Who shot the Moon Gibbon?

The news that the space shot threw up no moon dust comes as no surprise to some of our more extreme Beaker People.

There is a story going around the Moon Gibbon Folk that the first space shot, intended to smash into the moon's surface, was heading straight for the Soup Dragon's cave.  But the Moon Gibbon bravely "took a bullet" for his soupy pal.  

The Moon Gibbon folk are now really worried that the Moon Gibbon may have died intercepting the probe.  They're desperate to see if the moon's any smaller tonight, but sadly the cloud prevents them making the necessary observations. 

The rumour going around the Community that small, pig-like creatures have been observed by the Hubble Telescope, picking up two new lumps of space debris, is just that.  A rumour.

Shooting the Moon

I'll be honest, we Husborne Crawley Beaker People are unhappy about NASA's experiment to shoot two spacecraft at the Moon.

The complaints come on several levels. Firstly we have the annoyance at this typically alpha-male desire to go around shooting at anything that moves. Pheasants, quail, pigeons we can maybe tolerate - they're food, after all. But the Moon? It's not even real sport. It's not like it can duck.

Secondly we have the concern that by behaving in this manner, we are once again putting Humankind's size 11s all over something serene, beautiful and spiritual. But I don't suppose the NASA scientists will care about this.

Thirdly there's the slightly barmy fringe. The Moon Gibbon folk have concerns that their god may get hurt in all this should he be sitting in a crater in the wrong place at the wrong time. And some others are more concerned about the impact on the Clangers, particularly if the Soup Dragon's cave takes a direct hit. They're going to be hoping that the scientific analysis doesn't reveal traces of oxtail in the debris that's kicked up.

And then there's that more general worry. Why is money being spent looking for water on the moon when there's so many people trying to find water down here? And if the search for water is really to enable a shot at Mars - well, Mars is a cold, empty wasteland even further from the Sun than we are. If we completely wreck this joint, going to Mars is not an option.

Debunking

I'm not happy with some of the chat going round the Community lately.  There's been a certain amount of rather foolish scaring of those weak in faith with tales of supernatural beings.    So can I summarise:

Herne the Hunter is a rather strange hangover from the Celtic god Cerunnos.  Being Celtic he's almost certainly completely made up, probably with the intention of selling some rather cheesy, New-Agey worship CDs.

Even if the Moon Gibbon existed, he'd live, as the name suggests, on the Moon.  But he doesn't exist.  Some wally overheard us saying "Gibbous Moon" and made a religion out of it.

The Bogeyman is on slightly firmer ground.  But again, seems to be some ancient Angle tradition of the earlier Neolithic people whom the Germanic and Celtic tribes drove underground.  Probably, ironically, the Beaker Folk.

And Old Black Shuck.  Now I know that Young Keith claims he saw one late one night last winter, a six-foot tall dog with glowing eyes.  But I think it's more likely he saw a Skoda Fabia.

And there are definitely no ghosts floating around Husborne Crawley.  Nobody that I am aware of has died in tragic, suspicious and unforeseen circumstances, apart possibly from mummy and daddy when they had that hay-baling tragedy.  And they were too upper-class to do anything as common as roam by night.

Finally, Richard Dawkins is a respected Oxford don with a resemblance to a cheesy left-over curate from Holy Trinity Brompton.  He does not lurk at the corner of Crow Lane and School Lane, waiting to eat lost children.

I hope I've cleared this up.  Now can we please have some people attending at Howling at the Moon again tonight.  I'm fed up leading that ceremony on my own.  It's embarrassing and, frankly, it's a bit spooky being out there on my own.

Litany for the 30th anniversary of barcode usage in Britain

Dress code: Black and white stripes

Archdruid: May the code be with you

All: And with thy scanner.

Archdruid: Let us give thanks for the invention that took up to 10 seconds off the average shopping trip.

All: Truly it is amazing.

Archdruid: That lets the price be known by reading the GTIN from the stripes, and converting it even unto a SKU through the power of PLU.

All: Truly it is amazing.

Archdruid: Whether ITF-14, UPC or EAN-13.

All: Truly it is amazing.

Archdruid: Gathering Management Information unto the third generation.

All: Even unto the portals of Tesco Towers, Enfield.

Archdruid: We have seen the light.

All: And it is red.

Archdruid: Not that we would want to look straight at that light.

All: For indeed it is a laser.

Blessing

Archdruid: May your light margins be ever wide.

All: And thy check digit ever add up to 10 minus the sum of all the odd numbers times 3, plus the even numbers.  Modulo 10 of course.* 

* for EAN-13.  For other symbologies please refer to the GS1-UK website.

The Holy Cider Apple of Husborne Crawley

While collecting the Redstreak crop for our Beaker cider, Burdwit came across this wonderful and rare object.  We believe, given that this is clearly a fisherman, that we have a Somerset Redstreak in the image of St Peter.  Normally we'd regard this as a thing of great significance and possibly a portent of something.  But after the End of the World last week we're going to have to calm things down a bit and just regard it as "interesting".  We were going to put it in the Beaker Museum, but unfortunately Young Keith got a bit carried away and pulped it.

