Alternatives to the Tube

Really, Burton Dasset tells me on his way out to the station, you wonder why people take the Tube on Summer days at all. In a world with folding bicycles why would anyone want to spend 20 minutes in a crowded bean can, with your nose in some stranger's arm pit, and then another 20 minutes re-emerging to the surface? How many people in Zone 1  will walk to the office today and discover what a small place the centre of London actually is?

Burton's vision of a London of people in nylon shirts and Spandex shorts, gasping for breath as they try to climb Mount Highgate, no doubt has its attractions. But I think TfL may be missing a trick in their negotiations.

Surely they should be investing in large stables, and a fleet of proper Hansom Cabs and horse-drawn omnibuses. Then, when the people who drive tubes go on strike, cars could be banned within the Inner Ring completely. The gentle people of Highgate and Hampstead would be able to rattle, Pooter-esque, through Camden and Islington into Town.

Tourists would love it. London would be transformed into a smoke-free version of the days of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper - which is, apparently, what everybody wants.

The Low Emissions Zone definition might want some looking at, admittedly. There are some emissions a horse can't help but produce. But if it takes off, we could introduce less polluting creatures such as camels, hamsters and ibexes. On the Thames, dolphin-drawn river boats could ply their trade. At night, instead of a scary trip down echoing Tube tunnels, a fleet of robot-driven Night Gigs could ferry Londoners home with mock horn-lantern-effect LEDs on the front.

A gentler, more human London, echoing to the gentle clop of hooves. A London free of diesel particulates and Tube staff. A London fit for the 18th Century. When will Boris Johnson catch a real vision?

And the Mac Shall Inherit the Earth

There is much upset on the wires about a Mail cartoon by Mac suggesting that Cilla Black, at the Pearly Gates, is being held up due to thousands of "illegal immigrants" trying to get into the Kingdom. I'm not gonna link to it. They've got enough clicks today.

And I'm not going to try and defend Mac for what seems to be a fairly crass cartoon. Though I don't imagine he was personally responsible for the headline, there's still no way of telling what on earth he thinks is funny here.

But I will point out the following.

Jesus said "the first will be last and the last first". I pray that Cilla Black, through the same grace on which we all depend, will be welcomed to the place where there will be no need for surprise reunions. But if there is a queue at the gates, all we comfortable Christians may find ourselves waiting while the people who really did suffer and thirst for righteousness are let in first, for the food and drink they so dearly need.

Jesus said "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it." There are people so desperate for the kingdom of heaven that they will climb over the fence rather than wait politely at the gates for an appointment with St Pete. You see those figures climbing over the fence? Do you want to be with God so much that you'd rather climb over the spikes than wait for somebody to open the gate for you? If so, then you've maybe grasped what Jesus says.

See that's the trouble with a halo. It's inclined to slip off and get caught on the spikes on that fence. If you're taking the kingdom by force, you're not gonna want excess baggage, are you? Leave that to the nice holy people, queueing up outside like a family from Luton on a booze cruise, marooned just outside Hythe in a VW Sharan.

Of course, there's other images of getting to the Celestial City than a gate and walls. There's the idea of getting there over water. Today, another boat containing hundreds of people capsized off the Libyan coast. Thousands dead this year already. Many Christians, many fleeing persecution. If a Christian running from persecution for his or her Lord's sake goes down in a boat, it's my fervent belief that they will wash up on the right side of that eternal Jordan that waters the trees of the holy city. And, if our God is as merciful as I believe, many others on those boats will wash up with them, along with people who have been frozen, fallen from planes or been struck by trucks as they seek either safety or a better life - and who could blame anyone for looking for either?

So rest in peace, Cilla. You were loved, and I pray that you're now reunited with the loved ones who go before you. I also pray you'll resist the urge to haunt Mac for making you look like Margaret Thatcher. But if our God is like I hope, then, like all the rest of us who have had it fairly easy and been pretty comfortable, it's only fair you'll have to wait for your turn at the gates. Unless you want to climb over the fence?

The Return of the Choir

This day had been long anticipated. Proclaimed by herald bards, luted by lutists and mooted by.... well, whoever moots things.

The Choir has returned. Nearly five years since they left.

Really, I blame Hnaef. In the Old Testament people got into trouble for burning strange fire. Well, in the Beaker Folk the equivalent is dodgy tea lights.

Anyway, turns out that since floating out of St Bogwulf's Chapel all that time ago, the Choir has been busking in the tunnels of the London Underground, scurrying into the depths at night and stealing sandwiches from late-night revellers. They've gone a bit feral, to be honest.

