Plato rides again

Plato is alive and well in Lichfield it appears. Last November the BBC recorded two advance programmes in Lichfield Cathedral. The first was for Christmas with appropriate Yuletide decorations. The congregation then went home, changed into Spring clothing and returned the same day to record an Easter version. After complaints on the legitamacy of all this the Dean of Lichfield Cathedral is alleged to have remarked: "Not everything is what it seems". For those who don't know, the Dean is the boss of an Anglican Cathedral and his word goes. I wonder if the good Dean would apply his comment to other spheres...

a Letter to The Times

An ex-blogging Times correspondent stimulated me to write this letter to the Times, but it was not accepted, so my blogging 'raison d'etre' is fulfilled!
Ref Winston Fletcher's lack of enthusiam for blogging. I recently started because I was constantly reading letters in The Times which I wanted to reply to. Either I did not get round to it, or I was not sure if what I wrote would pass the keen-eyed editor's stringent standards or the Law of Averages dictated that I had little prospect of getting through. I toyed with the idea of writing them anyway and publishing them as "An anthology of Unpublished Times Letters", but decided that was a non-starter. So I blog them instead, along with other thoughts, which is satisfying. I get the occasional reply, whereas the one letter I have had published in The Times generated but one response, and that from a stranger. Naturally this letter will go onto my blog if it does not survive the journey to print.

Estuary English

Can all you guys out there with masses of street cred and a deep knowledge of the ever-changing English colloquial language tell me what 'Estuary English' is. And why is it called Estuary, and which estuary is it: the Tees, the Tamar, the Tyne, the Trent? And if it's the Thames which side of the bank, the Kent or the Essex (i.e. Southend or Margate)?

strange bedfellows

It's a strange expression that, isn't it? Does it originate from a more innocent age? But that begs the question, was there ever a more innocent age? Since the Fall of Adam and Eve the world has never been innocent. But that's not the subject of this blog. Rather it is the news that Lord Jeffrey Archer of Weston-super-Mare has co-authored a book that is NEWS! Forget the Da Vinci book! This book has come from one of England's pre-eminent novelists and from one "regarded by many as the greatest living biblical scholar" (so Ruth Gledhill in The Times). The book declares that some of Jesus's miracles did not take place and that Judas was trying to do Jesus a favour. And so on. The greatest de-mythologiser of them all of course was Bultmann in the post-war years. Such writers maintain that the Gospel records had as their purpose to give Jesus Messianic credentials. It is no new thing to de-bunk Christianity - it started early in the living memory of the disciples. What has for ever seemed strange to me is that the most zealous of de-bunkers, rationalisers, call them what you will are so-called members of the church. God has done a great thing for us, a kind and merciful and loving act of grace which has no comparison in any other world situation. He sent His son to bear our sins in His body on the cross, that we might be saved. The sheer simplicity of the act and the teaching of Old and New Testaments to explain it is truly marvellous. I'm no intellectual and very simplistic perhaps, but I find only awe and wonder in the story given in the Gospels. If God is God, why are so-called Christian scholars so keen to dumb Him down? The danger of saying 'this bit is not true' is to prompt one to say 'well how do we know that that bit is true'? And on what grounds do we say such things anyway? I wonder whether, when we say the creed which ever one we use, whether we shouldn't add a list of terms and conditions to it. I have never read Archer, I have never heard of Moloney and I saw a book in Borders that purports to put the lie to the whole story of Jesus.
Meanwhile that author, Moloney and Archer will have their day and be forgotten, but the Bible will continue to be read and its message transform lives. Deo gratia.

