Wittenberg Door Day

[[Blu-Tacked to the Moot House door]]

Having had a bit of spare time today, I - Burton Dasset, Certified Accountant and Member of the British Computer Society, propose to discuss the following subjects in the Moot House tonight.

1. That the Religion which is called Beaker, although it professes to be the original monotheistic religion of the British Isles, illuminated by the Gospel Light, has in fact been made up as Eileen goes along.

2. That the lighting of scented tea lights is not, of itself, a spiritual exercise.

3. Eileen cannot demand by right the obedience of a Beaker Person - such behaviour being clearly in contradiction to the spirit of the Reformation and also, in the way she enforces it, of the Laws of England.

4. Eileen cannot impute guilt to us, no matter how much she implies we are useless failures who have constantly let her, each other, and ourselves down. Although, to be fair, she may have a point on this one.

5. Eileen's preaching of indulgences is in error. You don't get "time off Purgatory for good behaviour" by buying the coasters bearing cheesy spiritual mottoes that she purveys in the Beaker Bazaar.

6. "Salvation points" do not exist - and you do not get one with every pack of doilies.

7. It is certain that when the cash-till jingles, Eileen is slightly richer. Although she prefers clean, electronic financial transactions to the vulgar sound of coins - and will be introducing Contactless as soon we receive accreditation.

8. No spiritual good was ever achieved by singing Coldplay songs.

9. He who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does better than the one who buys Eileen's latest CD of whale-songs. Or "The Beaker Quire sing Graham Kendrick", for that matter.

10. It was wrong of Eileen to sell those people in central London tents. And even worse of her to promise that they were thermally efficient.

11. If this is the last you hear from me, then you won't be hearing from me again.

Cake Schism

You turn your back for one minute and what happens?

I went up to Town today for the William Stukeley Approval Society AGM. It doesn't really do much, to be honest. We just sit around, think about William Stukeley and approve. Not about everything he did, of course - we're not into uncritical hero-worship here.

But I came back after an agreeable dinner to find that schism has broken out again. This time, unlikely as it may sound, a row broke out over the desserts were served. Raughrie, normally a competent if unadventurous assistant chef, had really gone for it with a courgette cake. Several Beaker Folk declared that courgette cake was an offence unto the nostrils of the Lord, and demanded "some proper cake". Black cherry cheesecake was apparently mentioned as a food fit for Beaker People. Raughrie, in umbrage, declared that if people weren't with him they were against him - and accused carrot cake fans of being wishy-washy liberals. Some of the more progressive cheesecake people said that blackcurrants were acceptable, while others said that courgette cake may have been produced from the kitchen of the Dark One, but they would defend the rights of the vile degenerates that liked it to eat it. While yet another bunch said that all cake produce was wrong, quoting the verse "blessed be the quiche-makers".

Another group said that they should encourage the consumption of multi-coloured sponges - or to put it another way, some have entertained angel cake.

And others broke away completely, eschewed cake-based products of all kind, and vowed only to eat processed pork products. They're calling themselves United Reformed Ham.

Drayton Parslow wandered in at this point and got into a deep discussion as to whether quiche breached Old Testament food laws, while a courgette-cake-fight broke out between the different sects and the walls ended up smeared with it.  It's amazing how that man's deep interest in all things spiritual make him completely oblivious to what's going on in the "natural" - if you can call people being knee-deep in gateau "natural", that is.

So I've come back to this absolute shambles and of course all these muffin martyrs and croissant crusaders won't be clearing up the mess. Oh no. As usual it will be down to Yours Truly to tell Charlii she's got to do that. And in the morning I guess I'll just have to start banging heads together again. We've a lot of bad blood to shed - if I've not got my metaphors a bit mixed there. Let them eat cake? Not after tonight.

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With thanks for inspiration to @thirstygargoyle @sjcoltrane @wombat37 @rosamundi @sallysjourney and @catherinestead.

Peace at last

It was, if I may say so, brilliant. Don't know why I didn't think of it before.

After four days of internecine feuding between the Beaker Quire and the Flower Arrangers, I was at my wit's end how to get the Community back on an even keel. And then it struck me.

I just brought this year's budget presentation forward, and asked Burton to give his speech on "Give us some more money or we have to reduce the number of druids". And now they've forgotten to hate each other, because they all hate him. But the good news is, Burton hasn't noticed any difference. Do I hear applause?

