Anyway...

Father, Christmas!

2010-12-25T12:25:00.002Z

The big guy in red is now safely back home. I would say at the frozen North Pole, but it seems like much of the northern hemisphere is frozen this December anyway. Global freezing, anybody?

Snow, ice. Red noses on humans as much as hardy reindeer. Mysterious visitors at odd hours of the night, arriving in darkness. Calling at houses brightly lit with beautiful, welcoming colours- yet often the cold colours of icicles and clear blue skies. Mince pies and one for the road- or is that sky- for the children's favourite. And not a few adults, too, particularly those of the Coca-Cola Corporation who first fashioned the modern red image of an ancient figure. Santa Claus, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle- or as we Brits have always preferred to call him Father Christmas. Bringer of gifts to little boys and girls who've been good all year.

Not quite. Beautiful, charming and comforting though most of this sentimental yet sacred Saturday will be as it falls this year, the name of the day reveals the real "reason for the season". We've been anything but good 'little' children every other day this year, actually! We've said things we've regretted, hurt those we should love the most, offended those we had no cause to. Or as a service book puts it "in thought, in word and deed. Through Ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault".

It sounds like judgment has been passed. We don't deserve to see the most lavish gifts piled under a tree, as we become buried beneath a tonne of wrapping paper. We don't deserve even to gather up the crumbs of the last roast potato- possibly a gift from Aunt Bessie to aid a mother pregnant with expectations of family life at it's best. Actually, we're miserable wretches. Once we were called sinners.

Indeed. A strange word, almost as incomprehensible and unacceptable to some as flying livestock and bearded old gentleman popping up and down chimneys. But this is reality. The reality which led to the greatest paradox of all. A gift beyond measure. A treasure wrapped not in brightly coloured paper, but improvised swaddling clothes. There was no brach of Mothercare when the greatest mother of them all delivered her first born.

Tradition tells it was a cold place too, a dark night. You couldn't get a hotel room, even less a journey home, because of the oppressive demands of an occupying empire and their puppet rulers, especially one called Herod. No cosseting from central heating, but instead the smell as well as the warmth of cattle, sheep and donkeys.

The greatest gift of all was packaged not in impossible to open plastic, but in flesh that was to be mercilessly pierced and a body broken just 33 years later. What sort of a life is that? Seems almost like one of those toys that kids will play with briefly, and then gets forgotten.

Hardly. For the life and death of this gift- from a Father who loved his children so much he could not let them suffer the perpetual punishment they deserved- was his own dear son- has had more impact on humanity than anybody else, or any movement, or any ideal, that has ever existed in human history.

The greatest gift of all comes from our Father- God with us, Emmanuel. Not Christmas, but Christ- or Jesus by name. A friend and a brother- not just for Christmas but for life, now and forever. Isn't that worth the biggest "thank you" ever- and good cause to celebrate.

However you're enjoying, or perhaps enduring, this Christmas, I pray it may bring you peace, comfort, hope and love. Merry Christmas! God Bless

On the Passing of PAL pals

2010-08-28T12:53:00.005+01:00

'Phased Alternating Line'- the British TV standard. But even TV doesn't stay the same for long these days. John Logie Baird may have invented it in the 1930s in the modesty of a Hastings house, but there's a real battle on these days- for audiences and for format- web TV, HDTV, 3DTV, Digital TV, Freeview, Freesat, Ball and Bat, Take That....

Hang on, my brain hurts! Yet some of the programmes seemed as if they'd go on forever, rocks of stability in a river of changing tastes and technological tides. Even this though is no longer so. In the coming weeks, two ITV stalwarts- police shows both, respectively The Bill and Heartbeat will stop plodding on- in the case of the former over a quarter of a century after those famous copper bottoms (well, shoe bottoms, anyway) first trod the beat in the original titles.

It seems like the end not just of a TV season, but an era, just as the rather erratic sunshine on this last Bank Holiday weekend before Christmas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland signals the end of the holidays for many. But perhaps the most poignant passing from the small screen this week is of a collection of characters first seen back in those far-off days of 1973, when there were just three channels available to British viewers- and many households, like mine, didn't even yet possess a colour TV set.

37 years. Until recently it claimed the title of the world's longest running TV sitcom. I must confess I haven't been a regular viewer of this show for some time, but like millions of others around the world who'll be watching re-runs as if in a time warp for years to come, I shall miss its gentle charms. And not least, the haunting harmonica part written into the theme music by the brilliance of Ronnie Hazlehurst.

As a real-life, somewhat younger "Cleggy" attempts to keep Britain in order while his boss wallows in the post-puerpal delights of his second daughter, Florence Rose Endellion Cameron, the deputy Prime Minister's fictional namesake will be the last voice heard tomorrow evening just before 8.30 p.m on BBC One. AKA "the voice of Wallace", veteran actor Peter Sallis, OBE, will be left to put the bottle in the re-cycling bin.

Farewell, LOTSW. Here, in tribute, is my eulogy to a quaint piece of English TV history, to be sung to the aforementioned theme tune. It's no match for a similar effort written a few years ago in the wake of Compo's death, but I hope fans and detractors both might appreciate it:

A few miles from Huddersfield
The Pennine stones are rugged lime
The water’s clear
The folk no fear
In this country of thine

Some old tykes
With ageing lass
Who polish proud
Their Yorkshire brass
In Autumn sun
They still have fun
They never heard called “time”

But now my friends,
That time has come
That everyone must face
The bottle full
Of youth’s sweet dew
Is lost in the mist...

But while there’s
Still breath in me
And this glass still half full
These weathered men
Are boys again
With promise, hope and glee

So come my friends
Don’t shed a tear
At passing of t’year
For this is life
E'en with some strife
May it never end

We’ll drink then
The vine’s sweet fruit
And ponder days of yore
Our days we’ll spend
And laugh til ends
Last of the Summer Wine

(c) Mark A Savage 2010
Click on the title of this posting for a link to the "Summer Wine" Appreciation Society, and some other lyrics to the tune- which I had not read before I wrote this. They include, poignantly, some written by the late Bill Owen, who played Compo, and which were played on the TV episode which marked his passing in the show, shortly after the actor's death.

Who Ate All the Pies?

2009-08-09T22:26:00.004+01:00

It's supposedly a familiar cry on the terraces at football grounds up and down the land, as some player who's clearly not in the prime of fitness gets a fairly gentle ribbing from the crowd. Where this peculiar saying started though, goodness only knows.

There's nothing like a tasty pie, be it fruit-laden or meat-filled, or even a decent cheese and onion pasty. My younger brother actually makes a pretty mean chicken and ham one, for the record. And let's not forget the virtues of the humble sausage roll, veteran culinary guest as so many picnics this time of the year.

But you can, or should, only eat so much pastry, or else you end up becoming more lard-laden than the fatty shortening that makes this universarlly popular treat, and which gives pies and tarts that uniquely satisfying "mouth feel".

Anybody looking at my middle aged spread (and no, it's not Flora) might well think I'd been spending too much time in Greggs, supposedly masters of the pasty, but in fact I eat very little pastry, deliberately- but far too much, I know, of other food. I do like my grub.

Nevertheless, I'm at a loss to know why somebody combined the search terms "Mark Savage Pies" in Google, and got pointed in the direction of this blog! Even stranger is the fact, according to my site meter, that they then spent quite a time reading it. I'm flattered, or should that be fattered?

There are dangers, obviously, in relying too much on a pastry-filled diet and becoming ever more flabby as a result. The same thing applies just as much to spiritual the spiritual diet, I think. We can rely too much on quick fix soundbites or Sunday "sausage rolls" of worship. Yet it's extra-ordinary what a healthy diet of bible-based food, with a prayer topping, can do for the inner man (or indeed, woman or child). Rather than pastry, we need to take in more bread- and not just five slices a day, the well-balanced way so they say.

Jesus Christ claimed to be the bread of life, giving the inner man sustenance that not even the finest pastry chef could concoct. We can never 'eat' too much of him. Spiritual sustenance from the Word of God is the real fuel which makes life taste so much richer, and I'm happy to eat of that til all the flour mills run dry.

Today is D-Day

2009-06-06T07:49:00.002+01:00

"Today is D-Day."

The 6th June 2009 marks the 65th anniversary of the daring invasion of Normandy by thousands of Allied troops. It was the beginning of liberation for millions of ordinary people across Europe, who had lived under the oppression of the evil Nazi reich for many years.

But what did the “D” in D-Day stand for? Believe it or not, nothing! It was just an easily remembered name, but given the benefit of what happened next, perhaps the ‘D’ could mean “Decision”?

This has been a decisive week for many in British politics, with mixed results. The fallout from the elections on Thursday will have a decisive effect on many people in the public eye, as well as everybody else affected by their decisions. It all begins, though, with a simple cross.

Being a Christian is a decision. Nobody forces it on us and we have free will. In fact, Christians believe that God gave us the freedom to make our own decisions from the beginning of human history. What a great freedom- liberation indeed!
Except too often freedom has been misused, with disastrous consequences. The story of Adam and Eve shows that.

Mercifully for us though, the simple cross of Christ brought a chance to start again and be liberated again. Because of His love for us, God gave us all a chance to start all over again.

Like making a decision on where to place a cross on a 3-feet long ballot paper, making a decision for Christ might not be easy for some. It’s right to ask questions. Churches are places where questions can be asked. In countries like Britain which, for the moment, remain free, you can do so safely. That's still not the case in many countries.

Last Thursday also marked the 20th anniversary of the Tianamen Square massacre in Beijing, when lives were lost, senselessly, in the cause of freedom. In a society which officially renounced religions, Christians were among the mercilessly persecuted. And, though the gospel is spreading like wildfire in China today, it can still be a tough place to be a believer. In many other countries, it's worse still.

Is anything worth laying down lives for? Were the young lives who their old comrades will remember on the beaches and town squares of coastal Normandy today given for nothing.

Far from it. Joel Edwards, former director of the Evangelical Alliance in Britain, has just quoted the text which led to the real D-Day, on his Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4:

"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends"

Crown Caught

2009-04-09T22:46:00.002+01:00

It's not been a good week for the law, or at least the law enforcers. Today, Britain's top anti-terrorist branch policeman, Bob Quick, lived up to his name as he was forced to hastily resign from the Metropolitan Police Service, following the sort of momentary mistake anybody could make, but which was likely to lead to devastating consequences. It seemed highly appropriate on a day remembered in history for the most disastrous of 'mistakes' of all, yet which changed the world.

Quick was photographed as he arrived for a routine Downing Street briefing. No problem in that, except that a document marked "Secret" relating to "Operation Pathway" was clearly legible under his arm, rather than concealed safely away as it obviously should have been. The much-respected senior Met man took the only honourable course of action in resigning his post for his mistake, but as he did so, thirty years plus of invaluable experience was surrendered along with his warrant card. It seems such a tragedy, for such a momentary error.

On the same day, meanwhile, an un-named officer of the same constabulary was suspended from duty after video footage obtained by The Guardian seemed to show police had baton-charged a 47-year old newspaper seller, Ian Tomlinson, who later died of a heart attack after being caught up in the demonstrations last week as the G20 summit of the world's most powerful leaders met in London.

Justice is said to be blind- hence the blindfold and the scales carried by the statue of "Justice" which is located just metres from where this fatal event took place last week. The famous statue sits atop the Central Criminal Court,more commonly known as The Old Bailey, in the City of London itself. Here, Her Majesty's Courts Service supposedly ensures that justice is seen to be done. Many may come here to be prosecuted- too many- but it should be that only the guilty are convicted of a crime and punished.

The right of an English free man to be tried by a jury of his peers is regarded as a sacred principle dating back over 800 years, respected and copied by legal systems all over the world. Trial by jury, based on the evidence alone and the impartial decisions of twelve men and true (and women!) is one of our most treasured liberties.

Criminal trials in England are conducted in the name of the sovereign, often abbreviated to R for Regina. In theory, at least, anybody who believes there has been a miscarriage of justice can take it right up to the sovereign when all other avenues of justice have been exhausted. "R" was once considered God's representative, and thus liable to show neither fear nor favour- even though the lessons of history and many 'bad kings' prove otherwise. In practice though, the Law Lords or soon the "Supreme Court of the United Kingdom", a controversial new arm of the judicial system, are the highest court in England (we'll ignore for the moment the newer influence of the European Court- it only seeks to complicate matters further!)

How very different from the kangaroo court proceedings which 'convicted' the King of the Jews, many would say the Universe, on this night about 1976 years ago. It's Maundy Thursday, taken from the latin "Mandatum", meaning "commandment" and referring to the new commandment which Jesus Christ gave to his followers at what has come to be called the "Last Supper": 'to love one another, as I have loved you'. This moving and momentous event, the basis of the Holy Communion service which is a sacred part of many Christian tradition's worship, happened before he was hastily arrested following betrayal to the authorities by one of his own. But where was the evidence, where were the impartial jurors? Above all, what was the charge?

The nearest ancient Palestine under Roman law- ironically the basis of much modern English law- got to a supreme,impartial judge was Pontius Pilate, the pro-consul. At the dead of night, he conducted what amounted to trial rigged by the occupied people he feared might riot, and the defendant had absolutely no chance of a fair hearing or acquital, even when he spoke in his own defence. It would have made little difference if he did call on evidence though- all his witnesses, even his best friend, abandoned him at his darkest hour to protect their own interests. What kind of justice is this? If it happened today, surely there would be an outcry.

Or would there?

How quick are we still to jump to our own conclusions about people and situations, irrespective of the evidence. The evidence in this case should have had this man not thrown into a dungeon, but mounting a throne. Instead of which, the next day he was nailed to a wooden cross on a high mound used as a rubbish dump outside the city walls, known as Calvary. He was left clothed not in the garments of royalty, but with nothing more than a mock crown of thorns and a notice above his head "I N R I"- latin initials for "Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm" - This is Jesus, King of the Jews.

There, in agony, the death penalty was not despatched swiftly. Little mercy was shown. Instead, in the mid-day heat, he bled and suffocated slowly, as was the Roman customary capital punishment, but he was innocent of any crime!

Why was there no outcry?

There was. It came from the victim himself. He cried for us :"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do". What kind of person can show that kind of selfless thought for others in the extremes of their own agony in extremis.

Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews and the saviour of the world could.

Nothing can really ever save this world now from the agony of its own depravity, debauchery, defunct debentures and dereliction of duty, than this man who Christians believe was God in the form of man, who gave so much, for so many, so long ago. It is we who should be in the dock, up before the supreme 'beak', or rather being. We should be enduring concurrent death sentences.