Retrospective sorries

Tis the season to apologise for the sins of our forefathers. But how far back do we go? And for what shall we apologise? For spoiling the global ambitions of Napoleon and so causing the French to hate 'les rotbifs'. For giving Bluthner insufficient recognition for his contribution at Waterloo in getting Wellington out of a pickle - or was it sauerkraut. For sending our undesirables to Australia making them so angry that they always beat us at certain sports. For sending nicer guys to New Zealand and being beaten by them too half the time. For Anglicans and Catholics duffing each others' adherents up in the name of Jesus who told us to love everybody, including our enemies. For the medieval kings whose idea of a continental holiday was a visit to Agincourt and Crecy. For the Normans who came and spoilt our Viking cum Anglo-Saxon heritage, although the Normans were actually Vikings two centuries earlier. For the Angles and the Saxons who came and duffed up the Britons so they had to run away to Wales. to be followed 1500 years later by the retired and second-homing descendants of the Anglo-Saxon-Viking-Norman-French, so no escape there. For the Romans who came and left, leaving lots of straight roads and ruined villas messing up the countryside. For the Britons who came from , so we are told by-those-who-know-these-things, Eastern Europe, so predating by circa three or four thousand years the current Influx of Eastern Europeans, so nothing new there either (what goes round comes round as ever), and thereby spoiling England's 'green and pleasant land'.

But the biggest apology must surely go to inflicting the United States and English on the world which everybody loves to hate even as everybody loves to wear jeans, go to Starbucks and watch Hollywood, for had we left well alone we could have had a French Etats-Unis or even a Spanish -though current language trends in that imposing country suggest that may not be too far away anyway-all of which sets the imagination a-wandering...My sincere apologies for all those who feel they should have been included, but maybe this list is enough for starters.

The next list should be about returning relics and artefacts back to the countries of their origin, and my vote for the leader would be the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum which look so hopelessly lost and out of context when like a Dowager they should be gloriously and triumphantly decaying in the brilliant Greek sunshine.

Can you believe it

Did you go to university? Well watch out! There is health warning! It could count against your children if they want to go to university! Ucas, the University and Colleges Admission Service is putting this question on application forms as part of their drive to get more applicants from working class families into higher education. Imagine the scenario:
Interviewer: Did your parents go to university?
Applicant: Yes
Int.: Tough, have a nice day. Next applicant please.
App.: But you went to university yourself.
Int.: I know, but that's the way of it.
App.: But...
Int.: No buts - it's all there in the rules!
App.: You wait till I tell Mum about this!
Int.: Tell her and I'm a dead man.
App.: Well. just face it, Dad, look what will happen if we don't tell her!!

Unfinished Reading

Do you read every book doggedly to the end? The Times this week published a list of the top 10 Fiction and Non-fiction books that people could not wait to put down and forget about finishing. For your interest the Fiction list is, in order of dismerit: 1 Vernon God Little 2. Harry Potter and the Goblets of fire 3. Ulysses by James Joyce 4.Captain Corelli's Mandolin 5.Cloud Atlas 6.The Satanic Verses 7.The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho 8.War and Peace 9.The God of small things by Arundhati Roy 10 Crime and Punishment. The Non-Fiction list is:1. The Blunkett Tapes 2.My Life by B. Clinton 3.My Side by DBeckham 4.Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss 5.Wild Swans by Jung Chang. 6.Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allan Carr .7. The Downing Street Years by M Thatcher. 8.I can make you thin by Paul Mckenna 9. Jade, My Autobiography by Jade Goody 10.Why don't penguins feet freeze?
Do any of these strike a chord? Of the fiction list I have read only Captain Corelli and actually enjoyed the first seven-eighths, when the main action takes place during 3 years in the second world war. then it is totally and utterly ruined by the last eighth which covers the next 30 years or so. I am biased because I like happy endings and that is what that needed. A perfectly happy ending ocurring at the close of the war, and none of this modern stuff which the author must have felt was necessary to make sure that life is not always happy endings. Of the Non-fiction list I have read only Lynn Truss which I enjoyed tremendously because as the dúnadan will tell you I am always being peadantice about words and parts of speech.
Another book which I would definitely put on the list is Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" which I bought expecting it to be as good as his "Name of the Rose" and found it to be totally incomprehensible. I did persevere with it to the end, though I'm not sure how but could tell you nothing about it now. Definitely a putdownassoonas you like book.