The Beaker Course

We're putting out a poster campaign to advertise the new "Beaker Course".  This is an exciting new development in Beaker mission.  We get nice, middle class people together, give them a good lunch, and then it's up to them what they believe - we won't judge.  We just like people to feel good, and ideally make a donation.

SITUATIONS VACANT - THE DISPERSED COMMUNITIES OF SPALDING

The Dispersed Communities of Spalding are looking for a male or female druid with vision, capable of leading our communities forward into new challenges.

We are a group of 12 Beaker communities scattered across the hamlets to the east of Spalding.  

Well, when we say communities, strictly speaking four of these communities have only one member each and there's only twenty-three of us in total. But we are dedicated to keeping true to our roots.  Which is why we insist on worshipping only each within our our own Moot Houses, coming together only for the annual Falling Out ceremony where we remember why we don't get together any more often.

In order to help our communities to reach out to the people in the Spalding area, the new druid must be capable of vision, bringing forward radical ideas to transform the way we "do community".  Which we will ignore.  They must be capable of relating easily with the young, teenagers, the old and the middle aged.  They will be up to date with the very latest ideas in Beaker Worship, but still willing to keep on with the same old pebbles and tea lights regardless.  

They must be good at dealing with frustration, and able to keep their thoughts very much to themselves.

A gifted evangelist and strategist, the main role for the new druid will be to try to work out how to raise the funds to patch up the roofs of 12 Moot Houses, all of which are in dire states of repair.  The boilers have gone in 6 as well.  The new druid must be able to inspire a giving attitude amongst our Folk, without at any point ever mentioning money.  It tends to depress us.

We are a modern and equal-opportunities group of fellowships, and will welcome the right druid, regardless of marital status, sexuality and gender, as long as his wife is good  at baking cakes and they have a couple of kids.

Jolly Hockey Sticks

In these environmentally-friendly days it behoves us all to consider the impact of our actions. So Young Keith's suggestion that we just dump all the smashed pumpkin flesh we are currently extracting from the Moot House, would have been totally reckless. And since he suggested throwing it in the brook, we could have ended up being charged with polluting a watersource.
On the other hand, if we just leave it to rot it will end up discharging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and assisting climate change. I'd hate to think that somewhere in Greenland there's a glacier with our name on it.
So we have decided to embark on a process of carbon sequestration. For two reasons, really - first because we just like the word "sequestration", and secondly because it was a very traditionally Beaker People thing, burying things in ritual holes. We've taken advice on this and we reckon, given the porous nature of the Greensand on which the Community lives, we need a hole about a mile deep which we can then cap off with a hundred yard depth of clay. Should keep the carbon down.
Hnaef will be handing out spades, and Burton will be banging the drum to encourage everyone to keep digging in time. Keep at it - remember this is for the good of the planet!

Anyone needs me, I'll be in the conservatory.

The Great Pumpkin Fight

Now that the fall-out from last night's events has diminished let us consider the things that have come to pass among us.

The Harvest Moon Celebration was to have been a moment of great spiritual significance - the entrance of the White Pumpkins, representing the full moon,  causing the carrying-out of the large Yellow Pumpkins, representing the sun.

Trouble broke out as Morbit walked into the ceremony carrying one of the white pumpkins.  Morbit is a keen gardener, and was very gracious in supplying us with the whites, and a selection of the yellows.  But it was as Morbit moved forwards towards the Focus Table, he saw that the central pumpkin was the  200lb "Prizewinner" he's been growing for the Horticultural Society Competition.  Hollowed out, and with a tealight glowing through the traditional runic shapes cut in the side.

Forgetting that his role as cucurbitafer required grace and solemnity, Morbit ran towards Young Keith, whose role should have been to carry the large pumpkin out through the North-East door, throwing white pumpkins.  One missed Keith by a large margin and plugged Burton Dasset, while the second ricocheted off Keith's left ear and hit Burdwit in the stomach.  At this point, the joint erupted.  Pumpkins, butternut and other related squashes and  - for reasons we have yet to get to the bottom of - onions started flying around the place.

In the confusion, and with the air becoming thicker with squash flesh by the moment, somebody dumped the "Prizewinner" over Morbit's head.  He could not take the pumpkin off his head because he had his hands round Keith's throat.  Confused by the sudden lack of visibility and the sounds of battle, he blundered out through the Summer Sunrise door and into School Lane.

Now, it's little known that there is still an ancient by-law in Husborne Crawley that means that anyone trick-or-treating out of season is to be regarded as an outlaw, the punishment for which is to be rounded up by men with pointy sticks.  The locals were happy to revive a tradition that has not been enacted in several decades, and the next thing Mobit knew he was having to use Keith as a human shield to try to fend off some of the fiercer pokes.  Eventually Young Keith's uncle the police constable turned up and settled the situation down.