No person is an Island

A strange, strained morning.
I really thought we'd broken through with our meditation on John Donne's "No man is an island". Of course, I'd had to degender it to "No person is an island". And some of the Beaker People got really quite annoyed at any suggestion that they were "clods" Which, when you think about it, was a self-defeating thing to complain about.
The word "manor", with its suggestions either of residual feudalism or of Mockney irony, had to replaced as well. But that still left us with the gist of Donne's original meaning.

And that was a great meditation lead by Marston Trussell. How he put up a map of the Eurasian landmass (or - as some insisted, to avoid Eurocentricity - Asio-European landmass) and we each picked a country to represent us. And of course we marked in the Channel Tunnel and the Stranraer - Belfast and Isle of Wight ferries, just to make it clear that nobody is an island. Even when, like Lorelei, they choose Iceland as their country.

And so we all felt that sense of interdependence that is so important. And we sang "When I needed a neighbour" and it all felt so good. And I pronounced the final blessing. And we discovered that somebody had shoved a chunk of flower-arranger's oasis foam into the end of Katja's serpent, and the flower arrangement nearest the door turned out to be sabotaged and blasted lily pollen all over the flower arrangers' Sunday best. And another fight broke out and we had to call in the Gurkhas again.

I tell you, this doing things together is no fun. I may have to confine everyone to their rooms again. We live so much better in peace together when we're kept well apart.

The Salix Reloaded

Awoken early this morning thinking that, as predicted, the world was ending this May. A few days early, sure. So I needn't have panicked. But in the wee small hours you can't think that clearly.

There was a green, unearthly light flashing in the Moot House and a sort of electronic howling sound. So donning a dressing gown and picking up my trusty Slazenger, I headed down to the House. To find Morgwulf hanging in a net above a collection of willow wands and cherry blossom. He'd walked straight into a flower-arrangers' booby-trap while trying to smash up their latest arrangement.

Well, I'm not getting myself in the firing line. I nipped back to the armoury, picked up my father's old shotgun, came back in and shot through the ropes suspending Morgwulf from the ceiling. He fell eight feet onto an awkwardly-shaped vase, and then just lay around kind of swearing and clutching his back. No gratitude at all. You can't help some people.

Musicians v Flower Arrangers II

OK, a truce has been negotiated. I'm not saying it's pretty, and I'm not sure how long we're going to be able to maintain this, but we've drawn up strictly delineated areas for the musicians and flower arrangers. Trouble was, once they'd heard that two groups had been granted exclusive rights to certain parts of the Moot House, we'd got to draw up special areas for all the others. It's absurd, and we've got to use all four doors for people to get in and out now, but it's at least keeping the peace while we try to get charity, common sense and logic to prevail. Trouble is, if we're hoping to get those three sorted out it could be several generations before it's sorted out.

I should say we've had to negotiate the airspace above these zones as well. For most people this is capped at 6 feet, although the flower arrangers are allowed an extra 2 feet for their extra-high arrangements. It's bad news for Gardwulf, though. Being's he is 6'5", the top of his head is in a free-fire zone.

And it's gonna be murder for processions now. It took an hour to get to the Worship Focus this evening, as the acolytes negotiated their way through the checkpoints. And to make it worse the Fundamentalists have said they're going to change their password every day. And we're banned from the Green Zone under any circumstances. Meanwhile the inhabitants of the Enclave of  Extreeme Beaker Folk are absolutely livid. They're landlocked and have to sneak in early and go home after everyone else, otherwise they're scheduled for a duffing up.

The Beaker Covenant - a Rejection

Like all the other members of the Beaker Folk I've been asked by "Archdruid " Eileen to sign the Beaker Covenant. I have rejected and I'd like to explain why.

In the first place, I'd like to make it clear that it's not that I have any theological objections to the Covenant itself. This is unsurprising, as technically there is no theological content to it. And that is my first objection. I have proposed instead the following Reformed Beaker Covenant. And note that I have used numbers instead of the letters that Eileen proposed. That's the kind of straight-talking, evidence-based dogmatism you get in the Beaker Baptists.