But there's no need for a trial for us. The verdict has been passed: 'guilty as sin' on all humanity. The Bible says as much: "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". It needed no foreman to announce this, no charge sheet to sustain the accusation, and no human advocates, however talented, could get us off on a technicality. Yet the unbelievable result of Jesus's death was 'all charges dropped, you're free to go, and live your new life to the full, for ever".

What amazing justice is this?

Divine.

In the Easter school holidays back in the seventies, when afternoon TV in Britain was still in its infancy, I used to love a Granada TV show called "Crown Court". Running usually over three days in half hour lunchtime slots, this was the closest British television could get at the time to portraying the proceedings of a real court while cameras were banned from actual court cases (with few exceptions, they still are). Although the dramatis personae of each new 'case' were real actors, the jury were ordinary members of the Great British Public. It was their verdict which determined the outcome of each case, not the writer's.

Just as enjoyable for many as the cases though, were the closing credits of each case. The music used was called "Distant Hills". This Maundy Thursday night, moving into Good Friday, I prefer to think of another distant hill, in fact nearly a thousand miles from where I sit, in Jerusalem. In that 'City of Peace' agony, war, bitterness and hatred still condemn many to premature death. If only they too could be saved by Jesus, as beautifully portrayed in Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander's hymn which was one of my schoolboy favourites:

"There is a Green Hill Far Away
Outside A City Wall
Where the dear Lord was crucified
Who died to save us all"

If you may, and if you can, keep silence to remember that, and the supreme irony that it was Good that it happened, this Good Friday. God Bless.

Hollow Cause

2009-01-27T22:48:00.005Z

Today, 27th January, is Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK, marking the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union on this date in 1945. It has been held on this date since as recently as 2001.

Some might question whether we should be still commemorating such atrocities as occurred in that dreadful death factory and many others under the Nazi's sickeningly named "final solution" nearly seventy years ago, but remember we must. The evil that man does was not liberated on that day, but dispersed instead to new sites of atrocity- like Cambodia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and...

Wherever it happens, human suffering and death caused by the loveless acts of other humans is unfathomable, unacceptable, almost unforgiveable- yet somehow those tragic survivors of even the Holocaust have done this since 1945. Their strength of spirit speaks volumes, and destroys the power of the hatred of their perpetrators. Burning coals indeed to the death mongers. Even as a man of strong faith, could I ever do the same? Please God by grace I could.

Yet I find it hard indeed to forgive the pathetic excuses trotted out by the British Broadcasting Corporation this week for failing to broadcast a humanitarian aid appeal by Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee in the wake of the immense human suffering in Gaza following the recent events there. The BBC's management have decreed that a three-minute charity appeal to the public to give money for the relief of human suffering, with no political agenda at all, should not be broadcast on any of their TV or radio outlets Why? Because it might threaten the BBC's editorial impartiality in news reporting!

This decision seems almost as unbelievable as the horrors must have have been to the cinemagoers seeing the scenes filmed by the lenses of news cameras which was finally revealed in Poland when the death camps were liberated in 1945. Years of human misery came before the world's eyes and aid and relief, practical and financial, followed despite the political turmoil and the difficulties left by six years of war. It was a natural, basic human reaction to the suffering of other humans.

So when in the name of God- whether that God is the one named by Muslims, Christians, Jews or indeed even any non-believer with a shred of common humanity and decency- did impartiality become a superior virtue to compassion? I am sickened and shamed by the actions of BBC management- it damages the reputation of our nation as much as our national broadcaster and is truly inexplicable.

The BBC motto below its crest reads "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation". It was influenced, I think, by the passage in the Hebrew bible which speaks of a future time when "swords shall be turned into ploughshares", a time we all hope for- long for. Yet for much of the early part of this new year, that hope seems as far off as ever in Gaza, in an area which sometimes seems so poorly named "the Holy Land" and where others are still attempting a final solution. A final solution to the carnage and the charnel houses through the tools of war, through bombs and rockets, feebly through diplomacy, or through terror, prejudice and the same words of vitriol and violence which really flamed the crematorium fires of Auschwitz.

No side is blameless here, there is no easy solution to the legacy of thousands of years of seemingly conflicting beliefs and intransigent warmongering. But what we cannot solve, we must at least salve- with medicine, food, shelter and water, regardless of the identity and the cause of perpetrator or victim. That is what decency demands, and what the DEC are trying to achieve. Seemingly the precious BBC has a different view of decency to the great majority of those who pay for them in the first place through their licence fee.

I am not taking the step that many have done over these last few days by way of protest at this astounding decision. I have not burnt my TV licence, and I am still watching BBC programmes. But I cannot stomach the hypocrisy of the corporation right now and most especially of its motto. Which is why I have removed the BBC crest as the visual masthead to my blog entry for 4th July 2007. That, the day when "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are so fervently commemorated in the USA which has so recently welcomed a new Commander-in-Chief, was also when captured former BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, was released from his long captivity. There was another man who one could only admire for his courage and yet his gentle and mild manner on his release.

What a shame, in the original sense of the word, that Mr Johnston's boss, the Director General of the BBC Mark Thompson, a devout Roman Catholic, could not put the message behind Jesus Christ's parable of the good Samaritan ahead of the message that the BBC cannot take sides. Two people walked on by and did nothing for the suffering victim of other's crimes in the parable, but a Samaritan- hated by the Jews of the time- ignored questionable, dogmatic religious rules and instead did what we should all do in such a situation- help!

Last Sunday marked the conversion of St Paul, once the chief Jewish persecutor of the early Christian church who was responsible for the killing of many believers in that same Holy land, even the Holy City of Jerusalem, twenty centuries ago. Yet he brought a life-changing message of hope, love and forgiveness to people of so many lands and cultures. Today of all days, can we not hope that the conveyors of both good and bad news today can yet see the folly of their way, reverse this mad decision and allow the DEC to publicise this just cause, right away?

Meantime, the link from my title today will take you to the DEC website, should you want to give money where the BBC will not give airtime.

Msg Wtng

2008-12-24T12:18:00.003Z

Carol Vorderman, Queen of the Consonants, placed her final vowels on the Countdown board a few weeks ago. For TV quizzes, it was the end of an era; Ms Vorderman - who was born at Christmas-time, hence her Christian name- had been there since the beginning and there were more than a few tears shed on that final show when it aired on the 12th December.

Meanwhile, back in Adventland, the countdown to Christmas is nearly over and the last of those high numbers will be revealed in a few hours and bells will chime to herald the Word which has always been there, never hiding in an anagram.

There is a message waiting indeed. It doesn't matter if some of the vowels are missing (like my blog posts this year!), nor does the Christmas story always add up to some commentators from our limited human perspective- but why should it? Life itself is a wonderfully complex puzzle which none of us will solve in this life in three score years and ten or more, let alone thirty seconds. But it's no conundrum.

In the birth of Jesus the Saviour is revealed the answer to life, the universe and everything in it's sweetest form- a tiny, helpless, naked and yet perfect baby. And no ticking clock can limit the time we should spend pondering that awesome mystery of God himself being born among us. No human mind can quite take it in, but it is God's own brilliant solution, and it makes me cry just writing about it.

May your Christmas joy be unrestrained, and your hearts filled with the peace which passes all understanding.

Fantastic Four!

2008-08-16T11:31:00.002+01:00

Four years ago next Thursday, I set up this blog and wrote my first posting- all of two lines! Four years ago next Thursday, four British rowers brought a team including Sir Matthew Pinsent his fourth consecutive olympic gold medal in an Olympic regatta, as part of the Coxless Fours in Athens. It was an emotional occasion indeed. How do you top that?
By the sort of tear-jerking, heart-stopping, jaw-dropping performance four Pommy Powerhouses managed to put in an hour ago in Beijing, that's how, beating their Australian rivals by just a whisker. How do they do it?!
Teamwork. In an age which seems to lionise individualism, the coxless fours is an example of how the most worthwhile things in life are very rarely the effort of one person alone. Sir Steve Redgrave, or should that be the Venerable Steve Redgrave, with five of those gold medals behind him for olympic rowing events, was quick to dismiss any suggestion from his fellow commentator in Beijing, the BBC's John Inverdale, that any one member of a rowing four, even less an eight, is more important than the other. They all have their part to play.
But it's not only the high profile team in the boat, the ones catching all the camera angles whose every bead of sweat, every breath,every pained expression, is recorded for posterity, that bring olympic glory. It's the physiotherapists, the doctors, perhaps especially even the nutritionist who help to ensure that four human bodies can give every joule of the quite extraordinary power they are capable of, to bring the jewel in every sportsman's crown, the gold medal on the victory podium.
One body, many parts. Something St Paul gave a masterly treatise on in one of his pastoral letters to the early church. Every part of the human body has its function, and it's no good expecting it to do something it was never intended for. Rowers can't rely just on their arms to win a race. It takes strong lungs- Matthew Pinsent reputedly had the highest recorded lung capacity in Britain-, pounding legwork, keen eyes and ears listening to every utterance of the rest of the team and not least the coach following on the bicycle from the shore to achieve these sort of world-beating results.
I can't but think of the solitary man shouting from the shore to some rather disconsolate individuals in a boat on the Lake of Galilee some 1,973 years or so ago. He appeared to be walking, not even rowing, on the water, and called one of them over to him to walk with him on the water. One of his team, a man called Peter, at first was quick to respond and did just that-but then fear started to grip him and his mettle failed. Think what a disaster it would have been for Team GB if our four today had done that as they continued to row backwards towards their finishing line.

For the one who walked on the water was Jesus- the same Jesus who came to his team on the shore on Galilee again, and offered them a nutritious breakfast, just days after they had apparently seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory on a cruel cross in Jerusalem. He had risen again- and was to rise yet higher, not to the raised platform of a victory ceremony alongside a man-made lake, but to the exalted throne of heaven, beyond all earthly achievements.

Yet even for the Jesus who was as I put it was "being held in a queue" in my last posting some five months ago, actually in a stone cold tomb, it was his Father's amazing, awesome, unfathomable power that brought him back to life in a human body- a body recognised and seen by more than five hundred people, witnesses of an event far greater than olympic glory, some two thousand years ago. And it was the Holy Spirit, the third person of that profound mystery Christians call the Trinity, that inspired those early believers like Paul to carry on, whatever the cost, to their destiny, their victory, to claim their prize. In Paul's case, and for many Christians since in too many lands even to this day, it took them to their own deaths at the hands of persecutors and detractors.
Despite all the controversies which inevitably follow it from fallible human beings, the Olympic games remains an extraordinary sporting spectacle, the greatest show on earth indeed. Yet even the efforts of the greatest olympians- and surely I must give due credit here to the extra-ordinary Michael Phelps who looks set to claim his eight gold medal of the XXIXth Olympiad tomorrow in the Beijing watercube- will never match that labour surpassing Hercules which raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and which still inspires countless billion believers today. A more fantastic event never was seen!

Your Saviour is Being Held...

2008-03-22T23:26:00.002Z

Yes, but held where? In a queue of mis-understanding religious leaders beying for his blood just two days ago, on Maundy Thursday? In the thousands who listened to them but could not hear his still, small voice of calm? His innocent bleating rather than beying? His failure to act in the face of blatant injustice to his person, to save his own life? Could this really be the Christ, the pivot of history motionless as his dead body was hastily taken down from the cross and buried in a borrowed tomb?
Your saviour is being held in a queue. Please wait.
But for how long? Until the slaughter not just of one man, but millions of children yet unborn has stopped? Until the sword of power is replaced by the ploughshare of universal equality? Until all the hungry are fed and nobody thirsts either for the water of life or uncontaminated, donated blodd?
Your saviour is being held in a queue. Please wait.
Until the war of words is replaced by the harvest of hope? Until the darkness of despair is banished by the lightness of endless day?
Your saviour is being held in a queue. Please wait..
Until this shining, beautiful new moon yields to the bright, blinding radiance of the star of the morning. Until female eyes drained by too much mournful crying discover...what? Until the friends, still quivering with fear and incomprehension realise...yes?
Your saviour is being held in a queue. Your call will be answered shortly. Please wait.
On Holy Saturday night, peace be with you.
Mark.

Now Hands that Do Dishes...

2008-03-16T14:23:00.002Z

"Can feel soft as your face, with mild, green, Fairy liquid".

Come on now, be honest. You were ready to sing the second two lines of this triplet, word perfect, the moment you read my subject line, weren't you?

The reason you can still warble along to these frankly rather banal lyrics is largely due to the efforts of the late Cliff Adams, who until his death in 2001 was for several decades the purveyor of familiar ditties on BBC Radio Two every Sunday afternoon on "Sing Something Simple".

Far from just keeping grannies and grandpas happy with these memorable melodies sung a capella except for the versatile mouth organ of Jack Emblow, among Cliff Adams' weekday jobs was making a mint composing advertising "jingles" for everything from Murray's spearmint confection to an unpromising new concoction of dried potato which actually proved to be quite a smash- and the most popular British TV advert of all time, to boot! He probably composed the Fairy liquid jingle quicker than I can write this long-overdue posting to Anyway..

BBC TV's BBC Four channel is currently running a fascinating series of programmes about the advertising industry- the words, images and predominantly people that American writer Vance Packard famously described as "The Hidden Persuaders" in the title of his seminal book on the subject in the 1970s. A programme last night on the history of TV food advertising brought back many memories for my brother and me of the ITV advertising of our childhood.

Through pester power rather than today's nutritional wisdom, put-upon parents (though not usually ours, I recall) were persuaded they could pacify their restless offspring with merely a finger of toffee and chocolate fudge, or that an equally child-friendly digit proferred by a benevolent sea captain could get the little ones eating and enjoying fish. The ingenuity with which advertising agencies achieved this was to guarantee the TV commercials and their slogans a place in the cultural memory even if the products are becoming portiona not grata in the health conscious noughties.

What a pity it is then, that while we remember the tasty, hasty snacks of our formative years so fondly just hearing the jingles- or the washing up that followed it for Mum and her little helpers, for so many the most heart-rending music ever composed coupled with the most profound words ever spoken or written will bring little or no associations this week. Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week in the Western Christian calendar. Yet for a great proportion of Britons, it might as well be Palmolive Sunday.

