer Society? Me neither. But I bet their annual society dinner in the autumn is cracking.
So anyway. We have to report that, in a proper mashup of ancient and modern mythology, we decided to use a lactating ewe.
The real point of the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc (pronounced "Candlemas") is apparently something to do with lactating ewes. We don't know why. And it's absolutely murder going through a herd of ewes trying to find a lactating one. As Burton discovered when the farmer set the sheep dogs on him.
Or were they goats?
But the conclusion is clear. The lactating ewe not only couldn't see its shadow. It didn't even look. So we can hereby declare that we have 6 more weeks of winter. Or not. We can't remember. Whatever. It doesn't work anyway, let's face it.
Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.
From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.
is probably the book for you.