We the People Called Beaker accept the following truths to be self-evident:

1. The verbal inerrancy of the Bible. Not the "original" scripts in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, as we suspect they may have been tampered with and there's too many variants. And once you get variants you get uncertainty as to which is the right reading. And then people start having their own opinions. And then where are you? Brighton, that's where. So we believe in the processes of divine inspiration that, via numerous imperfect versions of the scripture, produced the one perfect version in 1611 in Jacobean English.
2. We believe that the original prophets and apostles who composed the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts wrote exactly what God told them. Any confusion between this statement and (1) is a shame. We believe the Textus Receptus to be the perfect mode of transmission between what the Apostles wrote and the New Testament produced in 1611.  
3. When we say "The Bible" we mean the 66 Protestant books of the Bible. We know that the Authorized Bible project also included the Apocrypha, but they were just showing off and didn't mean it.
4. If anyone adds to or removes the previous paragraphs, they might as well say they're a fan of Stephen Fry and be done with it.
5. Women should be seen and not heard. Except for Eileen who, like the Queen in the Church of England, enjoys special status that we have very cunning arguments for supporting. 
6. Point (5) is not unconnected with her carrying that cricket bat.

As you see, my proposed Covenant is not unlike Eileen's document, and indeed has one very similar point.

Secondly I have trouble with the proposed Appendix 1 - Issue Resolution Procedure. Eileen's idea is that in the case of disagreement, as point 1 of the dispute resolution, the opposed parties should "have a nice cup of tea". Her directives for the manner in which the disagreements should then be resolved include the injunction to "play nicely" and asks "why not just pretend you agree, like we normally do?" Clearly this is no way to run the Beaker Community.
I met with Eileen and told her my issues. In issue resolution I agreed with her that every man has his own interpretation of the Bible (and most women have their husbands or fathers to ask). So I suggested that, for the purposes of theological neutrality, all disputes be referred to an independent adviser from a Fundamentalist Baptist Church, but Eileen just laughed at me. Then she offered me a cup of tea and suggested I "play nicely". And said that she was sure we were just violently agreeing with one another.

The Beaker Covenant

It's always a hard job keeping the Beaker community together. Consider that we have people who think a giant divine gibbon consumes the moon every month, others who think that there is a giant gibbon but s/he lives in a marsh, others that worship St Kirsty as a moon goddess and others who just like lighting tea lights.
And although we have Articles of Beaker Faith, most people consider them to be vague guidelines rather than anything binding. Indeed, when becoming a member of the Beaker Folk, one has simply to confirm that one believes that the Articles exist.

And generally I like it that way. It goes with my general view that people should be pretty much allowed to do what they want, within the bounds of not actually setting fire to each other or stealing each other's car tyres, and you can't force them to be good although you can talk about what it means. It also has the advantage that,  when you don't know what you're talking about, you know you can keep quiet. Stephen Fry could have avoided commenting on subject matter he doesn't understand in much the same way, I suspect. If he's not been misquoted...

And we generally find a modus operandi. For instance - the Moon Gibbon folk don't agree with female druids. And I don't think that there's a gibbon in the moon. So we agree to differ. And when I say "agree to differ" I mean "pretend the others don't exist".

But someone always wants more. Some, to misquote the Master, don't want rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty. They want the doubts knocked out and cast-iron certainty, thinking it reduces stress - even through it also eliminates interest. And so they want a Beaker Covenant.

But I've heard of this type of thing elsewhere, and I'm being a bit cagey. So I've proposed the following as a common set of beliefs we can all agree on:

a) Whether the Moon Gibbon exists or not is a matter of debate. In the same way as whether or not the world is flat and whether King Arthur sleeps under Glastonbury Tor is also a matter of debate.

b) Hi viz and tea lights cheer you up on a dull winter evening.

c) The Archdruid is lethal with a cricket bat.

d) In case of disagreement with the Archdruid or this Covenant, refer to (c) above.

e) Stones are for contemplating, not throwing

f) Likewise hazelnuts.

I've high hopes of success with the Beaker Covenant. In fact I'm just off to discuss it with the Marsh Gibbon Folk now. But I'm in a conciliatory mood. So I'll just be taking the 5 iron.  And hoping they don't throw stones at me.

Nice things happen to nice people

As if we didn't have enough sects, splinter-groups and factions already.
Mabeline (we should have thought harder before we let her choose that name) expresses herself as being totally loyalty to me as Archdruid.  However she  has felt it necessary to form a new group to bring pressure to bear on one particular item of doctrine.

It has always been a tenet of Beakerism that the brown stuff just happens occasionally.  We can rationalise it, try to find deep meanings in the omnipotence of the Creator.  We can try to read the books of our lives, we can see the signs of the times.  But in a rational world that, on the whole, keeps to the laws of Physics and Thermodynamics, stuff is going to go wrong and that's how it is.  We all get sick, we all get old, we occasionally get sacked, and we all die.  And whatever our hopes for the next life, or the next incarnation, or the Resurrection, or the next manifestion of an avatar of Cedric the Green Frog (last seen in a ditch in the Top Field in August 2008) - the fact is that life here and now is often hard, occasionally frightening and invariably terminal.  Prayer may help, but defining how, when and where it does is not easy.

