The White Horse - A Refutation, and an Emulation

I have the fear that, reading Young Keith's record of something I do not understand, you will think I am one of his cronies with whom he spends his time revelling in the White Horse.
Nay. It will not be so. For is revelling and carousing, of all sins, not ranked alongside the sins of envyings, murders and emulations in Gal 5?

Although I have to confess, I know not why "emulations" would be such a bad thing. I have checked this with Daphne Hnaef - a little inclined to equal opportunities, in my opinion, but still an intelligent and informed woman. And she tells me that "emulation" is a means of, for example, allowing somebody with a laptop PC to open up a "window" in Unix, or Linux, or even - that I should ever mention the word, causing our first parents to sin as it did - an Apple.

Notwithstanding the evils to which an "emulation" may expose one, I do not feel that that of itself makes the "emulation" sinful. After all, objects may be used both for clean and unclean uses. A glass, for example, may contain a sinful concoction of hops and malt solution - or the refreshing water which quenches the thirst both of panting harts and of repentant Samaritan sinners. And so an "emulation" could be a portal to all the filth and laviciousness in the world - or to the wonders of e-sword, a Bible package that comes free with the King James Version (and the opportunity to download all sorts of inferior versions also).

But returning to the subject at hand - the idea that I hang about indulging in drunkenness and revelries. Far from it. Clutching a strictly innocent glass of bitter lemon (for I do not withhold all excitement from myself - nay, Marjorie does that) I was attempting to coax the pool players into the Kingdom of God by explaining how the game of pool is a parable of the Gospel - that even if you break first, and pot from the break, even so the first can be last. That one can only win by descending (as the balls on the table descend to the depths of the table). And that while the white ball - which represents goodness - can be raised once again and come out of the little hole under the baulk of the table, the black ball - representing all evil - is pushed into oblivion by the white as it is potted - never to rise again. Unless one parts with a not inconsiderable amount of one's post-tithing disposable income.

As I say, I was explaining this to the pool players. But they were clearly not open to the Good News. Rather, calling me something I cannot repeat on a family website - they left me to my bitter lemon. And, in the regret and recrimination of my failure, the lemon was truly bitter.

With great big strings attached

Poor Drayton's hopping around with painful shins tonight.

He went down to London and saw someone asking for money. Told him silver and gold had he none, but he'd let him have a fiver's worth of sandwiches. Wasn't going to give him the money as he'd only have wasted it on drink or cigarettes.
So the bloke let him buy him the sandwiches, then kicked him in the shins. He said Drayton wasn't going to play power games with him, and who did he think he was?

Drayton's back in his cottage now, pulling bits of lettuce out of his cardigan, where the guy stuffed the sandwiches down his neck. Drayton says he doesn't understand it. He thought that the giver had the right to decide the gift.

He's obviously never read Proverbs 31. And I don't like to tell him he's been acting against God's word all this time.

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With thanks to Gurdur for the reminder.

Environmentally Sustainable Pews

I'd had this idea before, but thought it might be in poor taste. But maybe it's slightly more appropriate now.

The great Victorian love of installing pitch pine pews - uncomfortable to keep you awake, fixed to the ground to keep you facing forward - has been in retreat for many years now. Old chapels and inner-city have closed, and some churches have received faculties, and replaced pews with trendy chairs. And they tend to get sold off.

We've never paid much attention to pews here at the Beaker Folk before. After all, they're not really our style. We like to sit people round in a circle so they have to make eye contact whether they like it or not. And some of our more meditative events can merge into a doze quite easily. So we went for bean bags.

And in any case, the pews went to the pubs. There was nothing that could give a pub a dose of instant authenticity quite so much as a few pitch pine pews. So there was a lovely ready market in our other remaining local institution from the Middle Ages - at least until the Black Death comes back.

But now it's not the churches closing, it's the pubs. 40 or 50 a week.  Losing people who presumably argue to themselves that they are drinkers, but they don't see why they have to drink in a pub. I blame the smoking ban myself, others blame the supermarkets, and we all blame Drayton Parslow. He's particularly smug, thinking that a decline in public drinking in this country proves that we are steadily becoming a nation of teetotallers.

But now my guilt has been removed. Suddenly the pews are ex-pub rather than ex-church. And there's pine tables and all sorts to go with them. So I've decided: what with them being effectively endless in supply, cheap and short-term carbon. I'm installing a pew-burning stove.

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Health and safety notice: varnished pews may give off carcinogens when burnt in a domestic heating apparatus, and leave your flue in a right old state. We do these things so you don't have to.

Swine Flu and Drinking Alcohol

As one of the sites that frequently mentions Swine Flu (and Alcohol) we here in Husborne Crawley are finding that the most common search by which people are finding us contains the words Swine Flu and Drinking Alcohol.

There's only one possible conclusion here.  We're being hunted down by people with Swine Flu, who want to drink alcohol, but aren't sure if it's a good idea.

Now we're not experts in alcohol.  But it does seem to us that alcohol suppresses the immune system.  It causes a loss of body temperature, even when you think you're warming up.  So on the whole it's not something that's going to build up your resistance.

While Swine Flu is particularly dangerous for people who have lowered immune systems.  
Let's put those two together.  A drug that lowers your resistance, and a disease that is much worse for people who have lowered resistance.

But you didn't really want to hear that, did you?