God Loves a tidy Toilet alarm cord

Is the alarm cord in your church toilet dragging on the ground?

This can be a hazard. The cord could pick up germs,  that could easily be passed on to someone lying face down on the ground. Or someone could stand on the toggle. And who wants to summon help with a dirty alarm cord toggle?

Obviously, the simple way to deal with this is to tie it up, so the cord is shortened. But, while this will make life tidy and hygienic, someone who has fallen to the floor might still be able to reach the cord with a certain amount of effort.

That's why I always wrap the cord several times around the toilet grab handles. Ensuring that, if you should be unfortunate enough to pass out or topple over onto the floor due to the toilet roll being unexpectedly at calf height, you will have some mental challenge to keep you occupied while help arrives. Or, indeed, before it is even summoned.

If you can ensure the toggles are  partly obscured by rolls of toilet paper and by plumbing, so much the better! That's not going to be pulled out in a hurry.

Keep your emergency cords tidy. God loves a tidy church toilet.

Revenge of the AI GriefSexBot

So this is awkward. 

Brenzil was so upset when Miamh went. He was inconsolable.

And then he heard about the GriefBots. And we tried to talk him out of it. We told him it wasn't really Miamh. It didn't have real thoughts, or real feelings for him. It was just 20 years of Miamh's Facebook posts, and all the photos of her from their holidays together, uploaded into a Large Language Model.

But he said it gave him comfort.

But he was still lonely. Because it wasn't really Miamh. And, you know, it was just a text prompt going "shall we have spag bol tonight?" over and over, just like Miamh did.

And then he heard about Sex Robots.  I hasten to add I've picked the link very carefully here.

Anyway, despite us all telling him it was a bad idea, he combined the two.

We didn't see him for a month.

Anyway, Miamh's back now.

Oh, you thought I meant.... 

No, she wasn't dead. She'd just gone to nurse her mum after her op.

Anyway, Miamh is not amused.

And neither is the GriefSexBot, apparently. She's suing for half his savings and the Qashqai.

I don't know what the moral of all this is. Apart from don't develop GriefSexBots. Especially not based on people who are still alive. Or, possibly, if your life partner goes off to nurse their parent, change the locks. But on the whole, probably the first one.

Loving Angels Instead (John 1.29-42)

Do you remember where you were when you heard that Robbie Williams had left Take That?

 

No, me neither. I was quite busy with a new job in July 1995. But I'm sure there were crying teenagers. 

But it's an interesting case. Robbie was the youngest member of the band. A band that had been formed around the singer who, even today, I always think of as "the other one". Manfred Orange or Ken Barlow or somebody. Anyway, he went off and it was all very sad. But Barry Marlow and co carried on making records. And Robbie went on to make some excellent music.

And yes, it's a bit trite to compare Robbie Williams to Jesus. Even though both in  their own ways bring in the Millennium. But consider how Larry Harlow responded. "I must become less. I am not worthy to do up his trainer laces.  Which have come undone." Which was in a very real sense a reflection of John the Baptist's attitude to Jesus.

So the moral of my sermon this morning, I think, is if you want to form a team around yourself, ensure they're not as talented as you are. Otherwise you may find the crowds going to them. And your former protege(e) saying to the crowds, "let me entertain you."

Commemoration of the Death of Thomas Hardy (1928)

1st Yokel: That Thomas Hardy's dead, then.

2nd Yokel: Aye, as we all shall be.

1Y: Ninety-eight years now.

2Y: I thought he'd been quiet.

1Y: Shall us to an inn, to wet our whistle with a drop of Dorchester's finest?

2Y: To the Dree Mariners?

1Y: Nay, they've been closed this 60 years.

2Y: To Peter's Finger?

1Y: I'faith, that's a made-up pub.

2Y: Spoons then?

1Y: Wi' all my heart.

Remembering William "Smasher" Dowsing

Who? You ask.

A man who did more damage to the beauty of this country's churches than anyone before the pew-removers of the 1980s, that's who.

William "Smasher" Dowsing would turn up at churches across East Anglia during the Commonwealth, to break down images, destroy rood screens, and generally make churches ugly. This was apparently for the good of men's (and presumably women's) souls.

If challenged, Dowsing would say "You can't stop us - we're on a mission from God." And start smashing.

He died, sadly not at the end of a length of rope, in 1668. And naturally nobody has commemorated his work.

Which we at the Beaker Folk felt sorry about.

Anyway, we've carved a nice statue with a big Puritan hat on. And we're burning incense in front of it each day before Angelus.

I'm sure it's just what he would have liked.

Mystic Moons of the Beaker Calendar

The Internet is full of Native American, Chinese, or whoever full moon names. Who doesn't love a traditional set of moon names? Wolf moon and blood moon etc. Very evocative and all the rest of it. Gotta love it, in this world looking for a bit of romance and mystery amid the fear and howling.

But they forget who got there first. Who built a giant stone circle on Salisbury Plain with 42! different solar and lunar alignments, as proved by Keith with his Excel spreadsheet? That's right. The Beaker Folk. 

And the Beaker Folk, being the people that invented the moon, had their own traditional names for each moon of the year. Which was passed down from mother to daughter through millennia. And which I'm glad to share with you now. You will never look at another full moon without remembering the Beaker Folk who named it.

January	Crumpet Moon
February	Button Moon
March	Daphne Moon
April	Moon Under Water
May	Moonraker
June	Cheese Moon
July	Moon on a Stick
August	Gibbon Moon
September	Thewholeofthe Moon
October	Mad, Mad Moon
November	Moon River
December	Killing Moon
(Second full moon in a month)	Keith Moon

Pictures low-res, hopefully fair use from Wikimedia commons, the BBC, some woman who takes photos of crumpets, RCA/Victor Mancini, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Waterboys, Ardman Animation/Nick Park, DC Publishing, BBC, Compton's Arcade manufacturers.