Not for Mabeline.
This may well befit a woman who chose a name that seems to be a contraction of "Madeline Bassett."  No relation to Burton Dasset, of course.  But she can have a soul's-awakening look about her, if you know what I mean.
But apart from the views on the stars being God's Daisy Chain, I feel Mabeline has a somewhat more sinister viewpoint.  The defining doctrine of "NTHNP" is that Nice things Happen to Nice People.  In order to receive rewards in this world, one has to achieve "niceness".  This seems to consist of fear of giving offence, in the main part, as well as thinking nice thoughts and smiling a lot.  There is of course a corollary, with the same acronym - "Nasty things Happen to Nasty People".
Mabeline's views appear to be self-affirming.  If something bad happens to you, you have to examine your past life and identify the Nastiness that needs resolving.  Once identified, you can resolve it - by feeling a bit sorry for yourself, or by explaining to yourself that it wasn't that nasty after all - and then you will be nice again.  Obviously, if you have something else nasty happen to you, then you hadn't resolved the Nastiness well enough, or there's more buried Nastiness you've not remembered, and you'll have to feel sorry for yourself all over again.

Mabeline's new doctrine apparently exempts her and her followers from any kind of social action or interest in  charity.  If something bad happens to someone on a large scale, they clearly all deserved it and therefore are entitled to no help (which would frustrate the Divine Will).  On the other hand, if someone's having a great time then not only are they declared "Nice", but they're not in need of anything.

The worse happens when someone Mabeline knows is in real trouble and actually needs her help.  In the first instance she'll refuse to help - saying they need to resolve their Nastiness and become Nice first.  Then, if (as seems reasonable) they get shirty with her, she goes round to pour burning coals on their heads.  I don't think she's been blessed with a great scriptural exposition here, and Mabeline's family are increasingly recognisable in Hitchin as being the people who are bruised and singed.

In an attempt to persuade Mabeline out of her views, I put together the following table of world events that prove her right or wrong - on a scale of 1 to 10.

Stalin and Chairman Mao died of old age - 1/10.

Pol Pot died under arrest (possibly murdered) - 6/10 (after all, he was 70).

Hitler dies in a bunker - 7/10.

George W Bush wins two terms as US President - 4/10.

Tiger Woods hit with a golf club by his wife - 8/10 (but she should have used a wood)

Rene and Renata only have one hit - 9/10.

Simon Cowell is very rich - 2/10.

 Big Brother is to be cancelled - 5/10 (after all, it's taken 10 years).

So far, presented with this evidence that her theory is rubbish, Mabeline has commented that Simon Cowell has nice white teeth and George W does a cracking impression of Nelson Mandela.  I'll continue to work on her, however.  And meanwhile continue to mention to her the immense spiritual rewards of tithing.  I hear it's a very Nice thing to do.

Rift? What rift?

I should like to calm everyone down over the so-called "rift" in the Beaker Fellowship.

When the Beaker Folk of America appointed an Archdruid who was not only a man, but also married, clearly I had to take swift action.  I wrote a strongly-worded letter explaining that this was just the kind of thing they had promised they probably wouldn't do.
In response I got a very friendly letter, with a picture of them enjoying themselves at something they called the "Boston Tea Light Party".  It was on very high-quality paper, with the watermark "1776" running across it.  I suspect there is some kind of a subliminal message in all this, but I don't know what it is.
I've asked other Beaker leaders around the world what to do about it, but they've mostly suggested beating the Americans with sticks to drive out the demons.  I'm not sure that's going to work in these circumstances. Not least because, Americans being Americans, it could lead to some kind of military strike on Husborne Crawley.
So for now, I guess what we can all do is pray.

Secular Schism

It is with... I was going to say "regret" but that may be overdoing it.  It is with a sense of the duty to share information that I have to tell you that the Beaker Secularists are no more.  Apparently Gilbert and Rodwell disagreed over whether secularists should wear anoraks or duffel coats.   Meanwhile - much to everyone's amazement - Stanley has met a girl and therefore lost all interest in drinking cider-and-black in the Weatherspoon's in Milton Keynes while discussing Nietzsche.