That does explain rumours Burton has heard among commuters of glimpses of white clothing disappearing into the Northern Line and ghostly figures terrifying the drivers of the last trains. Indeed, it's possible that they're the cause of today's Tube strike. Because who wouldn't want more money if they were always expecting a bloodthirsty alto to appear in the cab on a lonely stretch of the Bakerloo?

Of course we still have the Quire, and the two groups being that awkward thing, homophonic arch-enemies, will now have to fight a deadly battle.

Personally I'm hoping the Quire wins. All the Choir can now sing, after all that time in the tunnels, is "Mind the Gap". In four-part harmony. Plus descant.

21st Century Child-Warnings

"Hark, hark, the dogs do bark. Katie Hopkins is coming to town."

"Don't go out after dark, or Katie Hopkins might get you."

"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. Katie Hopkins in the morning -  she'll eat the lambs alive and uncooked."

"Full moon on a Friday? Doesn't matter. Katie Hopkins will get you any time."

"Ghosties, Ghoulies, Katie Hopkins, and things that go 'troll' in the night"

"Five and twenty hobby-horses,
Trotting through the alley -
Hatred for the fat folk, immigrants at Calais.
Murder for the old folks; bigging-up the troll,
Watch the wall my darling when Katie Hopkins is on a roll!

Herod's Other Victim

I was musing, as you do, on the subject of Salome.

You know, Salome. Herod's step-daughter. Sexy Salome. Sultry, sexy Salome. The one whose dirty dancing raised Herod's "he-rod". That Salome. Yes, I know she's not called Salome in the Bible. Probably wasn't called Salome at all. Because the actual Salome was the daughter of Herod. And that makes this little story even nastier than it already is. But alliterates, dunnit? So let's go with it.

2,000 years of being cast as Salome the Stripper. Salome the femme fatale whose foxy frolicking beguiled a king into murdering John the Baptist.

No. The villains are Herod and Herodias. There's Herod. The King. The big cheese. Numero uno, the head honcho. Except he's not. He's the puppet princeling, there to keep the Pax Romana. Walking the tightrope between upsetting the Jews and letting down the Romans. Either way he could end up with his head disconnected from his body. And there's Herodias. The woman who actually has used her wiles to grab some power. She's got a problem with John the Baptist. Because if Herod is the Jew he claims to be, he shouldn't be married to his brother's ex-wife. And if Herod takes the Jewish law seriously - as John keeps demanding - then Herodias is going to be a former queen.

The ironies are there, across the Gospels. Herod offers up to half his kingdom - a kingdom that's not really his, which the Romans aren't seriously gonna imagine him offering to a girl. And the girl can have "anything she asks for." But it's not the sort of thing a teenager is going to ask for that she gets. A bloody prophet's head ain't a pony, or even the 1st century equivalent of a career in the IT world. The thing she gets is the thing that her mother needs, to keep her backside on the throne that Herod is so fearfully trying to ensure he keeps the other half of.

So she's not a sultry temptress, a siren, a stripper, a seducer.

She's Herod's other victim.

Liturgy of Monday Evening

Hymn: Blue Monday (12")

Leader: That was Monday then.

All: Yep.

Leader: One down, 4 to go.

All: Yep.

Leader: Everyone got a Monday migraine?

All: Yep.

Leader: Everyone been in 7 hours of wall-to-wall meetings?

All: Yep.

Leader: Ever wonder what the point is?

All: Yep.

Leader: Anyone got anything to give thanks for?

Silence may be observed

Leader: Anyone?

All: Sorry, what was that?

Leader: I said.... oh forget it. You weren't listening, were you?

All: Course we were. White please, no sugar.

Hymn: Ruby Tuesday

Dismissal

Leader: You sure you don't need an early night?

All: Nah. We'll.... sorry, what did you say?

If you were the Only Gull

The intriguing tale of Yoda the eagle owl which is used to clear Bath University of gulls.

"During his visits, Yoda's presence has the effect of unsettling the gull population...."

Well, he would unsettle them. It's all that time he spends in the library studying philosophy. He sneaks up to the gulls and whispers "According to Nietzsche, no God there is...."

Bread of Life

I am the bread that gives life. He who comes to me will never be hungry. He who believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35)

Bread isn't really that special.

When getting ready for a party, we rarely ask ourselves "what sort of bread shall we order?" Bread's what we wrap bits of meat in to make sandwiches. And, sure, the retailers do their best. We have focaccia, baguettes, croissants, tiger bread, ciabatta. All attempts to make bread more interesting.

But still bread is bread. I've early memories of eating round my grandparent's house. Great slabs of unsliced white loaves - we always ate sliced at home - with butter, cheese and pickled onion. And it was the pickled onion and the butter that were special. Not the bread.

