Brassed Off

These have been hard times for the Beaker Folk. Lockdown in a residential religious community was always going to be tricky. People kept trying to get into the Moot House to "light a quiet tea light", which is why we've had to put Rosebud the Rottweiler in there. Apologies to Brandwen, who hadn't read that particular line on the bulletin. But the good news is she reckons she'll eventually recover without needing to put further strain on the NHS.

And it's been hard work, sterilising the corridors and dropping off parcels and collecting rubbish for the vulnerable. Though please note - throwing what's left of a spaghetti bolognese out of your bedroom window may be effective social distancing, but it's not great news for people working in the cottage garden.

But we've ensured we have worship three times a day, live streamed into all Beaker bedrooms from my study. And the Oak Grove is technically an exercise area so you can quietly say an ancient prayer as you take your daily constitutional, maintaining a minimum interpersonal distance of 4 Beaker cubits.

But I'm afraid we may now have something else to encounter. A weight that may be too much for some to bear.

Hnaef has found the old trumpet he bought in 1992. And he thinks now may be the perfect time to learn to play it.

---

Please support this blog

Annunciation

The angel appears, in a little house in a backwater. and announces the news.

Good news? To a young woman - still hardly more than a girl - who's been looking forward to her wedding to the carpenter? A mixed blessing, at best, you'd have to say.

But after the initial shock, Mary's response is simple: "I am the Lord's servant. Let it be to me as you have said."

There's a long way ahead - the fears of childbirth in a strange place, the eccentric son with odd twists on old rules; the fears as he criss-crossed the Levant, preaching a revolutionary message. Being ignored, the confrontations, the arrest, the Cross - the sword that pierced her own heart, even as it pierced his. All that to live through before she saw her risen Son and received his Spirit.

She knew what it is to wait through darkness, to wonder what the meaning is, to know despair - but came through to another day, when the young women ran back from the tomb with a message nobody could quite believe or make out. She knew what it meant to try to pluck meaning from chaos.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.

The Ironies of Mass on Facebook

Kind of touching today, but a sign of the strange times in which we live.

I tuned in to a friend's lunchtime livestream of his church's daily Mass. Sad not to be there in one sense but then, let's face it, I wouldn't have been there if the church had been open. But there's probably less technically aware folk that do go along regularly who are now missing out, so I can be sad for them. But, you know, strange times.

Anyway, he's streaming it on Facebook. Which is, I expect, something that Mark Zuckerberg never foresaw when he started it all off. And just as the vicar's reading through the Eucharistic Prayer, the Facebook "Like" icon floated across the screen and skirted round the altar.

I don't know who pressed the "Like" at that moment.

But I'd hope it was God.

---

Want to support this blog? If you want to know what the people in the pews really think, why not try "Writes of the Church"?  The letters to the Church magazine the vicar really didn't need.

Beaker Streaming

I'd like to apologise to all those who tuned into our first "Beaker Stream" broadcast of "Filling up of Beakers" this evening.

Young Keith thought it would funny to hack the stream and instead inflicted everyone to two hours of Sydney Carter's collected work.  I could hear the screams ringing throughout all Creation.

I'll be honest, avoiding "Lord of the Dance" struck me as one of the only benefits to come out of suspending in-person services. And now he's even ruined that.

Battening Down the Hatches

There's not much funny a humorous blog can say about the oncoming storm of coronavirus, Covid-19. There is a certain grim humour, as when Burton Dassett called into a supermarket this morning to find no toilet roll at all. Just, at one end of the shelves, a load of kitchen roll called "Blitz". That is, at least, as St Alanis might put it, ironic.

And I do wonder about the habit of stockpilers only to stockpile cheap stuff. If you think you're going to spend a couple of weeks locked down with nothing to do, surely you owe it to yourself to buy some clam chowder and a decent port, not Value spaghetti and baked beans.

Unlike many, I don't think the Government is indulging in an attempt at eugenics with its advice. They seem to have decided that there won't be a vaccine along in a while, or a decent drug - and they may well be right, I'm afraid - so the idea that we should accept most people will catch this virus, and that the best you can do is spread this over a long time, is not actually necessarily stupid. Though time will tell. I can't comment. Although I can bore you silly on the history of the 1918-19 Spanish Flu, that knowledge is a fallout from my drug design studies in my youth, not a means of prophesying the future.

