More than Just the One Word from God

My brothers and sisters, I am aware that it has been a while since I have shared the joys and struggles of my pilgrimage with you. I hope you will forgive my omissions - for I have been sore busy with the travails of my little group of Bogwulf Baptists. On a matter of great import - whether the singing of songs with diminished 7 chords is permissible in Divine Worship - we have been nigh cleft in twain. After a month of prayer and earnest debate, we have agreed to forego these chords as being of dubious holiness. I note that it was mostly the guitarists that argued against the use of any song with dim 7 chords in - and I believe they of all people should be closest to true knowledge of music in religion. But there was a minor 6 chord this morning, and a number of people looked nervous.

However, this morning's service was one of momentous occasion. I am not saying the worship was of a higher quality than normal - for who can weigh the quality of worship, save one who is thinking of moving to another church? And I am not saying the preaching was more biblical and spiritual than normal - simple modesty prevents me from making any such claim, although I may say I allowed myself to be humbly pleased with my exposition of the verse, "And Eshton begat Bethrapha, and Paseah, and Tehinnah the father of Irnahash. These are the men of Rechah." For all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

But after the sermon, we had a time of prayer. And Ezekiel Robertson, the local cartwright and wheelsmith, announced he had a "word". So of course we allowed him to speak.

Ezekiel had a vision last night, in which was revealed to him the plan of the new chapel extension which we are, apparently, to build. And Ezekiel spared us no detail of the plan that was revealed to him - the dimensions, the precise diameters of the screws with which the plasterboard was to be affixed to the walls. He told us of the colours of the left wall - and of the right wall. He told us the parquet pattern for the floor - and the wood therein to be used.

And then, having revealed to us that the walls of the building were to be of green sandstone (God clearly respects the planning laws - for the listing of the building is such that only green-sand could be used), he started to detail the precise dimensions of each stone. Surely if we are a church being built with living stones, we are to be careful over our use of stones. But perhaps a shorter summary would have been in order.

Ezekiel started to tell us his vision at 11.30 this morning. I note that it has now turned 8 pm - as the so-called Archdruid just ran over my foot on her cycle twenty minutes ago, as she flew back to her "Room of Vision", in time to see a programme on that pagan temple, Stonehenge, on that pagan televisual broadcaster, Channel 4. And Ezekiel has just finished telling us the full details of the cupboards and shelving with which to furnish the new offices. I thought for a while that he was speaking in tongues - however it turned out that he was merely giving us the names of a collection of Ikea furniture.

It has been a long day. It is an awkward decision to make - when someone has a word of revelation, how can one suggest he hurries it along or maybe cuts it short? In future, I shall request that any such words are brought - type-written and in advance - so we can decide the best way to assess them. In the case of revelations like Ezekiel's, I am going to insist on book form. 

Those Weird Old Tips that Nobody Tells You

How to look ten years younger in seconds

Take your glasses off when you look in a mirror.
(Bald men only) - Wear a hoody up.
(Men with beards) - Shave it off. It looks ridiculous.

How to lose weight in just a few weeks

Move to a planet with weaker gravity.

How to revolutionise your prayer life

Pray every day. It doesn't need to be fun.

How to love your neighbours even if you don't like them

Act like you do.

How to have millions of people really not care if you leave the country - in fact, be rather pleased if you do. In fact, take your brain-dead gambling ads with you. 

Compare taxation to sexual assault.

A Mothering Sunday Story of Familial Bliss

So I've just had to go down to the kitchen to help Young Keith out. He said that, for our first Mothering Sunday as a "proper" family he would cook Charlii and me roast beef.

So I caught him attempting to brown off the meat before roasting it. He's fried it too much, in butter, having cut the joint into small pieces.

I've told him all the things he's done  there.

In fact, you could say it was a searing indictment.

Well, you have to laugh. Or else you'd realise the futility of it all.

From the Older Son's Point of View (Prodigal)

So you've just nipped in from the fields to have a quick up of tea. You work in a hot countryside, and before the heat of the day really hit, you and the hired men decided it was time for a cool sit down while you waited for the afternoon sun to go down a bit.

And your younger brother - the one whom the universe apparently revolves around - the one that Dad can never do too much for - he's talking to your Dad. And the conversation goes like this, more or less - "Dad, you know I love you and everything - but why are you still around? I could do with my third of the geld."

