Simon Cowell "Joins the Ordinariate"

Sometimes strange things seem to be happening and we need to find an explanation.
Or at least I do.

So this is in many respects a meta-blog-post rather than a blog post.

It is based on the observation that many people are coming to the Beaker Folk blog from all sorts of places that are not explicitly linking to it. And it took a while to understand why. But after going through Google Analytics and then following the links back to the originating URLs, I've now sussed it.

The explanation goes like this. In the side-bar of the Beaker Blog you will observe that we have a blog-roll. This is an ongoing feast of constant entertainment, covering religions and denominations of many kinds and none, astronomy and doilies.

Blogger observes this blogroll, and regards it as forming "links" to all sorts of other blog posts belonging to other people.

Blogger also has a "Links to this post" function at the bottom of each blogpost, that people can activate if they so desire. But because the blogging community is not so constantly cross-referring as we might all hope, that's a bit sparse on its own. And so Blogger is filling in links to these posts from the blog-roll of this blog. Thus generating more cross-references but giving everyone an inflated view of how inter-connected we really all are.

I hope that's clear. And now I'm off to join Burton for an afternoon's train-spotting at Ridgmont station. It promises to be a cold, lonely and depressing afternoon.

Official: Advent Over

That was the quietest Pouring out of Beakers I've ever known. I can't believe they all went off to Drayton's chapel for morning worship. And even drank his awful Baptist fair-trade coffee out of those chipped "Beryl" cups.

So there's nothing for it. Advent is hereby over.

This evening's Filling up of Beakers will now include mead in the beakers, and a generous helping of mince pies. We can then expect Dunstable Doughnuts at every ceremony from now until Yule, when the party really begins.

We're putting "Fairytale of New York" on a constant loop for the rest of December, alternating with "Walking in the air". I've got some reindeer in, and the Little Sisters of the Holy Herring have been trained to perform some beautiful country-dancing displays. So let's party!

A massive revival

What a strange morning. Praise would appear to be the only appropriate response. Apart, that is, from thanksgiving.

I was already looking forward to the first service of the newly-reconstituted Bogwulf Independent Funambulist Baptist Church. But when three score Beaker Folk appeared in the pews as well I did not understand what was going on.

However. I preached the sermon I had prepared - based on the message of John the Baptist. I told the congregation they were a brood of vipers, fit only for destruction. That only fear, repentance and grovelling could possibly see them dragged - if grace sufficient were provided - scorched but not aflame from the fearful infernal flames. I told them that the divine judgement was already upon them, and they were loathed with a heavenly loathing.

To the Funambulist Baptists, this was standard stuff, and they responded with contented nods. But the Beaker People in the congregation seemed quite happy. Afterwards, they told me that, however fearsome my preaching had been, it was still more cheerful than the Archdruid's current mood.

I must reconsider. Have I gone soft?

After the ordeal

Well, that was a specially depressing evening of Advent woe and despair. The Beaker Folk have mostly gone off to their rooms to contemplate the meaning of the Last Things that we have considered here this evening.
Apart from Young Keith and a few of his mates. They've gone off to the White Horse to drown their sorrows. Especially Young Keith who's had to pull a few strings with the constabulary even to be with us. He forgot which side he was meant to be on, Thursday evening. So he didn't even bother turning up to vote, took a wrong turn into Regent Street and ended up spending the night in Paddington Green. His cover, as being neither a Tory nor a Lib Dem, is blown. And the fact that Husborne Crawley isn't really a parliamentary constituency has come to the attention of the powers-that-be. So his political career would appear to be over, and I think we can forgive him having a couple of jars.

In retrospect I may have over-done it with tonight's music. "Everbody Hurts", "Nothing compares 2 U" and Tom Waits's "Lost in the Harbour" were likely to cause a certain depression to kick in.  The Smith's "Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me" was a downer as well. But oddly enough it was "Bright Eyes" that really seemed to push everyone over the edge.

In fact, as we left this evening, Marston remarked that the only thing that could have made it worse was if we'd all watched the X-factor.

Advent - continuing activities

A thoughtful and challenging evening lined up then.

First of all we will consider this post by the Maverick Philosopher on "Being dead and non-existent".

and then this one on the Epicurean Death Argument and Nihilism.

Lest this leave us in too light a mood, we will then watch the Newcastle-Liverpool game on ESPN. That should really help us to understand the concept of purgatory.

Dinner tonight is No-Spring Chicken with very little Thyme, to encourage us to think of how the hourglass is running out for all of us.

Then we will go out and look at the crescent moon, think of all the lovers that have met, wooed, cried and pledged eternal love under it down the centuries - and consider that they're all generally dead.

If we keep this up for another week, I reckon we will be in the perfect awaiting mood for Christmas. Don't you just love that feeling of doom and despondency?

A time for re-consideration

Catching up on some news from earlier in the weak - I tell you, it's just been a whirl of woe and disillusion since the new-look season of "Advent" kicked in and I've only just got round to commenting.