But I can still remember that bread - ordinary as it was - today. Moist, white bread. Eaten with a loving family. Holding together all the stuff we didn't normally eat.

In England, we have two staples. Potatoes and bread. Of course, as the place has become more culturally diverse, as the tastes of the nation have changed we've expanded that. Some people eat nothing other than pizza. Others eat spaghetti bolognaise - seeming endlessly. Among the trendy gluten-aware, quinoa is very popular, I believe.

But still, bread is very ordinary.

In 1st Century Judea, it was beyond ordinary. It was what you ate. Bread for breakfast, lunch, tea. "What's for breakfast, mum? Oh, yum. Bread."  Potatoes hadn't been discovered, pasta wasn't invented. And even if you'd had pasta, where would you have found a bolognaise sauce? The tomato was still confined to America. So it was bread. The basic, everyday, staple diet.

So how do we see Jesus? What do we see him as? Somebody special, to be confined in a pretty church or in a tabernacle everybody prays to who can't go near? Somebody white and radiant as the finest white flour, up out of the way? Kept only for very happy days or very sad ones? Only for Sundays when we wear our best clothes and not for the rest of the week when we're muttering and grumbling like Israelites in the desert?

Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree has a new vicar - Parson Maybold - who, in the opinion of the parish, takes his duties far too seriously. He fixes the font, rather than have to baptise babies by spitting on his fingers. He insists on visiting people when they're doing their day-time work, chucking cinders or waste water out. He doesn't respect other people's dignity - when he meets one of his congregation with all his clothes (the congregation member that is) ripped to shreds after climing through brambles, Revd Maybold will stil talk to him. He's the villain, to a degree, of the book because he insists on getting rid of the Quire, or village music group, and then tries to marry the organist. But his attitude - that it's not about just Sundays - that's what I'm trying to get at here.

Jesus is not the cake of life, the blancmange of life, the champagne of life. He's the bread of life. He is there with us in all the ordinariness - not just waiting for us in the special moments. He's the bread, the wine, the water - all the staples of the 1st Century Jew. He's in the ordinary every minute, making it extraordinary. In the trudge to the bus stop, the traffic jam on the M1, the person grumbling with a sore head, the morning when you just can't be bothered, the sore ankle, the ratbag who won't work with you, the person you pass in the street. He's in the ordinary all the time. He's the bread of life, who you need every day to live.

And of course, if Jesus is in every moment of life - then he makes every moment special.

Letters to the Church Magazine - August

For those who haven't gathered via Facebook, Twitter or actually getting the magazine delivered - the August edition of the Letters to the Church Magazine is out.

Is your name nailed to a tree in Grilsby Forest?

The Really Wild Hunt

Just had Herne the Hunter round, complaining.

Apparently after the sad case of Cecil the Lion, there's been a realisation in supernatural circles that chasing down your prey and killing it is not as popular with the public as it once was.

As a result, Gabble has been limited to only two Ratchets, which can only be used for the purposes of flushing souls out. The old use of a pack of Ratchets to tear souls apart is totally out of the question. Which is going to make the sounds of the Hunt going overhead nothing like as scary as it used to be.

As Herne said, it's not a Wild Hunt any more. In fact, to steal a line off a famous anthropomorphised gorilla (and let's face it, if we don't anthropomorphise animals what are they for?) - they're not so much Wild as Livid.

Lammas Day

Archdruid: Lammas Day arrives again!

All: It's been ages. We only seem to get Lammas Day once in a blue moon.

Archdruid: That's because we sometimes celebrate Yorkshire Day instead.

All: Gradely. Gradely.

Archdruid: And so we celebrate Lammas - the day of....

All: Lambs?

200 lambs are driven through the Moot House

Archdruid: No....

All: Lambic beers?

All may open a lambic, take a swig and go "oooh! That's sharp."

Archdruid: No.....

All: Lamps?

All may take a light and put it on a stand.

Archdruid: No! Loaves!

All: Loaves?

The false ceiling of the Moot House is released, bombarding the Beaker Folk with croissants, rolls, buns, cobs, baps, baguettes, cottage loaves and slices of white.

Archdruid: Loaves!

All: Nah, can't see it. Lammas don't sound anything like loaves.

Archdruid: It's from Anglo-Saxon. It's traditional. It was originally "hlaf-mass".

Daphne: With a silent "h", like "Hnaef".

All: Nah. Anglo-Saxon's English, isn't it? So it can't be traditional. We don't have any traditions of our own. That's why we borrow other people's.

Archdruid: Finish off with Yorkshire Day again?

All: Gradely.

Archdruid: Then I'll sithee.

All: Geoff Boycott's granny could have caught that tea cake in her pinny.