This is the day when Jesus of Nazareth rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey, an unconventional entrance to the most sacred place of the Jewish nation, certainly, but enacted exactly in this way to fulfil scripture predicting this event,written many centuries before. So excited were those who saw Jesus arriving, that they threw down branches of palm leaves along his way, much in the way we'd welcome the coming of the monarch these days with a red carpet.

A people abused and exploited by an occupying power saw this young man of just 33 as the answer to all their hopes for liberation from the hated forces of Rome. Many hailed him as their king, much like a Hosanna hero, who would break the yoke of Caesar's stronghold and take the city and nation by whatever means necessary to restore political control to its rightful occupants.

How sad it is, with hindsight, that they were not on message, or at any rate only believed in this instant solution to all their problems for just a few days. Few saw in the substantial bread and wine offered one Thursday evening in first century Palestine, the most important meal ever put before mankind and a promise far more enduring than anything Proctor and Gamble could make because it came from the maker of life itself.

Instead of taking what was on offer in the greatest free trial ever-the love of God offered by his only Son- by the end of the same week Jerusalem's passover-consuming population were abandoning him faster than you could say buy one, set one free. Barabas left jail, Jesus was condemned to his fate- crucifixion. No brand loyalty here, then, but only the branding of a cruel crown of thorns and the nailmarks of the most hideous wrongful conviction ever enacted.

Standing around him at the cross the following day, what we now call Good Friday, as this young man who had done nothing deserving death struggled to breathe, was his best friend, along with the mother whom this dutiful Jewish son had doubtless helped to wash pots and pans at many a Jewish festival. Just the night before, however, the hands of the one so often portrayed as meek and mild had washed the rough, dirty feet of the same followers who would betray, desert and disown him at his hour of greatest need.

The Party's Over...

2008-01-04T14:12:00.000Z

It's time to call it a day: The fourth of January two thousand and eight will do fine for the next few hours at least. Happy New Year!

Not that I've been a 24-hour party person ever since last posting to Anyway- last week, or was it last year? I had a very enjoyable Christmas, as I hope you did too, but constant jollity is just not the way we do things round here-even if for some the Christmas holiday will have lasted a fortnight and the return to work and school won't be complete til 7th of January.

The English are a funny race when it comes to celebrating New year-what is, when all's said and done, just an arbitrary point in the continuous revolving passage of the earth round the sun, when we decide to attempt to accurately measure that orbit again for another 365 "days", or as this is to be a leap year, 366. The very existence of leap years points out the folly of trying to number our days, months and years with too much precision, because the exact workings of the universe are complex and beyond our ken, as the Scots might put it.

Maybe we English are more pragmatic and a little less sentimental, but those of us south of the border have traditionally never quite managed to find the fun of New Year as well as other more outwardly flamboyant races- although as the pyrotechnic delights of London's celebrations brought Old Father Time to meet Old Father Thames once again last Monday night, it seems we're at last willing to have a try.

Indeed, the ritual of celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of another seems to have become almost a friendly international contest to see who can do it in the most spectacular fashion. Nowadays, the capital city of the UK even likes to have its cake and eat it not just as midnight but mid-day too. The New Year's Day Parade-London, originally the Lord Mayor of Westminster's attempt to have something matching his City of London counterpart's November streetfest, is now described as the biggest event of its kind in the world. It may have been influenced by Macy's parade in New York, New York, but Westminster, London has certainly produced a tradition to be proud of.

This year's parade, irrigated though it was by the first rain of 2008, certainly brought sparkle to the capital on what was once considered the most dreary day of the year. Earlier on New Year's Day, there was another feast for ears and eyes from another of the world's great cities, with the music of the Strauss family as played by the Vienna Philharmonic guaranteed to soothe even the heaviest hangover headache.

I took a cup of kindness or two in a favourite local hostelry with my brother and some friends on New Year's Eve, and very nice it was too. A lovely atmosphere, no rowdiness but good-humoured revelry and the shared experience of crossing the line of one year into another and singing Robert Burns' timeless lines once again while linking arms. I was glad to be there, in company and to think on the old acquaintance of the twelve months just past, which will never come our way again.

Yet I could just have easily have enjoyed the moment without any need for booze or food. What New Year's eve really represents, I guess, is our shared humanity, celebrating the succesful circumnavigation of both the mountains and the planes of this thing we call life through another twelve months. For some, it will have been a breeze, while for many others the year yet ahead will offer new challenges and not always of the enjoyable type.

Sadly, the turning of the year does not turn man from the worst of his ways,no matter how much we might hope for it. No sooner had the New Year begun in parts of the Southern Hemisphere, than the news brought horrendous stories out of Kenya, where disputed elections have stirred old tribal hatreds, rather than gladdened old acquaintances. The situation is very tense as I write, but can there be anything more obscene and against the spirit of the season than the loss of over 30 lives with the deliberate destruction of a church where some were sheltering from the violence around them.

It doesn't take long for joy to turn to pain in human experience, and yet there is always the hope, the promise, that the pain will end. All pain. All suffering. All death. Defeated! Not ultimately by act of EU or UN, despite the growing and welcome recognition in our digitised, globalised age that we must work together to solve those problems which we all face together as the Human Race. The challenge of Global Warming will surely be high on the international agenda again this year. And doubtless, every country will have different opinions on this and other issues affecting us all.

But national preferences, or at worst national prejudices, can never cause the world to move truly forward. That comes not from astronomical predictions or astrologer's presumptions, but from seeing the evidence and the promise in every human being that there is more to life than the counting of days. God knew this, when he chose to reveal himself to mankind two thousand years ago in a tiny baby. Two thousand years; but a blip in the long history of the universe but marking the most important event ever to take place in human history.

Christmas surely deserves its full twelve days of celebration, which is why the party won't actually be over, in the Western tradition at least, until Sunday 6th January, the feast of the Epiphany. Once again, our continental cousins seem to know how to celebrate this event so much better than we do in England, where for most it's just the occasion to pack away the decorations for another eleven months or so lest bad luck be brought upon the house.

Quite where such a weird superstition developed, who knows. Superstition defies logic and rational analysis, much as those of a secular mindset might say adherence to the tenets of religion limits the growth of our humanity and the true way forward through science. But they conveniently forget that one of the greatest scientists of all time, Sir Isaac Newton who was born today in 1643, was a man of deeply committed faith too. For him, to increase our knowledge of natural laws was to do God's work and and to increase our knowledge of him.

Science and Belief do not have to be constantly fighting, and neither should people. Is there not surely something very significant in that the guests at the birthday parties of Jesus Christ represented a very different view of the world to that of his own people? Contrary views can co-exist.

The shepherds who came to adore Jesus from the nearby fields of Bethlehem were considered by some in their society the lowest of the low. Who might be their equivalents today? Asylum seekers? Strange, isn't it, that the biblical account of Jesus's infancy includes a flight into an alien country, to escape the jealous wrath of a king. Later, when that king went the way of all flesh, the young child and his parents returned to the land of their birth, where they were visited by mystics and distinguished persons traditionally represented as three "kings". The served became the servers with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The visit of the three kings is the wonderful story behind Epiphany. Of course, there are inconsistencies in the details, but does that really matter? Science too is full of paradoxes. It is though very appropriate that Epiphany should be the first feast of the secular year, and the last of Christmas. The time arrives to take in what it all means, and get working again in real life in real time. When Jesus is revealed to the magi, the secular world of time and place, evidence and senses, meets the other world of eternity and humility, and things unseen by any eye but even more wonderful than anything science can explain are glimpsed in the eyes of a child.

Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, is the reminder that Jesus came for all, not just a select race or races. He came to bring life in all its fulness to everybody. Now that's surely something worth celebrating- party on, at least til Sunday!

So Is This Christmas?

2007-12-25T01:50:00.001Z

Written in the small hours of Christmas morning, 25th December 2007, in a silent London suburb

Is it merely a feeling
Or the truth most appealing?
Did God come to Earth
Through the journey of birth
Or is man the worst fool
with no hope at all?

Is it carols and candles
And carrier bag handles?
Or Mince pies, roast turkey
And bright winter jersey?

Is it a baby, a manger-
Or is there a danger
That we abandon the boy
Who would sin's power destroy

Is it family and blood ties
Or spotted blue neck ties
The man in the gutter
Or spuds smeared with butter?

Some Christmas, some year
Should we come to our senses
And let the day speak
For Jesus, our Lord, who was the defenceless

Who came to a land, where no peace there yet dwells
Where the deafening bomb blast
Replaces the bells

Should we not see him in the eyes of a child
Or any new mother, so tender and mild
Should we not know him in words of goodwill
Should we not hear him- for he cries to us still

Should we not smell him, in sweet smells of spice
Remembering too, that he carried our vice
Should we not know him, for know him we must
To witness the saviour, the righteous and just

If these few things we can believe
Then surely Christmas will achieve
The wonder of wonders
Miracle of miracles
God is with us, Noel, Noel.

Wherever you are, I wish you a peaceful, happy and joyful Christmas, and may your day be merry and bright.

God bless all my readers, new and old

Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Glory to the New Born King!

Silent Majority

2007-11-10T23:37:00.000Z

"At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We Will Remember Them"

This is Remembrancetide, in the UK- and most of the Commonwealth. It's easy to overlook that unique family of nations' part in two World Wars, as we observe this annual pause for reflection. We are asked to remember all those who have given their lives for freedom and liberty in war and conflict, both now and in the century past.

How muted those words "freedom" and "liberty" can sometimes seem these days, like the muffled bells of mourning. Yet we remind ourselves again this weekend, it was for these causes that many millions gave their lives, and we should never forget them. In a world of constant rush and chatter, the best way we can respect the precious lives cut short in too many theatres of battle, is to fall silent ourselves, even if only for 120 seconds- about as many heartbeats as each of these fit young lives once knew before the true horror of war silenced them.

For those who have never lived through a whole world at war, the post-1945 generations to which I belong, remembrance could seem an irrelevance. Some,taking a different view,even say that the red paper poppies of remembrance which adorn so many British jackets and jumpers each November are a symbol too far, glorifying rather than villifying the sad facts of war.

Yet for the majority of Britons, the poppy is worn with pride. Not the red component of a national flag being jingoistically celebrated by a nation obsessed with past glories, but a reminder of the preciousness of life itself, and the grief we should all feel that war has so often, particularly in the last hundred years, prematurely ended lives with potential- lives that might even have contributed voices of sanity and wisdom which would help to end all wars,like the "Great War" was supposed to do.

Like Lawrence Binyon's famous poem I've quoted above, poppies are for the fallen. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. Politicians can argue the rights and wrongs of many causes but often their career in democracies is brief and easily forgotten. Like the former British defence secretary described by legendary TV interviewer Robin Day as "here today, gone tomorrow". Not so the servicemen who have to defend our nations. Ordinary people- fathers, brothers, uncles, sons and nowadays female relatives too- robbed of their loved ones, are those who can never forget those they have lost.

Don't we owe it to them -always- to remember, with gratitude, yet sadness, their sacrifice? Earlier this evening, I watched with my younger brother the perpetually moving and poignant Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance. There is more information on this event, and Britain's biggest service charity, if you follow the link in the title of this post. The ceremony, which has been held for eighty years now, has at its finale thousands of poppies falling from the roof of London's Royal Albert Hall. It is a solemn time which needs no words- silence speaks volumes.

Tomorrow, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the nation will respectfully and collectively observe two minutes of silence, commemorating the exact moment at which the guns finally fell silent in 1918 in the armistice of the "Great" war which robbed so many of the breath of life. It is a scene which will be repeated at countless war memorials in villages and towns not just in the UK, but across the commonwealth, and most particularly in those places where the fallen lie. I intend to remember my Great Uncle Clifford, a private in the Royal West Kent regiment, who I never knew, at our local service.

Yet the bible reading at the Festival of Remembrance by His Royal Highness the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, himself a veteran of the British Navy task force in the Falklands Conflict of 25 years ago, perhaps portrays even more eloquently, in the words of Jesus Christ, the "Prince of Peace", the price that love sometimes has to pay. "Greater Love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends".
Actions speak louder than words. Jesus' actions, his whole life and death- and what followed- did that more than any ceremony at a simple cenotaph or a grand hall. May his supreme example, of triumph over evil, bring about the end to war for which we all yearn. When the majority will no longer need to be silent, for peace will prevail throughout all the earth.

This is the Page of The Train

2007-11-07T11:14:00.000Z

What's the French- or indeed the Flemish- for 'Awayday', does anybody know?

Readers of a certain age should have no problem spotting in today's title the slogan of one of the most fondly remembered advertising campaigns of the 1980s for Britain's former train network, British Rail, then state-owned. Jimmy Saville, before the sovereign's sword of state bestowed on him a knighthood, abandoned the clunk-click, every trip of his equally famous campaign for car seatbelts, for the clickety clack of carriage on track to extol the marvellous possibilities of the newish InterCity 125 services, capable of traversing Britain at 125 miles per hour.

If you're in nostalgic mood, you can click on the title for a link to one of the original TV ads, courtesy of Youtube. Oh joy: a streamlined loco could bring families and loved ones together quickly and smoothly, whether you were in Aberdeen or Yeovil! Ignore for the moment the inevitable engineering works, strikes, and broken down power cars, and a railway utopia lay ahead of you, and all thanks to your cheap Awayday ticket. But your train of thought would have to be shunted back a very long way now to revisit those halcyon days of BR.

Spurred on by the Iron Lady's determination to privatise the iron rails of Britain's mass transport system, the Conservative government of John Major proceeded with the splitting up of the railway network in the mid-1990s, some years after Margaret Thatcher's premiership was de-railed, and even when many were labelling this a privatisation too far.

The Railways Act left Great Britain looking like a lawyers' dream, ruled by intricate inter-company rather than inter-city contracts, but a travellers' nightmare much of the time, with a unified railway replaced by around 25 Train Operating Companies (TOC's), three Rolling Stock Companies (Roscos) to lease out locos and carriages to the TOCs, and the ill-fated public limited company Railtrack who (theoretically) took perfect care of the infrastructure of track, signals and points, together with stations, bridges and tunnels. Their failure to do so led to the nearest Britain's now likely to come to a publicly-owned railway, with its replacement by the stakeholder-run Network Rail which now re-invests all its profits in much-needed improvements to the system.

Most railway industry professionals and analysts soon recognised the arrangements left by the Railways Act were a mess. This bureaucratic bungle might well have signalled the end of the line for Britain's claims to be a great railway-running nation, even though the UK invented the passenger train and has now lent the rest of the world BR's brilliant brand- InterCity (though sadly it's no longer liveried on this island's own trains).