And you wait for Dad to tell him what a presumptuous fool he is. Because you know he's pretty idle, and he left the cows half-milked this morning. And when you went and found Mum to complain about him - she just told you "he's not as old or strong as you." And you pointed out, yet again, that he's 18 years of age - quite old enough to know how to do his job properly. And she just shrugged, and said she'd hoped you would have  been more understanding.

But Dad doesn't give him the clout round the ear that he so clearly deserves. Oh no. Dad goes to the pot where he keeps the shekels, and pulls out the money the farm's made over the last few years. And you know that money is about half the value of the farm. And Dad gives him the money, and gives him his blessing. Three days later, off he goes, having bought himself a new donkey, and leaves you to get the cereal harvest in.

It's a really dry summer. The grapes are small, but sweet. So the wine harvest isn't big, but it's strong. And the winter rains fail. So you struggle to ensure the barley and wheat survive. And you've been so busy - digging the irrigation channels, where the lie of the land allows it - getting some crops in even before they're fully ripe, for fear the drought and the sun would tip them over the edge.

So the next May, you're wandering back in from the fields again. And you've worked really hard. The animals have been struggling, but they've got through it, sometimes you've carried them water. You've walked miles sometimes, to ensure they can drink, and can forage in the areas where what's left of the grass is the greenest you can find.

And then the rains came, just in time before the real heat returned. And today you've been out sorting out the cattle. And you're soaked through  - though it's not raining today, so it's not water you're soaked with, not given the job you've just been doing. And as you head back to the house, down the road you can see a dot.

And the dot grows to the size of a man, as he walks along the road up to the house. It's a scrawny man, limping a bit, been through the mill, clearly baked by the sun and washed by the rain, but still quite recognizable. It's Junior. And you can tell - as sure as eggs is eggs - that he's blown it. And you see your Dad running down the road towards him and you think - this is gonna be good. Dad's seen the little wastrel for what he's always been - a useless little beggar who comes running home now he's down on his luck. So you wipe the mud and cow-dung from your face, and settle down to watch the show.

And as he walks back to the house with your Dad, you start to hear words that set the alarm bells ringing. "Dead but now alive". "Party". "Ring". "Robe". "Fatted Calf". And that little waster is being treated like he's a king.

So how are you gonna feel?

Precisely. But.

If you've got any sense, you're gonna look at yourself - not at Lil' Bruv.

You're gonna ask yourself, "Who's really got the relationship problem with our Dad? Is it my brother - or is it me?

"Am I working for the love of my Dad - or because I know I get the other two thirds once he's gone? Do I look at the farm and think - this is where my family live, this is our home, this is where I belong? This is where I am rooted - safe in the love that I have never run away from? Or do I look out over these fields and think - "one day this will all be mine"?

"And all the hours I put in - is it because I love my Dad and Mum - or is it out of duty; out of a sense of obligation - I'm doing this because I have to  - and because I'll benefit from it - not because I want to?

"Do I go in after a long day in the fields, happy to be with my Dad, who himself has put so much into this farm, this landscape, do I listen to the stories of how this family was in days gone by, talk in excited terms about my dreams for the future- tell my parents how much I love them, share their life with them - or do I slump, exhausted, filled with the sense that I'm wasting the best years of my life on hard work and muck-spreading?"

And if you've got any sense, you're gonna realise that your Dad loves you just as much as he does your brother. You'll see that, if you'd been half the older brother you thought you were, you should have gone looking for him yourself when you realised how bad the famine was. You'll be glad that - against all the odds, and through his own - finally-found - good sense, and through the sheer love of your forgiving and generous Father - your brother is home, and safe, and loved.

And you'll get a pail of that precious, cooling, water, and wash your face clean.  You'll put on a decent robe, yourself. You'll put some oil on your hair, and make your face shine.

And you'll go and join the party.

Quick "Scouting for Girls" joke

I remember that joyful time when I heard the Lord of the Rings broadcast by the BBC.

Elvish isn't dead. I heard it on the radio.

A Mystery Solved, A Tradition Explained

It's been really lovely to welcome Aggie to our fellowship for a few days. At the age of 97, she is the oldest remaining member of the Extremely Primitive Methodist church that I was brought up in. A particularly strict sect, who took notice of the instruction in Psalm 8 to look up to the starry skies, all their services were held at night in a roofless chapel. As a result, the hymn books were always drenched in wet weather. The Ministry of Healing was much evidenced by Pastor Selby-Date, which was just as well, as the worshippers were constantly contracting Trench Foot.