Pity Prince Charles

Pity the poor heir to the throne, Prince Charles.Why? He, like the rest of the Royal Family and also of church of England vicars can do no right. A Channel 4 documentary accused him of meddling. What this means simply is expressing his opinion on certain matters and trying to do something about them. Most of us are bar or armchair critics and shout our mouths off about things and then leave it to the other guys - or girls - to do something about whatever we complain about. I like the story, doubtless apocryphal, of a man reading the account of Isaiah's call to the prophetic ministry as describes in Isaiah 6:6. Thinking about it he fancied he heard the voice call out as in verse 8: " Whom shall I send? And who shall go for us?" To which he replied, "Lord, here am I. Send my sister!" If poor Charlie boy says nowt he is cursed as being a waste of space and taxpayers' money. If he 'meddles' he is going beyond any and every conceivable call of duty and is wasted space. Except that he is a good lad as far his charity the Prince's Trust is concerned, apparently. And what's that to do with C of E vicars. Well, did you read about the vicar who objected to the choir in his church so much that he sacked them, because they were not singing the songs that are written for the modern era, but more diffucult ones. Somebody has said that you should never get between a vicar and his organist/choirmaster (usually one and the same person). In other words the vicars can never please everyone and yet everybody expects them to be 100% perfect in every department, duly forgetting that there is only person who has ever achieved such exemplary status after whom the early Christians were nicknamed, but which name became a flag of honour - and should still be so.

A new piano

Today I bought a new piano. Second-hand, or as Chappell's, which is really Yamaha, coyly call it, pre-owned. My current one needs a very lot of money to recondition it. This new one is already in much better condition, requires little treatment and is two-thirds the price. Mine was old when I got it 50 years ago, the new is less than twenty years old in total. It was all very easy really. Too easy, in fact. However, desperate times require desperate measures so it is perhaps as well the transaction felt comfortably smooth and straightforward, because there ain't no satisfaction playing Bach or Chopin on a honky-tonk joanna, no sir! All of which made me too late for a comfortable meal before an evening class, so a hasty Kentucky had to suffice. But I survived and lived to write this blog.

what hits you hits me...

I do not quite understand one thing about criticism of Government and Council policies. When either body passes laws that involve the members of Joe Public paying extra money, such as congestion charges or parking fees, or creating more nasty road bumps or whatever, the papers will come out with plenty of criticism, repeated by different interest groups to explain why such policies should not be implemented and so on. Yet I can't help thinking every time, "But here, wait a minute, won't the policy-makers themselves be affected by those decisions? They too will have to pay the increased tax, join the NHS treatment lottery, bump over those nasty roads. So what hits us hits them too." Should this be of comfort to us? In the case of money MPs are covered by juicy pensions, but not all things are to do with money. And local councillors do not have a fat pension at the end of their stint in office but will still have to pay increased Council Tax or parking fees, and so on. Or am I missing something?

Hair today, gone tomorrow

One of the signs of increasing age used to be that the policemen look younger. Since it is not so frequent to spot these elusive creatures another sign must be sought and I think I have found it. Namely, hair loss. When one has had a full mop of hair for several decades a visit to the barber provokes the consequent comment, "Oh, you've had your haircut!" Not remarkable when such visits might amount to only one or exceptionally two times a year. The difference in tonsorial distinction is quite marked. However last week I had my haircut, the previous occasion being around last October, and only one person commented, and that was my good lady when I sort of postured my hair in front of her - and I had previously told her I was going. It seems then that the considerable decrease in thatchiness has rendered it impossible to observe that any difference has been made. Which fact of course will no doubt lead to the ancient joke,"I'm going to get my hair cut." "Ok, very nice. Which one?"

Meanwhile I notice from our blog comments that Scotland seems to be a popular place - and I have to admit to some bias in the matter as the good lady is herself Scottish through and through, despite having an English father, who did make Scotland his home, and despite deigning to marry an Englishman and living in exile in England ever since. However do not fear Ken Livingstone will not venture to Sctland, he is enjoying his fun too much in London. I understand the latest wheeze is to gate the whole of London to make it greener. The mind boggles.