Fortunately, however, more forward-thinking minds were at work, both in government and the civil engineering industry, and it now looks as though Britain actually could be at the start of a new golden age of rail travel. At a time when aircraft are starting to be seen as something of the bete noir of global warming- rightly or wrongly-, travelling by train suddenly looks more green and more appealing than causing the carbonised airways to cough and splutter even more.

Yesterday evening, Her Majesty the Queen, just a few hours after opening another session of the UK parliament in the Victorian splendour of Pugin's Palace of Westminster, opened a new era of rail travel at another gothic architectural icon, which seems set to become a palace of the permanent way: St Pancras International. London's new gateway to Europe will see High Speed 1 services beginning, appropriately, in just a week's time on the heir to the throne's birthday. I wonder if he'll be celebrating with a short 135 minute hop over to Paris: the prince of rails as well as Wales?

I was speaking to a couple of friends this week who'd had the privilege of being part of an exercise organised by the owners of St Pancras International, London and Continental Railways, who are also responsible for the British arm of the Eurostar service which has hitherto served London Waterloo international albeit at a speed more akin to British Snail this side of the channel before the full opening of HS1. From 14th November, the journey from central London to Paris might remind many of another great InterCity slogan: Eurostar becomes the journey shrinker.

My friends told me that they were absolutely awe-struck by the restoration of the train shed roof,once the biggest single-span iron structure in the world. They described it as a masterpiece of powder blue ironwork which, they said, matched the perfect blue of a cloudless autumn sky. Meanwhile, the gleaming sun shining through the hundreds of self-cleaning glass panels onto the gilded clock below, and the carpenter's craftsmanship of the parquet floors of the undercroft below the platforms, left them in no doubt that this is an achievement which ranks with the best railway architecture in the world: a stunning station. It's surely worth a visit even if you're travelling nowhere, and I agreed with them as I watched the new terminus unveiled by her majest in a life webcast yesterday evening.

Rail travel from its very beginnings has been marvellously liberating. Indeed, the great age of railway building in the mid-nineteenth century gave whole communities throughout the world a freedom of movement they could never have dreamt of previously and even gave us the first Awaydays courtesy of one Thomas Cook esquire, who started his world-famous business in July 1841 with a shilling [5 pence] a head rail excursion for a group of churchgoers from Loughborough to Leicester- towns both served by the rail franchises of 2007 from St Pancras International.

But perhaps the real liberation that a rail trip, whether for a day or a month, can bring is in the changed view of the world it gives you. Down to earth, yet inspiring wonder as you gaze upon hills and mountains, coastlines and forests, deserts and arctic wastes, rivers and streams, bustling towns or isolated villages. All these vistas are possible from a train. You could be following a journey which may lead to happy reunions and new discoveries, or you could be on your way to your chosen work in life.
It may seem like an over-romanticised portrait of the railway scene to the claustrophobic commuters struggling to find a seat on the 8.21 each morning, but I think there's an analogy in train travel to the journey which is life itself. See it for what it can be, with all its possibilities no matter which branch lines you explore along the way, and you'll perhaps have a positive view of journey's end. Jesus Christ described himself as "The Way"- and those who follow him see as the permanent way to a life of fulfilment and peace at journey's end. I wonder if this is why so many vicars love trains?

wireless western words

2007-10-21T15:00:00.000+01:00

THIS IS MY FIRST POSEY POST! Welcome aboard the 15.11 Reading- Cardiff train, courtesy of First Great Western.

Up, Up and Away

2007-08-19T22:48:00.000+01:00

Now here's something you don't see every day! This really was a Boeing 747-400 passenger aeroplane passing over Eastbourne Pier on 18th August 2007- and I haven't been tinkering in the photoshop either! Incidentally, that ever-enchanting character,
"The Snowman" can clearly be seen to be whooshing over Brighton Pier, also in Sussex, with his young admirer in the Christmas classic if you look closely. This visitor however was seen over Eastbourne's shoreline at the world's biggest and free- seaside airshow, the cleverly-named AIRBOURNE, which had its 2007 finale about half an hour ago when a myriad of fiery delights lit the sky in the mammoth closing firework display.
The pyrotechnic artistry rounded off four days which, if not exactly blessed with the best of summer weather, once again drew appreciative gasps and fixated the eyes of young and old on the skies to witness the gravity-defying antics of the world's top aviators, and for others kindled poignant memories of The Battle of Britain, a defining event of ariel combat in the second world war, fought in this very airspace sixty-seven summers ago next month.

When I saw the 747 of Oasis airlines, making its maritime visit before flying a scheduled service from Gatwick to Hong Kong later in the day, I was immediately taken back 38 years to 1969, and my first ever sight of a "jumbo", which we delightedly dashed into my junior school playground to watch flying over from Heathrow as the now defunct TWA, Trans World Airlines- or as it was whimsically called in the industry "Try Walking Across"- proudly earned the prestige of being the first transatlantic carrier to bring these huge beasts to British skies. TWA's slogan at the time took Jimmy Webb's big pop hit for The Fifth Dimension of two years earlier and turned it into a memorable jingle, with the associations of these new giants of the skies now offering the tantalising prospect of cheap, worldwide air travel for everyone.

What actually keeps planes in the air is as much a marvel in 2007 as it was in 1967, or indeed in 1907, for it is easy to forget that powered flight has been with us for only just over a century. What can be done with the mega-powerful jet engines of the 21st century when married with the skills and courage of the best pilots still brings childlike wonder to me. The crowd-drawing top of the bill event at Airbourne once again had to be the nine magnificent men in their flying machines from the Royal Air Force Red Arrows. They are indisputably the best and most famous aerobatic display team in the world, and it brings tears of pride to my eyes just to write those words. I never tire of watching them.

But looked at not through rose-coloured binoculars but with another viewpoint, the continued existence of airshows and the ever-gorwing ease of air travel is a cause of great concern for some, not celebration. While Airbourne draws thousands to add something spectacular to their holiday enjoyment, in a thistle field a mile and a half or so from "the world's busiest intennational airport", hundreds have spent the last week in uncomfortable conditions endured for the sake of their cause, the halting of further expansion at "LHR". A sixth terminal and third runway are proposed, but would destroy hundreds of homes in the process. The protestors are amongst a growing number who see the kerosene-consuming monsters as among the biggest villains of the piece -and indeed the peace- when it comes to global warming.

Meanwhile, fantastic though their aerial antics may be, The Red Arrows only exist at all, ultimately, because man's in humanity to man demands that most developed countries decide they need air forces to defend their shores and their skies, and to deter would be aggressors or keep the peace in the world's trouble spots. Airbourne 2007 had less military jets than usual, because so many of them are currently involved in the controversial British campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mass travel has certainly helped to broaden the mind, some might say, but has it brought us any closer to a day when there will be no more warfare, no more surface to air missiles and no more terrorist bombs being made harmless by the brave personnel of the RAF Bomb Disposal Squad whose tools of the trade were also on display today? I fear not. The flying warhorses of the skies may be able to develop ever more thrust and carry even more sophisticated fly by wire technology, but ultimately they do little to ameliorate the worst effects of human beings flying off the handle with each other.

Man continues to be at war with man. Fools continue to rush in where angels fear to tread, let alone fly. It's easy to despair with hate in the air. But I continue to enjoy airshows because I know a time will come when there will be no more war, no more suffering. When, just as man has always longed to fly like the birds, he will mount ujp on wings of eagles and will be changed forever by the experience. And a time will come when all humanity agrees that we "ain't gonna study war no more". It will be down by the riverside, it will be down by the seaside.

Meanwhile, up in the air again, or so many Christians believe, the man crucifed by another Pilate will return, like a wing commander gathering his aircrew. Jesus was surely the one man who rose above our real limitations, our earth-bound thinking full of selfishness and even evil intent. Like a search and rescue helicopter, he will and does stop us drowning in our own woes. He will not need a Typhoon or a Hurricane, but will take us all to a higher plane. I can't wait to see that spectacle and to be on that flight, one day soon.

Be Preprayered

2007-08-01T06:14:00.000+01:00

It's a mega birthday blog today, as a new month also crowns a landmark celebration for the biggest youth movement in the world. Happy Hundredth to Scouts everywhere!

Scouting's global success is a quite incredible story of what the human race can aspire to be today, and what it can hint at becoming, when it looks to a better future. That future, as it always has done, begins with its children and young people.

On this day in 1907, Robert Baden-Powell, or BP, started a movement which now has some 28 million members worldwide. The oil company which shares his initials may once have claimed to be 'Britain at its best', but this occasionally eccentric yet passionate British champion of youth arguably did more to help youngsters internationally "Do Your Best" than any other person of his century.

Baden-Powell was a military hero, famous for his courageous defence of Mafeking during the Boer wars. Yet he was no warmonger and nor did he have any social pretensions. But in his way, he was as much a social reformer as any politician. Lloyd George no doubt knew Baden Powell.

The first ever scout camp, this week in 1907, was held in the tranquil and beautiful setting of Brownsea Island, located a mile from the Dorset coast of England in the second largest natural harbour in the world. It provided a safe haven for around 20 boys from very diverse backgrounds- some private schools, and nearly as many from slums and tenements. Little did they, or he, know then what they were pioneering.

Scouting today provides challenges undreamt of by Baden Powell and his boys. Every activity from abseiling to zoology is offered somewhere in scouting's world, which stretches across barriers of creed, culture and colour from Aachen to Zambia. Indeed, this week a representative selection of forty thousand Scouts have turned Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex into Scouting City, UK as they celebrate the Centenary World Jamboree, carrying on a tradition inaugarated by Baden Powell in 1920.

Elsewhere, scouts are gathered for their own celebrations on every continent. In mainland Europe, for instance, my younger brother, who has been a scout leader for a quarter of a scouting century,is one of thousands attending the tenth "Haarlem Jamborette" outside the historic Dutch town 20 kilometres from Amsterdam. Scouting's BIG in Holland!

What can explain this incredible success story, in a world which on the one hand is becoming ever more a global village, yet on the other seems so fractured by the clashing of cultures and the worst of man's dealings with his fellow men and women? It must be more than the vision of one moustachioed chief scout of a different era that has done all this.

Dare I suggest it's partly because scouting everywhere pays homage to the best patrol leader of all. One who has shown a way for all humanity, and when followed as he should be, helps not just young people, but all people to march on with strength and courage through the sometimes tough terrain of life to journey's end. Along the way, he encourages us to do our best, and as we do find our true selves in fun, in sharing, in working, living and- yes- loving together.

The devastated flood-hit communities of Gloucestershire were last month extremely grateful for the efforts of scouts in the historic town of Tewksbury who were prepared to offer them not just the use of their scout hut as a refuge. but free food and drink and above all, a welcome and friendliness at a time of great devastation.

"B-P" would have understood, and been proud, of the way Scouts responded in England's west country, but its typical of the efforts of boys and girls and their leaders in the movement around the world, in war or in peace. B-P himself was greatly influenced by the devastation of the so ironically named 'Great War' that he pledged to do his best to build a better world based on international brotherhood and understanding.

I'm sure Lord Robert Baden-Powell would forgive me for slightly amending his famous words which became the scout motto. Yes,we all need to "be prepared" for whatever lies ahead, whether we can see it or not. But maybe even more important is to Be pre-prayered. Baden-Powell was very influenced by the Boys' Brigade, the movement founded by William Smith which enjoys many similar activities to scouting backed up by a distinctly Christian ethos.

Scouting does not limit itself to any particular 'religious' tradition, but faith remains an essential part of its ethos and raison d'etre. The Scout "law" in its way makes a nod to some of the 'ten commandments' given to Moses familiar to all in Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities. Loyalty, Trust, a sense of family, courage, respect for self and for others. Values which seem to have become almost dirty words in some sections of society are as vital a part of the Scout philosophy in 2007 as they were in 1907.

But above all, perhaps, the best summary of what Scouting means to me- once a timid 11-year old who after enjoying cubs chickened out of Scouts because of too many then frightening-looking "bigger boys"- is what I am about to go down and join other supporters of the movement young and old, as well as today's Scouts worldwide, at 08.00 local time today at numerous Sunrise Ceremonies. They recall the exact moment one hundred years ago, when B-P sounded the Kudo horn to inaugarate that first Brownsea Island scout camp. And I might say, with pride in my scouting connections:

On My Honour, I promise that I will do my best
To do my duty to God and to the Queen,*
To help other people
And to keep the Scout Law

Amen to all that, and keep on Scouting!

[Note: "The Queen" is replaced with appropriate wording in countries and territories which have different heads of state ]

Ici Londres

2007-07-08T18:22:00.000+01:00

Bonjour tous le monde- especialement les gens Francophone! Please excuse my very rusty schoolboy French, but you could be forgiven this July weekend for thinking that the British capital and its environs had been spirited away by Tardis to mainland Europe- but Who's complaining?

Well the good time traveller isn't for one: Dr Who is expecting a dose of Australian glamour come Christmas day when Kylie Minogue moves into the famous police box for the now obligatory Christmas special, while last year's guest companion, Catherine Tate, will be taking off on new adventures as a regular companion with the last of the Time Lords come next Spring after a truly spectacular season finale to the world-renowned sci-fi series last Saturday.

Whovians could have felt bereft the following Saturday night, i.e yesterday, now that their hero has vacated the screen, but there was more than enough spectacle around the metropolis this weekend to keep them occupied. So much in fact, that I'm going to wait til later this evening to update this blog and perhaps add a photo or two to tell you more about it!

Free news

2007-07-04T03:30:00.001+01:00

No, nothing more needs to be said here about Tony Blair who has been out of office exactly a week today- but already it seems like a lifetime ago, and he's one of yesterday's men. However, he's been officially appointed already as the new Peace Envoy for the Middle East. But so what? The man of the moment is neither Blair nor Brown, but another proud Scot and a very fine newsman. I write of course about Alan Johnston, the BBC's Gaza correspondent who had been held captive for 114 days until the great news came in a couple of hours ago of his freedom.

As his colleagues on the BBC's World Today, put it a few moments ago "it's one of those days when it's good to be at work".

I know what they mean and how they feel, along with the two hundred thousand around the world of all faiths or none, who have been praying and hoping for Alan's safe release and have been putting their messages of support on the BBC's website.