Take care of yourself - physically and mentally. Media still wants clicks, even during a pandemic. And social media emphasises the negative. Get decent news - the Guardian does for me, or the BBC - and only look at it twice a day. And don't retweet bad health advice (cider vinegar, anyone?) or utter doom. Remember most people commenting don't know very much about virology, or epidemiology. There's a lot we can do to get nearly everyone through this. You don't have to head for the Winchester to wait till it all blows over, or run around shouting "Don't Panic". Limit your exposure to other people in person, message people to keep in touch, work from home if you can. If you can't, be grateful that some people can, because everyone getting less exposure will help to slow the spread. It's not going to just disappear one day soon. Epidemics only do that once they've used up all their fuel, or a cure is found. But we can all work to damp down the impacts on the health services. And please wash your hands. And don't hog all the loo roll.

Three final thoughts. Firstly, this exposes the way we have thought we are isolated from the natural events of life. The BCP had a prayer for times of plague and pestilence. They've not gone away, though we've been lucky for a while.

Secondly, remember Samuel Pepys. On Christmas Day 1665, at the end (on one calendar) of that terrible plague year, he walked through London, and was surprised to see a wedding in progress. He celebrated the city coming through the ordeal by buying two barrels of oysters*. OK, they were just a few months out from the Great Fire, but take the wins you can.

And thirdly, I remember the words of Hosea as he contemplates the conquest of Judah by the Babylonians:

Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
neither shall fruit be in the vines;
the labour of the olive shall fail,
and the fields shall yield no meat;
the flock shall be cut off from the fold,
and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation. 

The Lord God is my strength,
and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet,
and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.

* The London Encyclopaedia 3rd edition: Weinreb, Hibbert, Keay & Keay. (They're wrong about "Ring a Ring of Roses though)

---

Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? (or to shudder at death at any rate? Then here's two ways you can keep the Archdruid in doilies...
If you want someone to share the terrors of death while making you laugh, we have "A Hint of Death in the Morning Air" - 97 poems to make you wonder, laugh or shake your head sadly. At only £1 on Kindle. Or if you want to know what the people in the pews really think, and you prefer your words printed on paper, why not try "Writes of the Church"?  The letters to the Church magazine the vicar really didn't need.

Nativity of Douglas Adams (1951)

Introit: What a wonderful World

Getting ready to build the New Earth

Beaker Folk walk across a barren landscape, with lovely crinkly edges. 

Archdruid: I thought you'd like to know I'm feeling...

All: It is not appropriate any more to use mental health in a humorous context. Can we get onto the "space is big" stuff?

Archdruid: Behold where the light of infinity breaks in upon us!

All: We've seen it. It's rubbish.

Archduid: Any news on the Great Prophet Zarquon?

Great Prophet Zarquon (via grimy video link): I'm not coming back till you've got rid of that virus. At my age there's no way...

Hnaef: I knew we shouldn't have blasted all the telephone sanitizers into space.

Archdruid: We got rid of the marketing executives, mind.

Hnaef: True. At worst a mixed outcome.

Archdruid: There must be a hymn we can sing for Douglas Adams?

Hnaef: That renowned atheist?

Archdruid: Yeah, if only we hadn't banned everything by Syndey Carter.

A spaceship materialises in the orchard, hidden by an SEP.

Archdruid: What's that spaceship doing there?

Ford Prefect: How did you notice us? This was supposed to be Somebody Else's Problem.

Archdruid: Everything's always my problem. I'm the leader of a congregation. Not just my problem, normally my fault as well. And don't shake hands. We've banned it.

Ford Prefect: Maybe we could all just wave towels at each other?

Archdruid: I think you may have solved the problem of How to Share the Peace.

Zaphod Beeblebrox III: Hi Guys!

Archdruid: It is him! The one we all heard about! The groovy hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is!

Trillian: This is getting needlessly Messianic.

Archdruid: The one I last met in a party in Islington. Where he chatted me up all night and then went off with Tricia McMillan. I ended up being bored to death by....

Arthur Dent: Haven't I met you before?

Archdruid: Oh no. Not again.

Arthur Dent: Don't suppose you've got a cup of tea?

Archdruid:  What do you want? We've got 42 kinds:  PG, oolong,  lapsang souchong, green, green with mint, Darjeeling, gunpowder, Earl Grey, Lady Grey, chamomile, Yorkshire, Tesco Own Label, or Church Special Fair Trade. I'd skip the church one. It's horrible.