Yes, we were disappointed that our attempt to host 2096 alt.worship games was unsuccessful. We felt that we had one of the strongest technical bids.  Indeed, we could have hosted them tomorrow if we had needed to.  Literally, given that all it requires is to erect a large yurt in the grounds and scatter an assortment of silk scarves and pebbles around. And we had a strong bid team of Marston Mortaine, Alfie Knee the 93-year-old left-half for Husborne Crawley FC, and a bloke who once met the Duke of Bedford.  However it turns out that the Guinea Pig Folk of Stewartby had what FIAW termed "A more realistic grasp of the finances involved".

Some have questioned why FIAW thought it necessary to award the alt.worship championships so far in advance. I have asked Mr Sepp Yoda, the 900-year-old President of FIAW, whether this is just a transparent attempt to maintain control of alt.worship from beyond the grave, even long after he himself has passed away. He responded, "Bad losers the English are" and then went off to count some more money.

We are now taking a long hard look at our own bidding process. We will have to decide whether it will be worth making another attempt at holding the games when it next comes up for bidding, in 2103 - which at least gives us a long time to get some money on deposit at the current rate of interest. In the meantime all that remains is for us to go out and bring home the Golden Tea Light from Iona in 2015.

A Friday in Dunstable

I will say this much for Dunstable. They have no shortage of independent churches of a Baptist theology. Although, since none of them are in contact with mine, they are clearly all heretical and/or simply misguided.

As far as I can understand the people of Dunstable spend all their time eating Bedfordshire Clangers and Dunstable Donuts, and insisting that they don't live in Luton. I set up my soapbox and portable amplification system in the strangely-named "Quadrant" and informed them all that they are damned.

In other towns that normally draws a hail of rotten apples, tomatoes, eggs or, in Melton Mowbray, pork pies. Yet strangely in Dunstable people just shrugged and told me the car factories have gone, the truck industry has gone, AC Delco is just a building site now and the paper company burnt down years ago, so they weren't expecting much anyway.

I don't often say this, but I clearly need a mission plan here. I will have to raise up their expectations first before I can tell them how far they've fallen.

Image -Dunstable: The Quadrant Shopping Centre (Nigel Cox) / CC BY-SA 2.0

A profitable sideline

Mansfield Woodhouse is out on his rounds again this morning.

He's noticed that a lot of people have signs on their doors saying that they don't want door-to-door salespeople, and threatening them with the Police.

Mansfield goes round, knocks on the door, and points out that it's not a criminal offence to knock on people's doors. Then he suggests that, since he's a lawyer, if they householder hires him he will take out an injunction against himself to stay away.

He's made quite a few bob already. Some money by confusing people into actually paying for his services, and the rest by suing the ones that deck him for being such a nuisance.

So, like, Liturgy of reconciliation for People with Annoying Verbal Mannerisms

Just, like, gathering


Archdruid: Dudes! How's it going?


All: The Archdruid's getting a little trendy, methinks.


Just, like confession


Archdruid: So.... let's, you know, get some closure. We've all got, you know, stuff to say sorry for.... "just saying"...

All: We're just, like, soooo sorry? Especially for that thing where our voices go up like Australians so we always seem to be asking questions?


Archdruid: And we're sorry for when we always seem to be echoing the ends of other people's sentences.


All: ...the ends of other people's sentences.


Archdruid: So, the divine mercy's just like - so awesome?

All: It's just legend.  God's just so over our sins, sort of thing.


Sharing of, like, the peace


Archdruid: Peace by with y'all


All: Thanks yeah, we're good.


Final Blessing sort of thing

Archdruid: Go dudes and be, like, über-cool.

All: Ciao!

The Great Advent Sit-in

Shirty Beaker Folk around the place overnight. They found out the free Pernod* party was postponed until the Winter Solstice, which I thought might be more suited to celebration rather than the pre-Solsticial spirit of grim foreboding I was hoping to inculcate . But now I've got about 30 revolting Beaker Folk barricaded into the Dining Room, singing "All we are saying is give Pastis a chance".

They seem to think that they are in some way involving themselves with the students' action across the country. But as far as I can see they are just demanding the right to drink themselves stupid for a period of time at someone else's expense. And the protesting Beaker People aren't much better.

* Other anise-related drinks also readily available. Consume in moderation.

An Advent thought

Notice for all Beaker People.
I'm sorry if you've all had a traumatic time. But I do think it was worth it.

I wanted you to see the stars. The light of some of them left them thousands of years ago - if you had a decent telescope that could even be millions. The light from the Andromeda Spiral set off in this direction about the time that Homo diverged from Australopithecus.   Before the first original Beaker Person erected the first trilithon at Stonehenge (with a couple of hundred mates) the light had left some of the stars in our own galaxy. There are stars that have been dead for thousands or even millions of years, that we can see through a telescope. And just think of the gaps between the stars, home of a little dust, yet at a measurably non-zero (in Kelvin) temperature.

I was trying to explain that, however it may appear, the universe does not in fact revolve around you. Gravitational theory is pretty clear about that. You are monkeys clinging to a rock orbiting a small dying ball of gas in a fantastically large, fantastically doomed universe. I was hoping to give you a grasp of this fantastic, yet sobering thought.

Now can you please all get off the floor and stop whimpering? You're immensely important really despite appearances. That's the whole point. Oh, and the noise is keeping me awake.