How ironic- and appropriate- that this modest, unassuming newsman should gain his freedom just a few hours after the BBC itself was in the spotlight with the release of its annual report, and the first AGM of the BBC Trust, its new sovereign body. The BBC, as a public body which every UK citizen supposedly owns, is much maligned and has to face charges of "dumbing down" practically every day. Its journalists on home territory are seen by some as raging liberal lefties, while others see it as a tool of the establishment. Curiously, some have even accused it of anti-Palestinian bias much in recent years.

Alan Johnston's release, and his dedicated work, put all the puff, praise and pejorative prattlings into their proper place. The words "I'm Free!" may for long have been associated with the late BBC comedy icon John Inman in his Mr Humphries role but now they properly and mercifully belong to Alan Johnston. It is his day, and how overjoyed we all are to see it.

God -Allah, Jahweh, call him what you may here- has heard our prayers. As I said in my parallel posting to my radio blog RadioFar-Far (link on right) a few hours ago, the BBC motto is "Nation shall speak peace unto nation". Please God it may be so,not just in Gaza but throughout the Earth.

Midsummer Mire-Doers

2007-06-24T23:39:00.001+01:00

You have to feel more than a tinge of sorrow for the hundred and fifty thousand or so soggy souls who paid £150 each and ventured down to the watery West Country this weekend, for the world-famous Glastonbury Festival.

Once again, what claims to be the world's largest contemporary arts and music festival was accompanied by torrential rain, which turned the normally green fields of this part of historic Somerset into a muddy mire. What has happened to our summer, which right now we're supposed to be in the middle of, literally?

The irony is all the greater, given that the Glastonbury festival began as an event to celebrate the June Summer Solstice, the time when in the Northern Hemisphere the sun appears to "stop" for several days as it reaches it's farthest point north, at the tropic of Cancer. Sadly, it seems to have disappeared altogether for much of the last 72 hours.

At Britain's latitude, this point in June brings the longest day, which occurred last Thursday and did at least see an impressive sunrise even here in the London suburbs, eighty miles or so from the UNESCO world heritage site of Stonehenge, Wiltshire, where the solstic takes on mystical proportions and thousands of revellers were able to gather to greet the dawn on 21st June.

Henge and homestead however were hardly the hotspots they were this time last year in what was actually a truly flaming June, preceeding one of our warmest summers ever. The chilly start to the day saw me staying cosily in my bedroom, apart from a brief venture outside to the garden, but dawn was none the less awesome for all that I viewed it through two panes of glass.

Sunrise and sunset still awaken some primeval sense of awe and wonder in most of us, be we painters or poets or ordinary Josephs. The Glastonbury focus came about because this legendary spot was supposedly visited by one of the New Testament Josephs, possibly the foster father of Jesus, along with his young son. This tale is the origin of the famous lines in William Blake's seminal song, married so stirringly with Hubert Parry's music to produce the ever-enduring "Jerusalem".

Whether those feet ever did tread on England's green and pleasant land, who can ever really say with certainty, though I suppose it's not beyond the realms of possibility. Nothing can be, when a child is born by miraculous virgin birth, and goes on to defeat even death itself. The Christian view of life and death may appear on the surface in contrast and conflict to that of the pagans who parade around ancient sacred sites in the west at this time of the year, and yet a recognition of the power and purpose of earthy and celestial symbols is common to both.

Maybe Jesus too got muddy feet, rather than smelling summer meadows and picking daisies to make childish chains, as he enjoyed the seasonal delights of his father's creation in England. But the songs that continue to celebrate him, as they have done for centuries, will continue to echo through fields and towns, not just at midsummer but every day. The events of two thousand years ago, at Gethsemane, Golgotha and Garden tomb, launched Jesus Christ, superstar, on to the world stage. What Christianity has done, and continues to offer all men and women free of charge, far surpasses any Acts the Glastonbury pyramid stage can offer.

Please Release Him

2007-06-20T14:22:00.001+01:00

On Sunday, I wrote about freedom. Today, this page is dedicated to freedom of expression and of those who report the news. Mercifully only rarely, do reporters unjustly lose their liberty in doing so, but today is a time for remembering one of those horrible occasions.

It was 100 days ago exactly, to the hour, that Alan Johnston, the BBC's correspondent in the Gaza strip, was abducted by anonymous captors as he went about his business, He was not taking sides but merely doing his job, so that his audience might know and better understand what was happening in this troubled parcel of land in the Middle East where for so long there has been anything but good news.

All that any journalist of integrity can do in confict zones is to report events. The solution of complex problems and just solutions are for others to decide. And sometimes all we can do is sit in our comfortable armchairs and weep. Yet we are not powerless.

A few moments ago, journalists from media all over the world paused. At the BBC itself, directors, producers, cameramen, and doubtless many other staff took time out to keep vigil for their missing colleague and to keep his loved ones in their thoughts. Many of them will have held up posters of Mr Johnston while they did so, while his elderly parents in Scotland released one hundred balloons.

This is not the place today to make devotional points. Enough of the trouble in the area Mr Johnston had come to know and understand finds its roots in religious intolerance, and misunderstanding between peoples. Instead, this blog today has followed the BBC news website suggestion to add this picture of Alan Johnston to websites, in solidarity with those of many political persuasions around the world pleading for his safe release by whichever faction is holding him.

Alan Johnston is a man who means no harm and has caused none. He was due to end his posting to Gaza shortly anyway. Whatever the rights and wrongs of your people's situation, please give Alan Johnston back his freedom, now, in the name of peace. And if you are but a viewing bystander too, stand with him please whether in silence or words, for the sake of the free word.

Royalty-free Tree

2007-06-17T00:01:00.000+01:00

Feel free to use this tree. Apparently, that's just what twenty-five bellicose barons and the 'baddest' King of England, John, did this very time 792 years ago , as the first Magna Carta, or 'Great Charter', was sealed,purportedly on this very spot beneath this ancient yew which is probably older than England itself.

Could it have been more than mere coincidence that led to me driving just seven miles or so from my home to the pleasant village of Wraysbury, in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, on the 'official' birthday of the present sovereign- which this year was just one day after the anniversary of that monumental event in British history? Maybe, but as I waited for the friends who'd invited me to meet them here to arrive from another Thameside location some twenty miles further west, my mind was filled with thoughts of just what that historic event meant for individual liberty, but also with loftier remembrance of a liberty that no prince or premier, nation or natterer has power to grant.

Magna Carta set out on paper, if not in stone, the nearest thing England has ever had to a 'Bill of Rights'- although it was never intended to be this and in fact failed initially to achieve its purpose of averting a minor civil war. Later revisions and constant reference to it as precedent however, mean it now forever vindicates the freedom of the individual citizen under law. No more could men be accused of wrongdoing and cast into the hands of unaccountable and tyrannical monarchy, nor their liberties and property be taken from them, without the fair trial of their peers and due process of law. The charter's two most famous provisions are as clear as the nose on Bad King John's face:

'No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions ... except by the lawful judgement of his peers.'
'To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.'

No wonder Magna Carta has proved to be a proof text for the world's most significant democracies ever since. Politicians may come and go- as Tony Blair will do, funnily enough, on my birthday later this month. There is ample reminder at present both sides of the 'pond' of how their practices often reek as much as the now stagnant pools of water where once Old Father Thames flowed either side of Magna Carta Island. But the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary are rightly seen as much as the crucial accessories of just society, as crown and sceptre are the tangible symbols of constitutional monarchy in the present day United Kingdom. Saturday 16th June 2007 turned out to be a day when I realised I am still very proud to be British, once all the media meddling and false witness about our national life is discounted.

King John had abused his assumed divine right to the extent that his barons would have no more of it, but a June day in 1215 ensured that no future monarch could ever get away with such a display of contempt for what we would today call 'human rights'. And yet, unjust imprisonment is still the fate of all too many in an unending stream of justice-starved regimes in the 21st century world. So many of these poor souls, only standing up for what they believe, have never had a fair trial. Were it not for the tireless efforts of Amnesty International et al, many of them would never have the hope of liberty.

Yet true liberty is surely more than a freedom from physical chains, it is a freedom of mind, body and spirit which no monarch can decree or celebrate with earthly honours, as the latest recipients of "gongs" will have done yesterday in Her Majesty's Birthday Honours List. Among them was (Sir) Salman Rushdie, who receives a knighthood nearly two decades after his seminal work The Satanic Verses put a price on his head from one particularly harsh interpretation of Islamic teaching.

Religion has been the object of so much abuse, torment and misapplication through the eight centuries since King John swore his oath before twenty-five bellicose barons on an English summer afternoon, that it can almost make his calamitous acts seem like kindergarten antics by comparison.

Yet 'true' religion - or as many prefer to describe it, faith- remains the only real solution to man's enduring mis-treatment not just of his fellow human beings, but of the natural world itself. After taking a somewhat roundabout route to get to the object of our search today, my arboriphile friends and I were able to gaze in wonder at the sight of a natural specimen which existed centuries before environmentalists came to this spot to launch a 'green' magna carta, or those who assumed the mantel of the great and the good got together in Germany for an ultimately rather ineffectual G8 summit as they sought to grapple with the world's pressing issues of the moment.

Only one man ever really got to grips with the earth's real problem- and he did it by hanging on a tree in agony and finally giving up his life, because of all the awfulness of our human nature. Yet like the freshness of a summer rainstorm on the long, lingering hours of daylight at this time of year in England's green and pleasant land, Jesus Christ drained our stagnant places by that death. At Easter he rose again, and in the next forty days until he ascended to his rightful throne, he showed, nay proved, to people of faith that there is more to life than meets even the most discerning eye.
The National Trust, of which I'm a member can work wonders with Runnymede, Ankerwycke, Churchill's Chartwell and many hundred other historic places, but only trusting in Jesus, I believe, can change hearts of stone into hearts of love. And indeed, this is all that God, requires of us in a precious prophetic passage given to Micah probably even before that Berkshire yew was a bird-carried seed:

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

I will try to post to this blog more again soon, at least monthly, but meanwhile you might like to check out some of the links on the right where you can find some of my other writing and the contributions of other websites I find both informative and inspirational.

The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and give you peace.

Things can only get...?

2007-05-04T05:05:00.000+01:00

Fill in the missing word yourself, according to your preference, or read on.
Here we are at this early hour- or is it late- on Election Night 2007, or rather post-election morn. Due to various procedural changes to protect against postal voting fraud, many of the results of the local council elections which took place in England and Scotland yesterday will not be declared until later today. May the fourth be with you!
The process which is democracy, however flawed, will bring new stars onto the political stage today, while others will just have to hope that the warring words will soon die down, at least until the next election. Yet some of the customary dynamic drama of the dark hours, waiting for the winners and losers to be revealed after the people have had their say, is lost in the chore of checking- though in Scotland, the story seems to be one more of a farce than a force, with allegedly over a hundred thousand spoilt ballot papers caused by the confusion of voters and tellers getting to grips with mainland Britain's first attempt at proportional representation for local elections but not for the Scottish Parliament elections, which were also held yesterday in the same week as the 300th anniversary of the sealing of the union between the Scottish and English realms.
While a more representative voting system in any form is to be welcome, these failings are a sad confirmation that trust- not just in politicians but in general- has become a devalued currency this last decade, while ironically the pound seems stronger than ever against the once mighty dollar.

Things can only get wetter might be the forecaster's choice of words for a song this week, as the record Spring temperatures which have held sway over the UK for five weeks with hardly a drop of rain seem set to finally disperse over -you've guessed it- the coming Bank Holiday weekend (our belated British celebration of Mayday). But for Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, it seems like the autumn of his prime ministerial career is nearing it's nadir, as his long-trailed resignation announcement seems imminent following the elections and his own promise that a "definitive" statement on his future will come next week.

The eulogies for Blair are unlikely to be as fulsome as the tributes seen yesterday in Winchester, one time capital of England, as Alan Ball, one of the "heroes" of the 1966 England soccer world cup squad was given a proper sending off at his funeral to the accompaniment of choristers, and chanting reminiscent of old Wembley's terraces. Will Tony Blair's reputation survive as long as "the boy" (Ball was the youngest England player at just 21 in that glorious cup year of 1966)? Somehow I doubt it. Where footballer's fame lives for ever, Joe and Josephine Public are renowned for their fickleness when it comes to their affection for their leaders.

You've got to feel a certain sadness for Mr Blair, as the easily-forgotten achievements of his ten years at Number Ten seem set to be buried under the forest of newsprint devoted to his exit through the blackest door in London. Press and public alike are more likely to focus on his fateful decision to take Britain into war in Iraq, a tragedy which still claims the lives of British servicemen and civilians of all nationalities alike in the post-saddam anarchy of that sad state.

It all seems a very different climate to the winds of change which you could palpably feel blowing that weary May morning with the post-election euphoria of the Labour landslide after eighteen years of Conservative rule. There was a very real sense of optimism and hope,and for my part, I was full of that as I retreated to the Pavilion Gardens in Brighton for a time of prayer after spending the night in the excited bustle of a BBC news bureau on election night alongside an old friend working for their regional TV service that night.
But, as fallen Tory star Enoch Powell famously remarked "Every political career ends in failure". Sadly, it's part of the job description. Only death in service, which befell Mr Blair's pre-decessor as Labour and opposition leader, the far from ordinary John Smith, is guaranteed to win plaudits rather than brickbats. Such is the nature of politics. Even Margaret Thatcher, whom history will record as Britain's first ever woman prime minister and respected as a great stateswoman internationally- not least by the late Russian leader Boris Yeltsin- fell by well-plotted backstabbing by her erstwhile colleagues, albeit not in Rome but in Paris.
Yet if politicians have to leave office followed by less than glorious clouds, at least Tony Blair can depart in the knowledge that he has tried his best, to adhere to his principles and in so far as it was possible, to mix pragmatism with idealism. Mr Blair claims Christian allegiance, though was mercilessly chided by the media when it was suggested he prayed with the man some would see as his nemesis, George Walker Bush.
But 28 years ago today, Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street by that same black door, pausing on the doorstep to quote words attributed to St Francis of Assisi- though subsequent commentators have suggested "where there is discord, let me bring harmony" actually comes from a prayer written in France in 1912. Truth and fiction seem blended here as is ever the way with politics; it seems to be becoming harder by the day to work out what's really going on in those gothic towers beside the Thames, let alone in the machinations of international dealings across the sea with Washington.

At least the Queen is celebrating the "special relationship" in Virginia, USA at the moment in a somewhat more dignified manner than the backbiting and caterwailing which so often accompanies the parlaying of representative government, whether at local or national level. Maybe the queen knows better than most that service is what really matters. As fallible, fallen humans, we can only try to make things better, for everybody's sake. Whether they get better depends as much on faith as action. Many would say that Britain has not got better over the last decade, but worse. More violent, less peaceful. More greedy, less sharing. More cynical, less caring. There may be an element of truth in this- but what's new.