Arthur Dent: Things have improved while I've been away.

Archdruid: And why are you wearing a dressing gown?

Arthur Dent: I've been working from home a lot.

Archdruid: OK. Take Beeblebrox and throw him in the Doily Shed.  We've already got too many useless politicians who are there to draw attention from where the real power lies.

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged: Archdruid Eileen Fitzroy-Russell?

Archdruid: Yes?

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged: You're a dated pusher of Therapeutic Deism.

Archdruid:  Thrown him in the Doily Shed with Zaphod. My friends from Krikkit will deal with them both later.

Hymn: Journey of the Sorcerer

---

Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? (or to shudder at death at any rate? Then here's two ways you can keep the Archdruid in doilies...
If you want someone to share the terrors of death while making you laugh, we have "A Hint of Death in the Morning Air" - 97 poems to make you wonder, laugh or shake your head sadly. At only £1 on Kindle. Or if you want to know what the people in the pews really think, and you prefer your words printed on paper, why not try "Writes of the Church"?  The letters to the Church magazine the vicar really didn't need.

Working From Home

An interesting article from a friend of the Beaker Folk on working from home.

Obviously, as a working Archdruid, I do technically work from home a lot. And I guess, in a sense, so do many religious ministers. Albeit they have to go out to see other people, either because they're ill, in meetings, or dead. The other people, not the vicars.

So here's some ideas on working from home, the Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley Way.

1. You may have to take all those loo rolls out that you've been stockpiling in the study. And - worse news - you can't supplement the loo rolls by stealing more from work, like you normally do.
2. You can use that time you used to spend commuting, by listening to an online prayer podcast or even using a proper prayer book and reading the Bible. But you'll probably just spend more time in bed.  
3. It is easy to become paranoid that the Technical Services department is spying on you to check you're working and not just playing a training video while doing half an hour on your exercise bike. Isn't it? Or are you being paranoid? Maybe they are checking up on you. Maybe someone is at this very minute laughing at a video of that time you fell off the office chair because you'd had an over-long "tea break". Maybe they're there. All the time. Keeping an eye on you. Stick a piece of Blue-Tac on the camera. Or is that really the camera? Maybe that's a dummy and there's a secret camera? 
4. Ensure you have regular breaks. Although being within walking distance of a decent country pub is not always as productive as a short walk to the water cooler in your office.
5. Consider having a ventriloquist's dummy in your study to keep you company.
6. Make sure you have bird feeders you can see from your desk. The stupidest conference call can be made so much better if you can see birds doing the simple things that make them happy. Also, if a bunch of pigeons gang up to steal a piece of bread off an unsuspecting bullfinch, you'll get happy memories of the office.
7. If practising the kazoo, trumpet or mandolin during a phone conference meeting, ensure you are either on mute, or very good. 
8. If in need of a mute protest against the people you work for, blocking up the plughole and turning on the taps is a much worse idea when you're in your house.
9. Having an air gun (see bird feeders) can pay dividends if a short-term health crisis turns into a genuine need for sourcing your own food.
10. If you have your own computer on the desk next to your work computer, make sure you know which keyboard you are typing into at any given time. Certain searches you might make on the Google homepage are not so suitable in Hangouts. 
11. If you are video-conferencing, remember that you can only be naked from the waist down.
12. Members of your family (or religious community) may keep blundering into your office, study, sanctum sanctorum, man-cage, or whatever to pester you with stupid questions. Make it quite clear that the only acceptable question is "would you like a cup of tea?" If intrusions continue, nail the carcasses of crows to the door. If this doesn't work, nail the carcasses of intruders there.
13.  Your darts will improve.
14. Maybe you have previously travelled by public transport. To get the full working-at-home experience, stand in a small room while a family member coughs in your face for half an hour in the morning and evening. If you used to travel on Southern Trains, make that two hours.
15. Alternatively, if you normally drive to work, why not simulate that experience by parking your car behind another one and just sitting there for an hour?
16. Working in a small room all on your own can start to prey on your mind. But aren't you lucky? You've got me. That's right. You can actually hear my voice. I'm here in the room with you...

For some more humorous suggestions, see also... 