Not so in the Moot House, where by this time somebody had decided to avail themselves of the fire extinguishers.  We can't tell who the miscreants were, because they were already so covered in pumpkin, but unleashing the foam at short-range on the acolytes only added to the mess in which we were by now knee-deep.

Some people have complained that I may have been heavy-handed in bringing the ceremony to an end at  this point.  But surrounded by fifty people all throwing autumn vegetables at each other, what was I supposed to do?  Pronounce a blessing?  I'm just glad that I still had a couple of canisters of Mace, a present from a curate in East Anglia, in my handbag.  Suprising how quickly things came to an end after that.

All ceremonies are cancelled unil Thursday.  First we're all going to have to clean out the Moot House, and after that we're going to have to wait until the smell of pumpkins dies down.

In other news, we are contacting the Guinness Book of Records to see if "largest squash-related fight in a neo-spiritual coenobitic community" is a valid category.

Praying with Pumpkins

Now that the universe is still here, we can look forward to tonight's Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ritual.

Symbol is very important to the Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley.  In Symbol we can come close to touching the divine.  And the great thing about the use of Symbol is that it means we can avoid all that tedious reading and studying books that so many other religions such as Christianity, Islam and Dawkinism are into.  

Symbols have the benefit of being both powerful and ambiguous.  So if we spend half an hour looking at, for example, a sea-shell or a collection of rose-hips, or if we are feeling particularly post-modern and meditate on that burnt-out speed camera that Drogin brought back from the A5 last week, or if we are feeling particularly worshipful and use a nice big picture of Stephen Fry - then our meditations are our own.  We don't have to waste weeks in late-night, Diamond White-fuelled discussion-forum abuse with other like-minded obsessives, rowing about whether that last semi-colon in Isaiah was inspired by God, or whether we were designed by hyper-intelligent aliens.  No, instead we get what we need from our worship and then we head off to the pub, or the woods in the case of the Fertility Folk, or a spot of late-night moon-gazing if it's clear, and get on with our lives.

Among the powerful symbols of our faith, the Pumpkin is important.  Although the Pumpkin is generally regarded as an American import, we believe that they were grown in England in Beaker times, but were ritually smashed by the so-called "Celtic" invaders as the Bronze turned to the Iron age.  In celebration of which, most Celtic races seem to be ritually smashed most days of the week.  That there is no evidence of this Beaker Pumpkin culture does not prove anything.  Pumpkins are edible and rot easily.  Where would you look for this evidence?  Inside a beaker?  Precisely.

Pumpkins as a symbol of the sun are a central point to this time of year. As we watch the dying sun sink earlier and more to the south each day - fleeing to the warm regions - we light our tea-lights inside our hollowed-out pumpkins to encourage him to return.  Glowing warmly on our Worship Focus Table in the Moot House tonight, our pumpkins will remind us that, though the wind may blow over Husborne Crawley, the warm days will return, bringing times of hay-making, harvesting, fruit-picking and other things that we subsidise the farmers to do for us.

The nice and oh-so trendy white pumpkins, representing the moon, will be brought into the Moot House tonight, as we remember that it is the time of full moon.  Not just any moon, either, but Harvest Moon.  But at this time of month and year, when the moon rises as the sun sets, we will remove the orange pumpkins as the whites enter.  It's gonna be so moving, I can't wait.

Banning

For once, not burning but banning.  But we know how swiftly one can turn into another.

The news that And Tango Makes Three is the most-banned book resulted in a Beaker Person asking whether we have ever banned books from the library.  Naturally we need to ensure that no Beaker Person reads anything that they may find disturbing to their faith in any way.  We can't build a religion on feeling good and thin air by letting people get worried at the drop of a hat.   And Tango Makes Three has cute penguins and a feel-good attitude, so we're fine with that.

So here is a list of books which aren't particularly banned but aren't particularly... well, welcome.  Let's put it that way.

Hardy's Jude the Obscure - too depressing.

The Epistle to the Romans  - too exclusivist

Autobiographies by current or former Man Utd footballers.  Obviously.  Apart from Giggsy.  Whoever he is.

Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods - even Beaker People aren't that gullible.

The Revelation of John - everyone's dead by the end.

Ladybird Book 1A Play with us (with Peter and Jane).  In these troubled times you can't be too careful.

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic - for its analysis of why women might claim divine inspiration.

Richard Dawkins, The Bod Delusion - A book all about how a 1970s cartoon character doesn't exist - is that really necessary?  It's particularly scathing about Aunt Flo.

Jane Austen - Emma - for obscenity

Karl Barth - Kirchliche Dogmatik.  We don't approve of this kind of lightweight theology.

Anything by Jordan.

The Left Behind series - Christians have enough trouble with other people claiming they're dim, without actually going out and proving it.

To save everyone the trouble of pretending, we've got Hawkins's A Brief History of Time in the library, but only the first 20 pages.  We figured we'd get more use from the rest of them by giving them to the Guinea Pig Folk of Stewartby to use for bedding.