Murphy's Score

Another Mayday holiday draws to a close and it's nearly "time for bed". No sign of Zebedee tonight, but the Magic Roundabout which is the annual World Snooker Championship each Spring has brought an astounding new talent to the fore- Shaun Murphy. Amazing was another of the A-dominated adjectives used by the BBC commentary team in attempting to describe this new phenomenon with a cue action to rival none, yet who started the tournament as a 150-1 qualifier. Not surprisingly, perhaps, even the venerable greats of the sport of old who were present in Sheffield's Crucible tonight were running out of superlatives to describe his performance in what was a gripping 4 hours of television. Mind you, I did briefly doze off, but I was in good company as it seems quite a few of the spectators did at earlier stages of the 2 1/2 week championship!

I could not play snooker for toffee myself: the only time I've tried in the past was on the tiny table we used to have in the sixth form centre at my school, known as the ROSLA block as it also contained facilities to help accommodate the extra students staying around when the Raising Of The School Leaving Age kept teenage brats compulsorily in the classroom up til sixteen in 1973.
My snooker efforts were so bad, due to my poor co-ordination and sight problems at the time, that my cue went nearer to popping a hole in the table than to potting a ball in a pocket. That doesn't stop me and many other useless sportsmen though being an armchair spectator at this time of the year and being awe-struck at the precision of the players, the tension and the tactics and the colourfulness of the sport, which brought the game to the fore with the spread of colour TV in Britain from the early seventies. The concentration these two finalists- Matthew Stevens of Wales was the loser in the penultimate frame of 35- managed to maintain over about sixteen hours of play spread over the two days of the final was awesome, but so was their steely determination to win.

Of course, it won't be long before the hacks are out searching for the big story around young Mr Murphy, and no doubt the headline writers will have a field day tomorrow trying to top a great human interest story with the best pun they can muster after a not so lazy holiday. Incidentally, for me it was a nice restful one today including a nostalgic walk by my old school on Hanworth Park (or the Air Park as seventy years after the last flights it still gets called), as I recalled it's thirty years this month since I sat my GCE's- frightening! However, the BBC team has beaten the journos to it with at least one great opening for a sports story: "Shaun has re-written Murphy's Law tonight and shown that what can go right will go right." What an impressive player, and definitely one to watch. The amazing thing is, he is not yet even in the world rankings!

However, whatever else happens in Murphy's career, one thing he will be remembered for is being the last ever EMBASSY World Snooker Champion. While I'm a non-smoker myself and favour banning of smoking in public places to a degree, it does conflict with my basic libertarian principles. It is also rather sad to see the much-admired sponsorship of Imperial Tobacco (doesn't that company name speak of the Britain of old!) disappear from the game after over two decades of support.

WEAPONS OF MISINSTRUCTION
As it happens, the banning of tobacco sponsorship and even all forms of advertising of it, is largely Britain's response to yet another EU directive. It's rather strange now when you go into a tobacconist's or any other retail outlet for the evil weed, that the only brand they can alert you to is the leading purveyor of roll-your-own papers. This always makes me think of both my grand-dad and my Dad, who were Old Holborn smokers to their last- and sadly in my Dad's case I am sure that his latest breath came much earlier than it otherwise might as a result. I wonder though if we can look forward to the Rizla World Snooker Championship next year? Doesn't have quite the ring of truth about it, does it?

Truth and lies seem to be all that any of the chattering classes and the media want to talk about now, in the last three days of campaigning before the General Election on Thursday. As I type, Tony Blair is being grilled by Jonathan Dimbleby on ITV1, probably the penultimate drubbing he is going to get now but the younger member of the Dimbleby Dynasty is really making sure he gets a hard time of it over the chronology and veracity of the decision to take Britain to war over Iraq.

I feel a certain pity for Mr Blair really, whether or not I agree with the decision he took. I pity the population of our so-called democracy too that this now seems to be the "parting shot" from the other parties and hence the media, that will garner most of the coverage between now and Thursday. It's an ill-tempered, desperate attempt almost by some to oust Blair from Downing Street-even though all the opinion polls yesterday still gave Labour a slim lead over the opposition. The war has happened, like it or not- and as a pacifist at heart, of course I didn't. But let's look at the bigger picture, if you'll forgive the cliche.
Blair has already said he will not be seeking a fourth term of office, so to some extent we know that he will be on his way out anyway, whatever Thursday's outcome. So why continue to villify him and smear him at this stage when there are really far more important issues, both domestic and international, to be dealt with?

For me, one of the most concerning issues and the thing I most disliked with the last regime was the march of the nanny state and the threat to our freedoms their solutions to real or imagined threats bring. I've never supported ID cards, and I cringe at the amount of interference government or indeed anybody in positions of authority now try to make in individual lives. It is reaching some quite ridiculous proportions, and we become more like the US each day, particularly with our litigious, ambulance-chasing attitudes which are one of the most loathsome trends we have inherited from across the pond. You can barely turn Classic FM on these days without hearing an ad for "DGL Bluemel, Personal Injury Solicitors"

Of course, the public has to be protected from the genuinely negligent and the downright dangerous in our society, wherever they are found- which can be just as much in multi-national corporate boardrooms as front rooms or classrooms. But isn't it, frankly, just crossing the borders of insanity when film trailers on TV have to carry meaningless footnotes which warn that the film "contains mild peril". Oh come on, PLEASE! Who do they think we are? If this trend continues, can I ever expect to be allowed to show the ever-brilliant 1970s Lionel Jeffries version of The Railway Children to any of my favourite children, for fear the scenes of iron horse carnage nearly and neatly avoided in that film might damage young minds forever? Please let us keep a sense of proportion.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
In the same vein, I guess, there are whispers abroad in Hollywood now as to whether the Medieval Crusades are a suitable subject for a blockbuster movie. Funny how nobody seemed to raise these objections when Gladiator came out, or any of the recent epics such as Troy. The Kingdom of Heaven is apparently the title of the Orlando Bloom film which tackles this difficult era in history, but can a mere film of ancient history really stir up old passions and inflame conflict between the communities? I haven't seen the film yet, nor indeed read much publicity for it other than being attracted to the title in a recent market research survey on my cinema-going habits- which are fairly irregular to say the least. Neverthless, as a graduate in History and Religious Studies, I feel this is a "must see" film for me at the moment.