---

Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? (or to shudder at death at any rate? Then here's two ways you can keep the Archdruid in doilies...
If you want someone to share the terrors of death while making you laugh, we have "A Hint of Death in the Morning Air" - 97 poems to make you wonder, laugh or shake your head sadly. At only £1 on Kindle. Or if you want to know what the people in the pews really think, and you prefer your words printed on paper, why not try "Writes of the Church"?  The letters to the Church magazine the vicar really didn't need.

Religion in the Age of Coronavirus

Thanks to everyone who respected the change to the liturgy this morning. To be honest, over the last few months. after the Sign of Peace had turned into the Hug of Peace and then the Big Sloppy Kiss of Peace, I was thinking it was time to do something about it. And so today's Courteous Nod of Peace was, in my opinion, both more decorous and more hygienic. And so Jane Austen I think I might introduce box pews and preaching bands.

People have been asking about the chemicals used in Young Keith's patented All-Over Sanitizer, a shower-like device through which all worshippers had to pass before this morning's Occasion. Well, I can assure you that it's 100% organic. Which is to say, superheated surgical spirit and a hint of aloe vera. The good news is that, since so many people were suffering from peeling skin, they really weren't wanting to share the peace anyway.

Definitely Not Closing Ranks

There have been accusations that I have been hitting Beaker Folk with my cricket bat, and locking people who got on my nerves in the Doily Shed. I am grateful to the people who - inspired by this blog post by Chairman Bill - have written the supportive letter below. I hope this puts the matter at rest.

---

Dear Gullible Common People and Telegraph Readers

We the undersigned have worked with Archdruid Eileen for many years and have the highest respect for her. Not once has she hit any of us with a cricket bat or locked us in a shed. It is true she keeps her brother in a cage in the cellars below the Great House. But we have no reason to doubt this is for his own good, and not to keep control of the inheritance.

We would like to stress that Eileen has in no way threatened to come round and break our ankles with a cricket bat if we don't sign this letter. And Sir Robert Winston got this information from a black cab driver.

Yours etc

The Great Gunea Pig of Stewartby
Dave the King of the Pixies
Archdruid Alanis of the Corded Ware Folk of Bletchley
Archbishop Nev of the Independent Apostolic Church of Judith Chalmers
St Mario of the Donkey Kong Fellowship
The Dalai Alpaca
Rod the Changeling
Sir Robert Winston
Elvish Presley 

The Chief Rabbit of Watership Down 

The Grand Bunion of the Stilton Cheese Worshippers

The Lord of the Prance 

The Archturnip of Blackaddersbury

Mother Theresa of Clapham

The Moderator of the Church of Moderate Liberalism 

The Grand Barista of the Order of the Starbuck

Rt Hon Alicia Cholmondley-Cholmonley

Sir Humphrey Cholmondley-Cholmonley, Bart

Toady Young of Toad Hall

The Chief Sea Lion

---

Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? (or to shudder at death at any rate? Then here's two ways you can keep the Archdruid in doilies...
If you want someone to share the terrors of death while making you laugh, we have "A Hint of Death in the Morning Air" - 97 poems to make you wonder, laugh or shake your head sadly. At only £1 on Kindle. Or if you want to know what the people in the pews really think, and you prefer your words printed on paper, why not try "Writes of the Church"?  The letters to the Church magazine the vicar really didn't need.

Shock Horror Express Readers in Meteorite DISASTER

The way the readership of the Daily Express went from the dizzying heights of what it had been - nine or ten, I suppose - to zero, in two weeks, was a salutary lesson in the dangers of fake news.

You can't blame them. Every two weeks for decades, the Express  website had carried headlines like  "Asteroid SHOCK - NASA admits killer asteroid could be heading somewhere near earth".

While every day from October to March, it would proclaim "KILLER STORM could wipe out life in Leith, WARN meteorologists".

And so the Express readers - much derided as gormless gammons by the average Grauniad reader - came actually to be some of the most sophisticated readers of all web newspapers. As they read the warnings, they would smile smugly knowing that, the last 400 times the same warning had appeared, nothing had happened. They knew that the people of Leith were still wandering around saying it was surprisingly mild for the time of year, and no genuinely scary space rock had come anywhere near close enough to earth to cause any trouble.

So when the latest headline appeared - "KILLER ASTEROID to hit LEITH. Nigel Farage SLAMS NASA expert with brilliant put-down" - the expert readers of the Express smiled and joked and went to Wetherspoons.