Agnes left for Dorset in the 1970s, and  chatting with her yesterday, I finally got the explanation to a mystery that has always bothered me.

It was the custom, among the Extremely Primitive Methodists, to sit down during the singing of the last verse of the hymn before the sermon. Any stranger who stood up to sing it would be hissed at until he or she hit the pew. My parents told me that it "was always like that", and that was it. We used to say of Wesleyans, and other such heretics, that "They're so godless, they'd stand up afore the sermon."

But Aggie was a small girl when she saw the first time the congregation sat down for the last verse. She reckons it was about 1924. The Extremely Primitive Methodists had a new minister, who was used to singing Wesley's hymns in the "short" version. Accordingly, after what he thought was the "normal" 24 verses of "And Can it be", he sat down. Seeing him do this, the congregation did likewise. And so they sang the last verse in that position.

Now the congregation thought that, where the new man came from, they always did it like that. So, assuming it was the hippest new tradition (for he had come from that hotbed of liturgical innovation, Bedford), the next week they all sat down for the last verse of the hymn before the sermon.

Presuming this was what they always did, I guess, the pastor saw the congregation sitting down, and did likewise. And so that was the new tradition. For 70 years, until the damp really got under the walls and the building fell down.

It's nice to have a tradition explained. But, somehow, I wish I'd kept the mystery.

The Early Days of Twitter

According to its rival as a repository of all the world's knowledge, Twitter was created in 2006. For the modern, fully-functional version web-based version of the interface, this is probably true. However that's forgetting that Twitter, being a text-based service, had actually been in existence since 1959.

It was based on mainframe computers, then. And that's the reason for the character limit, of course - 132 being the width of a traditional computer report, and  8 being the number of characters available for the left-hand numbering column, making a total of 140 characters. The first eight characters became available for use after the advent of COBOL 2.

In the early days of Twitter, there were no networks as we know them today. The punched cards containing the "tweets" would be posted to the "@" recipients. If you wanted to send a message to all your followers, it could cost a fortune in stamps.

"have u seen this picture of u lol xxx" - An early victim of a spam DM regrets his "never had it so good" tweet. 

You couldn't put in hyperlinks to your blogs or interesting news items before the invention of the World Wide Web, of course. Instead you'd put your post code and house number in, and people would come round to see what you wanted to show them. If they were lucky, they'd get there before you'd thrown away the newspaper article you wanted to share.

It quickly became obvious that starting tweets with "To whom it may concern", and finishing them with "Yours Faithfully", was wasting a lot of the available characters. Likewise, after a while it was no longer necessary for gentlemen to wear morning suits when sending tweets. However they still sent their punched cards to a chaperone first, if wanting to address a lady, until 1974.

John F. Kennedy was an early adopter. "Ich bin ein Berliner" was famous as the first time a celebrity shortened a speech to fewer than 140 characters, in order to fit it into a tweet.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

Retweets were a real problem at that time. They could be so much work - re-punching the whole card with the characters for "RT " at the front. And the danger of mis-typing somebody else's tweet was very high - a problem said to have caused the "Bay of Pigs" crisis, when Khrushchev accidentally broadcast a mis-typed tweet from Fidel Castro. Castro, not having received any letters from Krushchev for a few weeks, and instead only receiving a blizzard of 140-character messages, asked if he could write him proper letters more often. The response, substituting a crucial "l" for a "v", caused worldwide panic. It should have read "RT @Real_Fidel @Nikita1894 Please can you send me more missives?"

Eventually, some bright spark came up with the idea of selling very short punched cards, containing only the letters "RT ". In those practical days, it was then just a matter of Sellotaping the prefix onto the original card, and sending it on to all your followers.

@Houston  One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

 With these slow methods of transmission, if some celebrity caused mass upset, it could take days for a "Twitterstorm" to take off. When the Profumo scandal broke, whole forests in Norway were cut down to retweet Mandy Rice Davies's famous remark over a six-month period.