The truth in my eyes is that as long as we rely on our own wisdom and strength to accomplish anything of worth, we get nowhere. Pride, arrogance and self-interest or just expediency will always be the enemies of lasting achievement for the betterment of humanity- which surely should be the motivation of all politicians, whatever their political colour. But what can happen instead if you put the needs of the world and the nation in the hands of the man from Galilee rather than Westminster first?
Jesus too knew failure and an inglorious departure from general favour-and for three heart-stoppingly awful days for his followers. All the power and hopes they had harboured seemed lost on the rude cross of Calvary. His only epitaph seemed to be the inscription scrawled in Latin initials as cynically and quickly as a satirists's barb on that obscene instrument of unbelievable torture: INRH: The King of the Jews. He was hastily buried in a borrowed tomb, and the powers that be thought they had restored order.
How wrong they were. Jesus' resurrection on Easter Day, his forty days of teaching to his renewed followers who believed him dead but saw him alive- over five hundred of them- is something I believe really happened, and in which we can truly trust. Jesus himself did not promise days of cloudless sunshine- he was a realist as much as the living hope of better things- but the promise is that one day, he will come again, and then all mankind will see him, and things truly will be better, not just for ten years but for all time. It's about the only promise we can really trust; therefore, I at least will take up my cross for the man of the cross not just on a warm May day at election time, but every day.

Forgive our Foolish Ways

2007-04-01T15:55:00.000+01:00

No, your eyes do not deceive you: this really is a new posting to Anyway - no fooling! If you were one of my regular readers and have been disappointed with the lack of any output from me at this URL these past three months, I apologise. I'll try to get back to blogging more regularly now; please check out the site if you can though I can't promise to post as frequently as in the past.

Can we really be a quarter of the way through 2007 already, though? Well, computer says yes, and so does the calendar, believe it or not. Many did not, it seems, in the second half of the sixteenth century in France. That was when Charles IX declared that his realm should in future keep the Gregorian calendar, and the date for the start of a new year should be moved from around the beginning of Spring to the middle of winter, i.e to January 1st. Folk who continued to observe the old celebrations on the first of April however became known as "April Fools"- or for some bizarre reason only the French can account for I guess, as 'April Fish' "Poissons d'Avril".

Well, whether the custom began with the French or not is open to question; Wikipedia, my source for the above account, mentions many of the traditions ancient and modern which have made "All Fools Day" a popular day for hoaxers and jokesters all over the world- one reason why the on-line encyclopaedia's team limit editing of the "April Fool's Day" entry to established users on this day- in case people are led even further astray by reading untruths than they have been already.

Come to think of it, I could even have tried to fool you by saying this was the reason for a lack of postings from me since the end of 2006- i.e that this is really my New Year's Day blog,and follows on from the previous one headed "New Year's Heave". But I don't think I'd get away with that one, particularly as it's now well past mid-day in the UK. In Britain, at least strictly speaking, it's April Fool's Half-Day: any attempts at perpetrating a prank after the sun is directly overhead today supposedly backfire on the would-be fooler: "April Fool is dead and gone, but the rest can carry on".
Nevertheless, I love April Fool's Day- as long as nobody catches me out and I become the victim. When I worked in the catering industry, I should have known that some of my colleagues were being unusually kind in making my morning break drink for me; supposedly a cup of tea, it actually included coffee, cocoa powder and the savoury substance Marmite as well, all in the same mug. Yuk! Much as I love Marmite, this particular fool did not amuse my tastebuds.
I also couldn't wait to see what pranks the British press and their online editions were attempting to palm us off with today- April 1st is also Palm Sunday this year, of which more later. According to The Observer, Britain's oldest Sunday newspaper and not inclined to the regular truthless ways of the "redtops", Tony Blair is to take up a new career on the stage when he retires as Prime Minister sometime this year.

The story goes on to say that so impressed was the director of the Old Vic theatre company in London, Kevin Spacey, that he offered Blair an important role in an upcoming run of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". Oh yeah, right, along with the guest starring role in an Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special? Tony might have suprised many viewers with his performance in a recent comedy sketch alongside catchphrase queen Catherine Tate in her role as the schoolgirl with attitude, Loren, but really, whether this is true or not (come on, do us a favour!) as Blair said in his Comic Relief cameo," I ain't bovvered!"

On the other hand, I think Samuel Langhorn Clemens, or should I say Mark Twain, had it right when he gave his verdict on this day:

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

He was a wise man, was Tom Sawyer's creator. The world's foolishness has continued much as it always has since I last wrote, day after day. Man's inhumanity to man astounds with its incredible awfulness, warring factions bring grief to thousands of innocent families caught up in their petty or long-standing fights, and our obsession with using and abusing the limited resources of planet Earth have made it a rare day when global warming did not make the headlines.
Meanwhile, in Britain trust in the media has taken a tumble, with revelations of numerous scams on premium-rate phone line quizzes on TV and umbrage has even been taken as Songs of Praise was forced to admit next Sunday's Easter Day special was recorded immediately after an Advent service last November, with false lighting and unseasonal clothing, to save money. It's proving harder and harder to know what is the truth these days, and what is pure fiction or fantasy. And politicians seem to be among the least trusted of any group in our apparently democratic society, with the ongoing scandal of "votes for honours" and even the PM himself interviewed by police.

But is there anything new in the folly of the ways of man? Last weekend, Britain commemorated the 200th anniversary of the passing of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Act in the UK parliament, and the sickening conditions that free-born human beings were subjected to.

Here at least was something to celebrate, wasn't there? Maybe- but it wasn't to everybody's tastes and Tuesday saw an African disrupt a national service of commemoration in Westminster Abbey in front of the Queen brought to an embarrasing unscheduled break by an African demonstrator making a non-violent but very public protest indeed at what he deems the hypocrisy of attempts to offer an apology on behalf of the nation to the outrage of the slave trade. On the other side of the Irish Sea, meanwhile, last Monday brought a scene many thought could never be seen: firebrand Ulster Unionist veteran Rev Dr Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein's leader, Gerry Adams, sitting next to each other round the same table. It is to be hoped that their historic agreement truly is an answer to the prayer of centuries, but it would be a fool that pretends there won't be difficulties and setbacks along the way.

April Fool's Day this year also falls (pun intended!) on Palm Sunday. This is the commemoration of the week when the folly of humanity was revealed for what it really is, but God's forgiveness of the world he loves so dearly was made most evident. Palm Sunday starts Holy Week, the most solemn and yet moving event on the Christian calendar. Today commemorates the 'triumphal' entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, where he was greeted by Jews of every age as their king, come to overturn the oppression of Roman occupation and to bring them deliverance. Hearts were full of hope and the air was resounding with "Hosannas" and the cheers and greetings of devoted followers.

Five days later, all of those devoted followers had left Jesus of Nazareth, whom billions believe was God in human form, to his fate in a cold Jerusalem garden on the darkest night in human history. The next day, only a helpless, some would say foolish, few followers were there to see him crucified mercilessly on a crude Roman cross the most ignoble of deaths. The people of God were allowing the one they had only recently lauded -and who, believers say, is our one true hope for humanity- to be slaughtered. Could anything more foolish have ever been witnessed?

Yet this was God's way; the "foolishness" of God is greater than man's wisdom. There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. So my emotions today, and that of all who believe Jesus is the best friend anyone can have, who never fools with us, are mixed. There is that nervous, uneasy laughter you have when you are trying to pretend that everything's all right in your world, but something fearful is about to happen. There is joy and the shared experience of the Palm Sunday procession and worship-but there is the recognition that without the salvation of Good Friday and the merciful miracle of Easter Day, life itself is a foolish thing. These foolish things, this year, remind me of Him, our saviour Jesus Christ the holy 'fool' who died for all. Will you bring your own mistakes and foolish behaviour to him this holy week, knowing you're forgiven? I know I will, with tears of both laughter and sorrow.

New Year's Heave

2006-12-31T15:02:00.000Z

So, here we are then, at the climax of another 365 days, when Old Father Time, AD2006 version, has to surrender his throne to that young upstart 2007. Already in the Antipodes, the famous fireworks over Sydney Harbour Bridge, which created such a memorable image seven years ago for the millennium, will have fizzled out and jaded revellers will be feeding the new babe with tinnies and prawnies as their Summer also reaches its height. Having made contact this year (by which I still mean MMVI for the moment) with paternal cousins in Oz for the first time, I've a special reason to think of them with affection at this time.

Back here in Blighty, though, the celebrations won't be getting into gear for another four hours or so at least yet. New Year's Eve, in England at least, is a strange beast. Everybody feels they ought to be celebrating it, but a great many people don't seem to know how. And if Christmas Night seems over too soon, then the significance of this night is even more short-lived. Twelve bongs, a few thousand simultaneous bangs and then the ringing headache after too much booze, and for many- that's it. I've often thought that, actually, 1st January is just a public hangover cure masquerading as a public holiday.

Perhaps part of the problem is that this has become such a long break in the UK that most folk are tired out come midnight on the 31st. Tuesday the second will indeed have to be a heave for some,- though not those in North Britain, aka Scotland-back onto crowded commuter trains and the further shock to the wallet of the London Congestion Charge resuming, after all the festive excesses and credit card overtime. New Year can certainly bring folk down to earth quicker than a rocket stick.

Maybe it's also the case, though, that the start of the recognised civil New Year throughout most of the world now, has absolutely no significance beyond an arbitrary date on the calendar. 31st December and 1st January no more celebrate an actual astronomical event than the constellation of the Great Bear depicts an actual ursine. The earth's annual transit of the sun actually takes up rather inconveniently a little more than 365 actual days so there never was or is a point when we can truly mark the passing of this unit of time.
Maybe, in some ways, the Judaic and Islamic faiths have a more accurate calendar by focussing on the lunar year rather than the solar one, but this does lead to the somewhat inconvenient occurrence of some of their feasts and fasts at the most incongenial time some years- though this year's Hajj to Mecca, reaching it's climax co-incidentally on 1st January in the Western Calendar, seems to have attracted as astounding a number of pilgrims as ever. No doubt everyone is praying that there will be no repeat of the tragedies of recent years where sheer weight of numbers has led to stampedes and many fatalities.

For most of us, though, the turn of the year offers a convenient point for our own "annual assessment", whether in employment or not. It's the time to look back on what has been achieved and what has not during the previous twelve months, and it's the time to look forward to what the new year may offer. If ever a Christian feast were to be created for it, I guess it could be the feast of Hope: "O God Our Help in Ages past, Our Hope for Years to Come" certainly seems to have been a prevalent post-Christmas hymn heard on radio services this week.

Some may see hope in the year ahead for changes in the world's worst trouble spots. I'm no supporter of capital punishment, but the execution of Saddam Hussein on 30th December certainly brought to an end one chapter in the history of the pain-filled nation which is currently Iraq. But it hasn't solved the problems, which remain, and many must still be filled with fear, not just in Iraq but throughout the Middle East, as a new year begins.

On the other hand, it's a new beginning for the United Nations, with a new Secretary-General about to take over from Kofi Annan. Ban Ki-Moon certainly looks like being a very different personality to his pre-decessor, being described in a BBC News Article as a "mild-mannered" man more interested in administration than diplomacy. But mild manners can maketh man and can lift nations from despair to hope. Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent, after all, was definitively meek. I certainly don't envy Ban Ki-Moon his job, but I do pray and wish him well in it.

When all is said and done, each new year brings the hope that we are drawing closer to the return of another superman- one who, literally, was man but was also above the limitations of man and his petty, hateful, mindset. Jesus, the boy born in a lowly manger in that ill-regarded outpost which today suffers surrounded by the brick walls of fear and division which is the modern day Holy Land, grew up to be a man who offered more hope to humankind than any dictator, international leader or statesman ever can. He offered people the chance to be their real selves, to discover life in all its fulness, to be rid of enslavement to our own shortcomings- aka sin- and to find new life in him.

I don't know what this next year will bring, either for me, for you, or for the world. I could be the guy with the half-full glass of optimism, or the misanthrope with the half-empty poisoned challice of fear. I'm neither. Reminded this morning at my church's last service of 2006, I turn again to John Betjeman's lovely poem, Christmas, for a reminder of what to celebrate on New Year's Eve. Being part of the family of man, of course, and the community of nations, but more so, being one of those many billions that God so loved that he gave his ONLY son for us:

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.

I wish you a joyful, peaceful and prosperous time ahead- and thanks for reading my ramblings in 2006. Keep journeying with me, anyway, as we tread into 2007. Happy New Year!

Blank Holidays

2006-12-28T17:57:00.000Z

These last days of December are a peculiar phenomenon in the UK. In three-sevenths of years (disregarding leap years for tidiness), the 27th and/or the 28th are designated as "Bank Holidays", and financial service workers, at least, either endure or enjoy the continuing Christmas festivities with a clear conscience as they take their legal entitlement to extra leave. Whenever one or both of the original December holidays- the 25th and 26th- fall on a Saturday or a Sunday, the next weekdays are observed as the official holiday(s).

This arrangement seems to have received royal assent sometime in the 1970s, but it probably would have happened anyway whether or not it had official sanction. 2006 is not one of those years where the calendar and the largesse of the Department of Trade and Industry cause extra bank holidays to occur after Christmas, but for industry at least it's still laid-back Britain until the 2nd January. So many firms, small and large, take a winter break and in my view that's no bad thing.

Some, of course, rail against the now established tendency to take nearly a fortnight's absence from the workplace between Christmas and New Year's Day, claiming it has an adverse effect on the economy and favours our competitors. What Scrooge-ish rot; I'm all in favour of it. This is probably about the closest 21st-century Britain will ever come to keeping the original "Twelve Days of Christmas" immortalised in the carol of the same title but originally reflecting a Christian festival which emphasises so much more of the whole Christmas story than can fit into the too swiftly passed 24 hours of Christmas Day.

Each of the four days after Christmas Day has a feast or commemoration associated with it in the church calendar. Good King Wenceslas has helped to ensure that everyone knows about the Feast of Stephen, the first Christian Martyr, which is more commonly observed in Britain and it's former colonies as "Boxing Day". For those outside the UK, I should perhaps explain that this is not a governmental edict to indulge in post-festive bare- knuckle fighting, but refers to the tradition of the church opening it's alms boxes on this day and then distributing the contents to the poor of the parishes. By extension, it soon became also the day when tradesmen hoped to be favoured by the seasonal generosity of their clients in gratitude for a good year's service to them.