Not knowing the subject of the film until hearing about the controversy though, I wondered whether this might have been a nice gentle film about the wonder of childlike belief and enjoyment of the things of God which Jesus Christ commended us to emulate. I saw his point ably demonstrated yet again on Sunday afternoon, as I took my dear friends the Tett family to the Hounslow Urban Farm. This was an absolute delight of a day, and it was a joy to see their two littluns (one girl and her younger brother) feeding and petting the animals, using up some of their boundless energy on the play equipment, and sharing in the picnic I had prepared for them-though their little three year old seemed more interested in the ride-on bulldozers than his Thomas the Tank Engine shaped ham roll! I was even more delighted to conclude a pleasant afternoon in company- for I was alone this weekend with Matthew away in Wales, canoeing- with a gorgeous pint of Adnam's Broadside in the garden of The Green Man, close by the entrance to Heathrow. This pub is a welcome anachronism: a village-style local with a huge garden and children's play area, and six horses in the field adjoining. My young friend thought, as her Dad put it, that she was in horsey heaven. Ah, bless!

Children have such a reviving role for the jaded souls of all we world-weary adults, I feel. Surely then it should be them that are foremost in the election campaign, yet mysteriously almost children's issues have taken a lower profile than usual at this election, with the exception of the ever present mantra of Education, Education, Education. Before I met up with my friends yesterday, I was preaching at Christ Church again, and made the theme of my sermon "God's Manifesto". Jesus Christ didn't need to employ spin doctors to come up with fancy slogans, only to have to change them days later when the negative connotations were realised. Instead, he look little children in his arms, blessed them and said "Suffer Little Children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". Some of what he meant was that their trust, their unconditional love and their wonder at the world is what we should never lose.
Jesus actually made manifest - the origin of the word manifesto as I said in my sermon- by his actions and teaching, the simplest political mandate of all. Surely if we are honest and true, this is one which everyone aspires to carry out, so why do we not? "Love your neighbour as yourself"- no room for Michael Howard's Immigration quota there then.

More troublesome for many though is the premise from which only the fulfilment of that command can truly come "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul". Our present Prime Minister would appear to be a committed believer, but do I overlook the Blair blur and the Blah Blah to vote Labour? Or should I follow what has always been my own political ideal: "Freedom of choice, but equality of opportunity", to whichever party I perceive best meets that and still serves the kingdom? Not easy, but I am determined to use wisely my first-time postal vote in the Eastbourne and Willingdon constituency. Maybe I should just place my cross where the real Cross leads me.

VICTORY IN EUROPE BECKONS
No, not a slogan from the Europhile section of any one party-strange how united they all seem to have been this time round, incidentally. This is a reminder, as if we need one this week, that the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe occurs on Sunday- or is it Monday, or even Saturday? Apparently back in '45, there were doubts as to when the official end of the war should be celebrated.
Amid all the casualties of that barbaric regime which was the Nazis, as always one of the first but also the last was truth. Nevertheless, it won't stop many a commentator and purported witnesses this week to Hitler's last days in the Berlin bunker attempting to bring new revelations of what happened as the Reich which was supposed to last a thousand years was, mercifully for civilisation, toppled with a suicide pill and the dark despair of seven years was ended.

We should never forget the price paid for our freedom, which is why I emphasised in my sermon yesterday the importance of voting. I was inspired and encouraged to see that one of the two youngest members of the congregation, who has just turned eighteen, will be exercising his democratic choice on Thursday. Indeed, I believe that while we owe it's origins to the Greeks, government of the people by the people is probably the best way we as fallible and fallen beings can try to prepare the way for the kind of society we are meant to be. As a Christian of course, I believe we won't ultimately see that til Jesus comes again, and that will be a totally new World Order - a theocracy- which no amount of UN resolutions can change. With no more need for hustings and heckling, everyone will see that it will then be the best of all possible worlds, and it will be more wonderful and peaceful than we could ever imagine. But until that day, let us pray that we get the government we need, not the government we deserve!

TURN YOUR RADIO ON
Whatever happened to Ray Stevens? Was he the snooker player's Dad? No, not quite, but he did have a string of popular hits in the seventies mainly, including Bridget the Midget and The Streak (the fastest thing on two feet!). More philosophically though, there was a lovely song called Turn Your Radio On. The idea behind this was to tune your inbuilt "radio" receiver in to "get in touch with God", i.e to pray. "Everybody has a radio receiver, all you've got to do is listen for the sound", he entuned. Well, that is certainly true-but my own faith owes a lot to steam wireless, and especially to short wave broadcasts from such stations as Adventist World Radio, Trans World Radio and HCJB, back in my teens in the seventies, which really got me thinking about spiritual things. My practical enjoyment of the radio hobby has basically never waned over the years, but like many of my generation I guess it seems to get a new lease of life every now and then. Mid-Life or should that be Medium Wave Life, maybe. At a boot fair on the Air Park today, I picked up a Russian 4-bander, probably from the early seventies judging from the dial markings. So now it really is time for bed- yes, alright Mr Z, I hear you!- and recall memories of that exam-laden summer and listening under the bedclothes on a Philips RL-411 to the wonderful worldwide waves. Internet people, eat your cyber hearts out!