RT @Mandy_RD well he would say that, wouldn't he? #statesecrets

In those early days, the tradition of watching TV while posting satirical comments on Twitter was already established. However, sitting on your couch with an IBM System/360 mainframe computer on your lap was always impractical. After a few people were crushed to death, it fell into abeyance until the invention of the Sinclair ZX-81. Then in the 1970s, punched cards need no longer be posted. After the initial data entry, tweets could be transmitted via the newly-forming academic networks such as Janet, which caused a ballooning of popularity through into the 80s. At this time, Twitter was mostly popular with molecular biophysics researchers, using the relatively-empty bandwidth of these new networks late at night. Being the sort of sad, single males that frequented labs in the middle of the night, they were attracted by those odd, spam user-bots that use attractive avatars to lure in the unwary. Being biophysicists, however, the avatars were more likely to be of this kind:

@H3N5 I'm a fun-loving glyoprotein looking for single  males xxx

It was in the 80s, however, that Twitter made its big mistake. With the option to use more colours online, and improved bandwidth, it chose a new logo. That logo had to be "now", it had to be "trendy", it had to be avian, it had to be cutesy.

They missed "trendy" by quite a way.

It was 2006 before Twitter got over the public relations disaster, and could start again. And the rest is history.

Cutting to the Chase on a Quiz Show

It's taken Young Keith a while, out in the garage with a laptop, a screwdriver and all the spare bits he had left over after assembling a collection of flat-pack Scandinavian furniture for the little cottage he and Charlii are doing up ready for the wedding. Odd thing about that furniture. The bookshelves turned out to have traces of clothes horse.

Anyway, he's done it. A fantastic advance in modern TV technology.

You see, once upon a time we had to watch telly live. And if there were adverts we had to sit through them and see what they wanted to sell us. Or nip out to put the kettle on / answer a call of nature. And to get round this, eventually we had video recorders and tapes, and then Sky Plus. So we could record programmes, and then fast-forward through the adverts. Especially important when watching old episodes of Last of the Summer Wine. I mean, I'm not 50 yet, and they expect me to watch all those adverts where Michael Parkinson sells you insurance policies?

But KeithVision is a massive leap forward. It can detect those "human interest" sections in quiz shows where the contestants are asked about their "interesting" hobbies, their unexciting jobs or their dreary families. All in the interests of killing a bit of time to stretch out the programme without adding any more questions - and thereby, presumably, saving money that would otherwise be laid out on quiz question setters. I have a feeling these people may be paid piecework.

So when Chris Tarrant is asking somebody about their wacky brother, or Alexander Armstrong is discussing what school they went to, or Victoria Coren is trying to find anything remotely interesting about the geeks on her show, KeithVision simply jumps to the next question, ignoring that whole "interesting back story" tedium.

If you're watching live, it can even fill the boring bits in, with back-questions from University Challenge or Mastermind. It's been an absolute godsend. I can now watch "Eggheads" in 16 minutes, "Pointless" in 12. I've not tried it on  "Celebrity Millionaire" yet, but we should skip through it in about 20 seconds, I reckon.

25 Ways to say "No" Without Saying "No"

It's one of those great dilemmas of leadership. Knowing how to say "no" when someone comes with up their latest brilliant idea / calling / vision, without offending anyone. But if you just take your pick from this list of no-substitutes, you'll be able to obstruct progress without ever once appearing obstructive.

1. I don't want to reject this out of hand. So I'll have to think it through first.
2. Perhaps you could find somewhere else that they've tried this. And maybe join them for a while, so you can really understand it?
3. I'd like you to bring this to the Annual Church Meeting. Coincidentally, we had one last week.
4. We'll need to unpack this a bit.
5. The people at this church are already attending an average of six services a week. When do you think they'll be able to make time for the Mission Service?
6. It's such a great idea, we'll need a sub-Committee to consider it.
7. Can you think of anyone this might upset? Anyone at all? Just in case. Well, maybe I can.
8. I'm not against it in theory, but it would put obstacles in the way of re-union with the Ukrainian Orthodox.
9. It sounds like a good idea. But I'm very busy.
10. But why would you want to try a "messy church" when the Sunday Club only has two children? Who would go?
11. At times like this, I ask myself what the Amish would do.
12. I'm all for it. But some other people, now they're another matter.
13. That's very modern.
14. I'm so excited by this that I'm going to give you an answer through the medium of mime. *does impression of walking against the wind*
15. Where would we get the money from? Of course, when I say "we..."
16. I'm all in favour. In the interests of neutrality I'm going to have to fight it tooth and nail, of course.
17. It's a great idea. But we'd have to do it on Wednesdays. I'm busy on Wednesdays. And I wouldn't want it to start without my being there.
18. It's going to be getting it past English Heritage that will be tricky.
19. It's such a brilliantly radical idea, we don't have anyone who would know how to do it.
20. I don't want to sound like negative here. But.
21. I'm glad you shared your ideas on your calling with me. It sounds very exciting. And let's not forget that making an alphabetical list of the gravestones in the churchyard is an exciting calling, too.
22. It sounds great. But I'm afraid that this isn't notified Any Other Business. We'll have to bring it to the next Committee meeting. After the election. Which I have a feeling will be very closely-fought.
23. I'm glad God's saying that to you. But it seems to me that what God's saying is "wait a while." Of course, with God "a while" can be a time. But then, patience is a virtue.
24. Don't worry, I'm fine. It's just the war-wound.
25. We'll have to discuss this after the major pastoral crisis that I can see unfolding just over there.