Today though, and regrettably, about the only boxes you'll see being opened on 26th December are the night safes of the banks as the biggest names in the high streets and malls deposit their takings for what more cynically might now be called Buying Day. Whereas once you could rely on two days freedom from the trend to spend, today's 24/7 world allows only the briefest of amnestys from the passage of cash and the worship of mammon, it seems. And for the viewer of commercial television, there's no let up even on Christmas Day as we're reminded constantly on screen that "sale starts 9 a.m Boxing Day".
For heaven's sake, do we really need all this? Are we so desperate or greedy for a clothing or homeware bargain that we will leave homes and families on Christmas night to queue for the Next sale to open it's doors, and start fighting with fellow mad shoppers when it doesn't do so on time? It speaks volumes, I think, of how far British society has fallen from one of respect, courtesy and reverence to an every man for himself mentality which is the polar opposite of the spirit of the season.

I don't want to appear so other-worldly that I won't admit to enjoying a bargain, even after the excesses of spending and giving of Christmas- but it can wait another day. On the 27th and 28th, I was out there too, rummaging among the designer labels or the Waterstone's bookshelves for cannily reduced products I probably wouldn't have got before Christmas. But there's a price to pay for our bargains which is every bit as obscene as the sweatshop rates still so prevalent in the two-thirds world where most of the garments are manufactured these days. And the days of leisure of some are gained at the expense of the quality family time that shop workers too should be able to enjoy with their loved ones on Boxing Day. Governments hark on about the breakdown of family life, but given this largely unchecked descent into unfettered till-opening, is it any wonder that so many suffer through our long hours, overwork culture?

Meanwhile, for those not tied to the barcode and the stockroom, the respective "feasts" of St John the Evangelist, The Holy Innocents and The Holy Family provide more opportunity to spend time in rest and, dare I hope, reflection. Few churches these days will have special services for these events, but at least there is a special feeling in the air, still, which if you take time to breathe it in adds much spiritual rather than financial value to this protracted sequence of Holy Days.

You could feel it today in the winter sunshine which has at last replaced the gloomy grey cloud which has afflicted much of the British Isles for the last couple of weeks. You could breathe it and smell it in the seasonal fragrance of the somnolent shrubs and hedges of the Walled Garden in Sunbury on Thames where I grabbed an hour or so of fresh air this afternoon. You could sense the festive essence still in the sights of wildfowl who've escaped the Christmas feasting to enjoy their natural habitat on the waters of the nearby River Thames.

And after dusk, though the solstice has now passed and sunset already becomes later each day,for the moment you can still observe and enjoy that wonderful Christmas spirit in the comforting lights of many different colours that still adorn so many homes, shops and public buildings and surely should do til next Monday, the start of the New Year, at least. Unless you happen to be a certain pub chain which seems to have decreed Christmas ends on Boxing Day so down come the decorations. Shameful.

For once this year, the post-Christmas blues can still be enjoyed more illuminating a Christmas tree rather than sorrowing an anti-climaxed soul, for me at least. We can, as one of the carols says "keep a Christmas in our heart". Indeed, it's right that we should do so, really, until January 6th, which is the "Feast of the Epiphany". We may moan about many of the ways mainland Europeans seek to change our national ways at times, but I rather wish that some EU edict would decree that 6th January is recognised as it should be here, as it already is there. That feast commemorates the visit of the magi (wise men, or three kings) to the infant Christ and is symbolic of his revelation to all the world.

"Twelfth Night" therefore is the time when, as another carol puts it, "need they no created light". Our celestial ball is starting to bring more hours of daylight, but there's still much darkness in the world. It will take more than a fibre optic or a mini-watt bulb to illuminate, or should I say eliminate, that. What we really need is for our inner selves, our spirits to be fed as much as our tummies will have been come that date when the feasting stops for the time being. Maybe if we once again start to enjoy and observe these "holy days" until then, we might catch a little glimmer of that light to see us through til next Christmas.

Waiter, Waiter!

2006-12-24T09:06:00.000Z

Last night, I went out for a "bonzer" scoff of some Aussie-themed tucker with two friends and my brother to celebrate his birthday. My younger sibling has always been very gracious about having to celebrate his natal day amongst all the other distractions and busy-ness of the week before Christmas, but I can't help feeling a bit sorry for him. You wait all year for it to come round and then it can almost get lost under the postman's pile of Christmas cards and festive goodies filling the fridge. And it's over before you know it.

I wonder if we treat Christmas a bit like that? Today is Christmas Eve, a day with a unique atmosphere which you cannot bottle like the Cointreau I finished my meal with last night. There is a buzz in the shoppers thronging the streets in a last minute dash to get gifts for their loved ones, or more likely enough vittals to see them through to, ooh all of 24 hours or so. Maybe even 48 if you count Boxing Day.

But it is also a Sunday. A special Sunday too: the fourth Sunday in Advent. Ask most ordinary Joes or Marys on the street today what Advent means, and you might if you're lucky get the response "chocolate calendars"! The last of the doors will have been most eagerly opened today by wide-eyed children everywhere in the parts of the world that celebrate Christmas. But will they have a clue why they have to wait so long to open number 24, or so it will have seemed to them.

Advent is about waiting. The trouble is, we live in a society that doesn't like waiting for anything. It's got to be instant- instant messaging, instant winning with the lottery or instant mash for hard-pressed Mums today who haven't the time to cook anything for tonight's meal because of all the preparations for tomorrow.

Britain is a land famed for it's polite queueing or as Americans would have it, waiting in line. But the tradition shows signs of cracking. Time is the new gold, it seems and people no longer want to wait to get their goods. They'll give anything to save time. The Argos chain of catalogue stores are alert to this, and today their hard-pressed staff will be frantically bringing out orders placed on-line, by phone or even by text by folk too lazy or too impatient to take their turn in the queue in store but just want to pick it up later.

Yet sometimes, nature has a habit of reminding us that, actually, we can't always have what we want instantly and we just have to wait. Harrassed travellers at Heathrow Airport, just to my North from where I sit, had to learn that this week as the thickest December fog Britain has seen in many years grounded many internal and short-haul flights. Mercifully for people travelling to their beloved families this Christmas, the fog has now lifted and flights were expected to be back to normal today, but a lesson will perhaps have been learnt.

I wish the same could be said for our society as a whole and that people would re-learn some of the true meaning of Advent. As Christmas Eve, today is a wonderful treasure, but to benefit from its full joy, everywhere that celebrates it has to wait a few more hours before the reason for the season finally brings forth the most precious gift of all. For believers, it's the Christ child. For those who profess no faith, love will still come down and reveal itself again to most in loving families.

But not to all. Still we wait for the day when there will be no more tears from the lonely and deserted, no more grief from the bereaved, no more sickness or sadness, no more pestilence or poverty. Will we ever see that day? Well, the writer of one of the Bible's Psalms, possibly King David himself, one of Jesus' earthly ancestors, certainly believed so. He said "I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living".

In a world that lacks so much, yet assumes it has plenty, there is still a real hope of a better tomorrow. There is hope because in the Northern winter, the season of dead nature and cold, people still celebrate the warmth and light of life in all its fulness- even when that fulness might mean a bloated belly for a little while. And Advent is all about hope. Not just anticipating the celebration tomorrow of the birth of Christ, but of his promise of coming again and bringing all things in history to completion, instantly.

This is a promise which keeps me and other believers going and celebrating every day of their lives, not just on the 25th December (or early January in the Orthodox tradition). But the promise was bought at a price greater than any Harrod's price tag, in blood redder than a santa claus suit on the Good Friday cross- but taken back to the creator and replaced with new, everlasting life on Easter Day. Even Duracell can't promise that with their essential batteries.

If you've been a regular reader of Anyway, I thank you for your support and interest this year- and for waiting! I know it's been a couple of months now since I last posted anything, partly due to other writing commitments recently. But I still love sharing these thoughts with you from time to time, and if you've been helped or touched by them in any way, or have any questions, please hit the comment option at the bottom of this posting. Otherwise, I hope you'll stay visiting and I wish you and your families a joyful, peaceful and Happy Christmas.

Moonstruck

2006-10-07T12:58:00.000+01:00

There was a full moon last night- or more precisely, very early this morning here in the UK, at 04.13 British Summer Time; make the most of that time zone for in less than a month it will be back to our standard time zone of GMT and the long hours of winter darkness beckon.

But why fear winter? I was way off in the land of nod when our earth's diminutive brother, lifeless yet full of power and light, reached another peak, but I'd caught a glimpse of it just after midnight and likewise earlier in the week on the Sussex Coast. In both cases, it left me awe-struck, or should I say moonstruck.

I don't know how many full moons I must have seen as my own seasons of life have come and gone as our terrestrial ball has spun and orbited in space for over four decades. Looked at like this, I am a mere pinhole camera, taking snapshots of a tiny moment in the eons of the universe. I am a crude observer, trying to capture the wonder of it all, yet still experiencing joy, surprise and peace much as the ancients must have felt too at another month's passing and the coming of the full moon.

No matter how much science, technical progress and the discoveries particularly of the late twentieth century have altered our view of the lunar landscape, it has yet to explain beauty. Science cannot answer why the moon over water is one of the most romantic sights man or woman can ever see. Who needs elaborate special effects and artificial lighting when what is really a giant reflector in the night sky can offer more than the finest film camera can ever see.

You've never needed the cinema, TV or VDU screen to marvel at the moon. One thing I was, shamefully, unaware of until this Thursday, when BBC Two repeated a fascinating documentary about our only natural satellite, is that the full moon appears the same at every point on earth. No corner of our globe escapes it's benevolent beaming.

It's been over a mo(o)nth since I last wrote to this blog- in fact, just slightly longer than the lunar cycle. During that period, one group of believers has celebrated the harvest, as many Christian churches have yearly been doing since the Victorian era though echoing a tradition dating back to ancient times. Another faith, Islam, has begun it's holy month of fasting, Ramadan, the duration of which is intimately tied in with the phases of the moon. And for the third of the patriarchal religions, the Jewish community, a new year has just begun and the old one has been remembered and people have repented en masse as remembering the creation of the earth with joy at Rosh Hashanna, and then the most solemn festival of the year at Yom Kippur passes. Long may these things be observed.

As a now-departed senior friend of mine once said, we're all different- and thank goodness! We differ in our beliefs, our observances, our creeds, our hopes, our dreams. We sometimes argue about them passionately, though mercifully mostly short of war. Nevertheless, in the past couple of days, a respected former British Foreign Secretary has incurred the wrath of some people of faith for daring to express his own opinions about the difficulties of communicating with some of the his constituents who choose to wear the burkah, the face veil worn by some Muslim women.

Yet we still all inhabit the same, fragile, delicate, beautiful, complex, fascinating spaceball which we call The Earth, and watch its bosom buddy the moon. Bound together by their mutually dependent physical forces, and our planet's eco-systems, its climate, its rhythms, its tides. We did not create these so how can we dare we allow ourselves to be a vehicle of its destruction.

But sadly, man turns too late to reason so often, to understand the vitalness of co-dependence, and the special gift of life we have been given, by some power we people of faith choose to believe in while others feel no need of. Lunar love-in turns to lunacy when a crazed gunman slaughters five beautiful little girls in a peaceful Pennsylvania community with the painfully ironic name of Paradise.

Paradise lost. It lost the bodies of young lives who might yet have contributed something beautiful to this earth. It robbed its mothers and its fathers of the heart-warming joy of raising their daughters and replaced it with the obscenity of burying them before they'd even reached their teens. Can anything be salvaged from the senselessness of acts like this which are seldom out of the news from more than a few months?

As long as the moon shines, I believe it can. As long as man has hope in his heart of a better tomorrow, is sorry for all his wrongdoing to others and gives thanks for what this wonderful world is and can be, there is the possibility of redemption. I believe the outworking of that is found in the life of one man, who came that we all might have life, in all its fulness- but how he chooses to deliver that promise, is the stuff of faith.

BBC One television, long associated with a circling globe against a sea of space as its logo, has today launched a new series of channel idents to a mixed reception. I've seen about four of them so far already, including a scene of some fishermen somewhere in Asia against a moon-drenched sky glimmering on a silvery sea. It's a simple yet powerful image- as delightful to a tiny child as the most world-weary adult. It reminded me of how I felt at midnight yesterday, as the clouds of night were kissed by the moon of day. The powers of darkness had once again been overcome by pure, white, milky light.

As surely as we have faith that the waning moon will again be full, may we always be awed - or rather, changed- by the Light of the World, as nearer and nearer draws the time when the Earth shall be filled with the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.

What's in a name?

2006-09-03T14:35:00.000+01:00

No, I really am "Mark A Savage", honest guv'nor. It says so on my birth certificate so it must be true. No hiding behind a pseudonym on this blog, though whether I should or not is another matter.

I had to laugh when I turned on for the Daily Service on BBC Radio 4 last Tuesday, to hear the end credits for the previous programme: "Mark Savage went to 'Meet the Bloggers'". Did I? I must admit that I don't remember those particular encounters, and if I did- where's my lovely cheque for 15 minutes of BBC airtime- I could do with the cash right now! Still, given my own love of blogging, it seemed really appropriate that he should have put this typical Radio 4 gem together. I seriously feel I really ought to contact my namesake: it's rather spooky that we're both radiophiles, it seems.

Anyway, Meet the Bloggers proved to be really interesting, when I got round to listening to it this Sunday afternoon. You can catch the latest edition if you're reading this in September (it's a series of five) from the Radio 4 website by clicking on my posting title above,and following the link to the "Listen Again" feature. Mind you, it's just as well I'm an honest soul, as I actually did get a cheque which I think was intended for that BBC producer/presenter some years ago while I was working as a broadcast assistant. Needless to say, I rapidly sent it back to it's proper home, though perhaps with a little sorrow that I hadn't managed to make the full-time career in radio that clearly this native Savage had.

The trouble is, you can't rely on your name alone these days to testify to your uniqueness as a person. Even less so can you count on the integrity of others to respect your right to its exclusive use in a financial capacity. We're told that identity theft is rife- yet I can't help wondering if this is sometimes an over-hyped story designed to make money for those same sort of people that made a fortune out of scare stories of the dreaded "Millennium Bug"- which proved to be about as harmless as a ladybird in most cases. The company which tried to sell my brother extra identity theft cover on his insurance policy the other day must think they've found a goldmine in our fears of someone impersonating us.