They didn't notice the headlines on the other sites:

"Killer asteroid causes stock markets to crash" - Financial Times
"Carol Vorderman flaunts toned beach bod as killer asteroid causes house prices to fall" - Daily Mail
"Pleased to Meteor" - The Sun
"My blind date was ruined by a meteorite" - The Guardian
"Lord Lucan stole my sandwich" The Star
"Snowflake Britain can't cope with a little asteroid" - The Telegraph
"Brexit will be great" - Laura Kuenssberg for the BBC

And so as Londoners headed into Tube stations, Yorkshire people went down disused mines and Geordies put a vest on, Express readers went about their daily lives the same as normal.

50% were wiped out when an asteroid unexpectedly landed in Leith.

The other half perished in the two-week snowstorm that started the next day.

---

Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? (or to shudder at death at any rate? Then here's two ways you can keep the Archdruid in doilies...
If you want someone to share the terrors of death while making you laugh, we have "A Hint of Death in the Morning Air" - 97 poems to make you wonder, laugh or shake your head sadly. At only £1 on Kindle. Or if you want to know what the people in the pews really think, and you prefer your words printed on paper, why not try "Writes of the Church"?  The letters to the Church magazine the vicar really didn't need.

Take Out a Chinese For Lent

Just a suggestion. I'm hearing stories of Chinese restaurants and takeaways suffering from lower sales, apparently due to fears of the novel Corona virus.

Now you can't catch it from a takeaway, or at least no more than any other kind of food. And certainly no more from Chinese than any other ethnic dish.

So a suggestion. If you couldn't decide what to take up, or give up, for Lent - or even if you could - why not do some simple good and have some nice food aa well?

Take out a Chinese meal for Lent.

Patriotism on Parade - the Beaker Festival of Britain

It's a funny old country at the moment. As the Government builds a railway that will be completed after most of us is dead, and Liz Truss says we could walk away from trade talks with both the EU and the US - basically leaving just Mars and Narnia as the only viable options - there's been a outbreak of cynical patriotism. You can't eat a continental breakfast anymore. It's got to be Full English. Complete with Danish Bacon, baked beans (an American dish), sausages (invented in Iraq) and fried onions (originated in Turkey).

From blue passports, to the Tory suggesting we should sing the National Anthem while desperately staving off Coronaviruses both old and new, to Priti Patel trying to send everyone back where they came from. Personally I'm not looking forward to that, but then I'm from Luton.

And if cynical patriotism is where you're at, then being a post-Enlightened community it is our duty bravely to lead from the rear. And so we are proud to put our patriotism on parade in the Beaker Festival of Britain.

In the Culture Zone, we'll be playing e-books by Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, and JRR Tolkien. Displaying the work of Grinling Gibbons. And laughing again at the comic genius of Spike Milligan, the sumptuous music of George Handel, and swooning over the brilliance of Audrey Hepburn. And who can forget the plays and wit of Oscar Wilde?

In the Faith Zone, we'll be marking the bravery and faithfulness of St Augustine of Hippo, Saint Andrew and St George.

In the Sports Zone, we will be celebrating the successes of such great British sports people as Kevin Pietersen, Manu Tuilagi, Jofra Archer, Tessa Sanderson, Greg Rusedski and John Barnes.

In our World of Science and Medicine we'll be marking the discovery of those great Brits: Florence Nightingale, Hans Krebs, Mary Seacole, and Earnest Rutherford.

And of course, in the Politics Space we'll be marking the groundbreaking achievements of Nancy Astor and Andrew Bonar Law and the bravery of Richard the Lionheart and Edward IV.

But probably not Boris Johnson. We believe he may have been born abroad.

---

Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? (or to shudder at death at any rate? Then here's two ways you can keep the Archdruid in doilies...
If you want someone to share the terrors of death while making you laugh, we have "A Hint of Death in the Morning Air" - 97 poems to make you wonder, laugh or shake your head sadly. At only £1 on Kindle. Or if you want to know what the people in the pews really think, and you prefer your words printed on paper, why not try "Writes of the Church"?  The letters to the Church magazine the vicar really didn't need.

Passive-Aggressive Support Group

Sad to say that our Passive-Aggressive Mutual Support Group has had to be cancelled after nobody turned up two weeks running.

It's really odd, though. They all said of course they'd like to turn up, and they had no doubt I was the best person to organise it.