Bacon, Alcohol and Venison for a Gay Catholic Breakfast

I really must stop listening to the breakfast show on Radio 5. It's not good for my blood pressure (and neither is bacon or beef pie, according to this morning's show).

So two days ago, it was the Catholic woman who was interviewed, who said that the answer to alleged homosexual activity in seminaries was not to allow gay men into seminaries. She drew an analogy to letting an alcoholic loose in an offie, if I remember rightly. Which would presumably mean that those C of E colleges that allow in both men and women must be hotbeds of  middle-aged wannabe-clerical sexual frustration. Unless she imagines it's only gay men that have trouble controlling their - ahem - urges. I mean - a heterosexual male priest would barely be able to go to church for over-excitement, surrounded by so many females as he would normally be.

Then yesterday it was the health people telling us that we're the sick nation of Europe because, among other things, our consumption of alcohol has risen so much. Nobody questioned this alleged fact - despite the consumption of alcohol having dropped over the last six years. Maybe we do all need to drink even less - but let's start with the truth.

But today's chap really took the biscuit. Talking about the need to cull deer, he first of all announced the main problem was too many people, leaving us to draw the obvious conclusion. But then he came up with the most interesting argument I've heard in a long time. He agreed that the deer should be culled. But he stressed that this should not be done for sport. A fascinating argument - it's right that we should cull deer to keep the population down. But the person doing it shouldn't be doing it for recreation. On his argument, the only people that should be allowed to carry out this necessary task - are the ones that really don't want to do it. Logically, a team of crack vegan markspeople should be sent out to dispatch the excess antlered friends, and then afterwards go home, agonise about it and hate themselves. The dead animal should then be incinerated - as clearly if somebody ate it, they might enjoy the meal. 

Frankly, if we're going to be a world of sexless people, drinking water and not allowed to eat a decent venison steak, the last guy may be right. I'll let the deer inherit the earth. At least they can enjoy eating bluebells.

The Prodigal Older Brother

It's a lovely evangelical trait, always looking to the side where darkness is abruptly turned to light. So it's no surprise that people mostly focus on the so-called "Prodigal" son. But after 2,000 years, isn't he a bit same-y?

• He does bad stuff.
• He realises how low he is.
• He's saved in the end.
• God is lovely.

Yes, it's heartening, feel-good stuff. But where's the fun in that? Time you've been through a dozen adult baptisms, you've probably heard worse several times.

It's the older brother interests me. The boring, sanctimonious, do-gooding prig that he is.

It's not enough that his little brother has been down with the piggies, wishing he could eat the pea-pods. Not enough that he's trailed back, tail between his legs. Any normal older sibling, seeing younger sis/bro grovelling back, would have enjoyed things as they were. Nothing like seeing the baby of the family having to admit they've done something wrong. But you wouldn't want them pushed beyond humiliation.

But oh, no. This wally has to push it too far. Making up the stuff with prostitutes, for starters. Reckless living, sure, but who mentioned the prostitutes until the older brother dragged them into it? He's just trying to make things worse. He could have had a whole lifetime of looking smug, doing the "accepting-but-still-superior" look, making it quite clear that he was, fundamentally, charitable but in the right. And he blows it by acting like a Daily Mail sub-editor.

I feel there's a lesson in this parable for all of us. If God gives you the chance to take the moral high ground, don't bomb the village in the valley. It makes you look like a real prawn.