Then there are the cases where people quite legitimately choose to change their names. Ask when Reg Dwight or Harry Webb last had a hit and many folk would look blankly at you or think you're having a laugh. Tell them that you're talking about Sir Elton John and Sir Cliff Richard respectively and it would be a different story. Clearly, there can be great advantages to changing your name, though sometimes the most bizarre of real family names do you no harm. Yes, there really was a Clarence Birdseye, just as much as a simply named Thomas Cook, WH Smith and even, once, an old McDonald who had some cows before he decided they'd make better burgers (sorry to offend any of my vegetarian readers).

This week's news has included the confusing and ultimately rather sad tale of a girl allegedly kidnapped from outside her school gates in Stornoway on Scotland's Orkney Islands. Her tearful, shaking mother appeared before cameras earlier in the week, emotionally pleading for the safe return of "Molly Campbell" amid claims her father had abducted her to take her to Pakistan to be forced into marriage.

Yet by the end of the week, we saw that "Molly" was safe and well in Pakistan, with her father and siblings. She had apparently gone there of her own accord. Except now she wished to be known by her Islamic name of Misbah Iram Ahmed Rahma, thus carrying with her the surname of her father who had been estranged from her mother for five years. Amid all the tug-of-love wranglings of the story- I found myself really feeling for the mother when the story first broke, and said a quick prayer- for the media there's the new ethical dilemma of what they call the subject at the heart of this story while it's news. Misbah or Molly? What name should she be called? It's her right under British laws to have an identity of her own choosing, after all.

Showbiz celebrities might have even more liberty, to choose names and cast them off again at their whim and fancy. There is at least one pop star fallen from grace who went through several incarnations very different from the name on his birth certificate. In Britain and the US, at least, it's also something the rest of us can do with ease if we choose, traditionally and officially by deed poll. But probably for most it's a complication too far, given that so much paperwork and before long, I fear, compulsory identity cards carry the names we were born with.

Yet God who carries "the name which is above all other names" recognised that nomenclatures can harm or heal, bless or curse. Is that maybe why Abram gained a syllable and became Abraham, the father of many nations- especially in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic worlds? Whereas the hated persecutor and executor of Christians, Saul, changed a consonant and overturned his life, and became one of the greatest apostles of Christianity and writer of much of the New Testament.

"John Mark" wrote the first of the gospels but most of us know him as Saint Mark, presumably to avoid confusion with Saint John. His familiar name means "warrior" or "warlike", somewhat ironically in homage to the Roman god of war, Mars. And I'm a Savage by name (my late father's) but not by nature- anything but. But perhaps the name's not so inappropriate after all. I would give up anything and everything- even the fame of seeing my by-line in print (as I have done several times this year) or at the end of a radio programme, for the namesake of Our Father, whose name is hallowed indeed, and his son, Jesus the Christ. I suppose I like to see myself as a warrior for Christ, in fact.

I'm not telling you here what my "A" stands for- but it's not actually Anthony like a certain present premier who's garnered a lot of column centimetres in the last couple of days and all because of a mug which suggests the personal qualities of all who bear this name, even if many of them like number 10's current occupant prefer the diminutive "Tony". But does his name alone mean we can really believe everything Mr Blair tells us about his plans for the future?

OK, so ultimately, what IS in a name? It depends who gave the name and how you prove it, I guess. One piece of paper can't prove you are who you say you are. It can't say anything about who you really are inside, your history, hopes and dreams, or who you yet might be. But a name given by the king of kings and written on your heart can.

Betjeman's Bank Holiday Birthday Blog

2006-08-29T14:59:00.000+01:00

Monday 28th August was a day for enjoying all things traditional and everything English- like seaside siestas, glorious gardens and fun-filled fairs- not to mention beer and barbecues, cars and queues. It was the last Bank Holiday of the Summer- but also the centenary of the birth one of Britain's most popular poets laureate, Sir John Betjeman.

If you're a regular reader of these blogs or know me well, you'll already be familiar with my love of word play and particularly alliteration. The appeal of successive words containing the same initial letters is one of the many fun things you can do when trying to combine twenty-six letters to make satisfying sentences- there, I did it again!

I've always enjoyed writing about the people and places I've visited, and the emotions and experiences I've had along the way. I suppose when all's said and done that's what all writing's about, whether fiction or fact. It's how we share our humanity, how we can attempt to understand our deeper feelings, trials and tribulations. Somewhere along the way, good writing also has the power to entertain as well as inform.

I love putting words together to form these blogs when - increasingly of late- other writing commitments don't get in the way, but I've never seen myself as much of a poet. With the odd exception, I'm very much a prose-smith. But I can nevertheless appreciate poetry's power to elevate the commonplace to the comment place, where literary criticism and appreciation of the use of language come to the fore.

Some sourpuss scoffers thought during his lifetime that John Betjeman couldn't be judged a proper poet at all, because he so loved rhyming couplets. But so what? The great joy of rhyme is that is memorable, and Betjeman had a gift for condensing the profound into the fuss-free device of a rhyme which everyone could appreciate. That doesn't mean his writing lost any of its power for all that: Christmas, which I paid homage to in this blog last Advent with my own poem, is a work of beauty which portrays the meaning of Christ's birth in a way none of the sugary lines of a Christmas card ever can.

John Betjeman's great contribution to English society was that he was a flawed genius- like so many of the rest of us, no doubt. Twenty-two years after his cruel death from the ravages of Parkinson's Disease, he's been remembered this month in many a television, radio and newspaper homage. At the same time, A N Wilson, his latest biographer, has stirred up controversy over claims about the authenticity of a letter about the poet's mistress.

The words of others can never do full justice to the legacy and the life of any individual. They are but a feeble attempt to explain the mysterious, complex, wonderful creation which is a human being. John Betjeman was a walking contradiction at times; considered quintessentially English in so many of his writings and causes, he was actually of immigrant stock. Always a man of faith, and yet often ill at ease with his Anglicanism. A master of words and yet at times tortured by his thoughts- particularly of death.

I love John Betjeman's poetry. I love his depiction of an England now long gone, of the suburbia I inhabit and the customs I cherish. He wrote some lovely words, worthy of celebration at this centenary time. But a man's a man for all that- as another great British poet,Robert Burns, famously declared with his homage to humility two centuries before Betjeman. Only in faith and trust, and in the love of Jesus do we really find what life's all about. Plenty of poetic words in the bible, as well as the journalistic narrative of my namesake Mark confirm that for me, as ultimately it did for Betjeman.

By blood after bird
God kept his Word
From the Ark, the dove sent
That all should repent
Becoming flesh in Palestine
Jesus came for all mankind
That love should prosper, in souls of the earth
And everyone know the joy of new birth.

Phew, All Britannia

2006-08-01T19:31:00.000+01:00

If the Romans hadn't given us enough names already for the months of the year, we'd surely be inventing new ones by now. Two of the Caesars claimed respectively July and August, otherwise Scorchio and Vacancio might well make more appropriate names for the distinguishing marks of this time of year.

July was the hottest on record in the UK, though not quite exceeding the record high of 10th August 2003 when the Fahrenheit century (around 37 degrees Centigrade) was breached for the first time ever in the British Isles at my late mother's birthplace, Faversham in Kent. Now Midsummer has given way to High Summer as we've entered the eighth month of the year, yet already I find moments of melancholy as sunset now gets back to before 9 p.m and the shops are full of Back to School gear hardly a week after the little loves have finished the school year.

August can be a very strange month; even politicians shut their traps for a few weeks -at least in parliament during the recess. The media go all silly, but normally nobody cares as most of Britain breathes a collective sigh of relief to enjoy a few weeks of rest and relaxation and a chance to chill out- literally.

With perfect timing the two-week heatwave came to an end last weekend. Although as I write, it's still a somewhat sticky summer afternoon, the temperatures are at least below the thirty degrees celsius mark again. We Britons are just not made for extremes: we are used to a temperate climate and most of the time that reflects our expressions of our national values too. The rare, but welcome, exceptions are seen in the culture fests of this time of the year here, when Edinburgh brings its Caledonian charm to the largest international arts festival in the world, while Wales celebrates all things Cambrian with the Royal National Eisteddfod, taking place this week around the principality's second city of Swansea.

Here in England, London's Royal Albert Hall plays host to some of the most internationally-renowned orchestras and soloists as the BBC Proms season brings a wealth of music to the nation prior to the Britophile feast which is the Last Night, a tradition much imitated as an evening diversion in August across the land. I love all these events, and wish I could take part in every one in some way.

There's something about summer which is a contradiction: on the one hand, it begs you to slow the pace down to spare the body the fierce heat we are now becoming accustomed to, and yet it's a time where you long to make the most of the great outdoors visiting new places or becoming re-acquainted with ones last seen many years ago. Earlier this week, I was delighted to spend a mini break on the Sussex coast at my "other" home. We tripped through the centuries, taking in Hastings, home of a castle even in Roman times -long before William I launched the last succesful conquest of England- and the next day went to Bodiam, where everybody's idea of a fairy tale castle took me back to my first acquaintance with this heavenly location as a ten-year old.

Children and adults alike love the chance at such places to wind back the film of the imagination to an age before CGI did the imagining for us. It's enlightening and interesting to think back to the times of bold knights, wise kings and fair maidens. But the mind is tricked if it thinks that those times were really so different from the 21st century. Amidst all the chivalry, there was also great brutality, cruel and sudden death, merciless slaughter and pointless destruction of property and persons. Many children did not even live to adulthood.

Sound familiar? Sadly, it's the tale played out this summer not in imagination but in reality on the front pages and the TV screens of the world as the ever-volatile situation in the Middle East approaches a new boiling point. It might not have the outward appearance of the battles and conquests of Roman, Saxon and Medieval Europe, but the net effects are every bit as horrendous for the individual lives war always affects.

Israel is at war once again, not with a sovereign state but with a faction, Hizbullah or the "party of God", seemingly holed up in Beirut, Lebanon. Hence the land of majestic cedar trees is once again tortured by the indiscriminate explosive power of airborne weapons, and the world despairs as both sides make claims about the evil excesses of the other while innocent children and civilians are as ever the powerless victims. Just as the Lebanese capital was once again becoming an attractive holiday destination, the indelible scars of war mar more than facades. They destroy precious human bodies.

Can there ever be an end to all this wretched warfare? Is there a solution to the senseless killing which brings nothing but more tears and bitterness? Politicians will try, and Britain's PM Tony Blair is, somewhat ironically, achieving a measure of redemption amidst the enduring hatred of his part in the troubles of another part of this region, Iran. Britain had a long-standing reputation as an honest broker and peacemaker in the world's warmongering, but such policy now seems to belong to an age long gone.

Nobody can breathe any true sighs of relief while this horror remains. It's about far more than oil and land, it's about man's basic nature. Sadly, we can breathe no sighs of relief or take a holiday from "sin". All three of the religions which have fought over this part of the globe for centuries as "People of the Book", the book being the Hebrew Bible, recognise that "Sin" became an innate part of the human condition long ago. Middle East war is only the most extreme and disturbing part of that within all of us. Normally rapidly cooled down from nothing worse than a hot temper, we're nevertheless all capable of the cold-blooded murder which is the mark of extremism given the right - or wrong- spark. Like a match to parched grass, war brings uncontrollable destruction everywhere in its wake which no firefighter can control for long, it seems.

Yet still there is hope. The Hebrew Bible is an "old" testament, and so often it seems punctuated by violence and hatred. Yet it also speaks of a time when swords will be turned into plougshares- or maybe tracer missiles into tractors. When the lion shall lie down with the lamb. Or when freedom fighting becomes love liberated. There will be no more sickness, no more sadness, no more dying. It's coming, when I do not know, but surely it will. And Israelis, Lebanese, Iraqis, Afghans and all the warring tribes of the world, will lie in green pastures together. Not just all Britain, but all creation, will breathe the biggest sigh of relief ever expired, when that happens. May we see it, one day not for a season, but for all eternity.

New Balls, please

2006-07-16T15:39:00.001+01:00

Midsummer in Britain, late June and early July, always means but one thing to much of our nation of armchair sports fans- Wimbledon! It's over now, for another year, and there's a certain sadness at its absence.
2006 brought the usual mixture of hopeless hype followed by inevitable disappointment for our own top players, although Andy Murray looks a force to be reckoned with in future years and he's just nineteen now. But for anyone with an eye for good sportsmanship, the thrill of the contest- and a taste for strawberries and cream- Wimbledon is a delight. Even for the many millions who will never queue for hours to get a seat on the hallowed Centre Court of the All England Lawn Tennis Club (the croquet seems to have vanished from their official title) in London, SW19, it's the perfect way to enjoy the great outdoors, late into the balmy, sunny evenings, of which we've already had a great quota this year.

What a contrast, though, between the fair play of the tennis court and the dirty doings which so often characterise soccer these days. No sooner had we finished watching Roger Federer, the invincible Swiss, roll right over exciting young Spaniard Rafael Nadal, than the TV camera's attention switched to the Olympiastadion in Berlin for the biggest sporting contest of them all, the FIFA World Cup final.
If you've read my posting of 15th June, even if you didn't follow the tournament, you might not be surprised to know that England's national side later left Germany in typically disappointing fashion to the dreaded penalty shoot-out against Portugal. Ironic then that the world-beaters who made it all the way through to the final duel with a ball on the pitch last Sunday night also had their respective fates decided by the one-on-one method rather than the best of teamwork.
In the end of course, Italy emerged Die Weltmeister for the next four years, after France failed to show the flare that had brought them to the goal de triomphe eight years ago. It could though have been a very different story, were it not for the astounding antics of the incredible Zinedine Zidane who ended his professional career in "the beautiful game" with a sending off for the most obvious example of a foul ever witnessed, by head-butting Italy's Marco Materazzi. It later emerged, at least according to Zidane and a legion of Italian lip-readers who suddenly found themselves more precious than the gleaming golden trophy, that France's fading star had been provoked when Materazzi apparently made foul-mouthed taunts about Zidane's ill mother and his sister.

Nevertheless, idolised by so many and recognised as a footballing genius by all, Zidane later apologised for his actions because of the bad example it would have set to the many millions of children watching. At least in part, he redeemed himself and still went on to win the "golden ball" award as player of the championship. Perhaps, maybe and ultimately, all these pri-Maradonna players can recapture something of another very English attitude to sport: it's NOT the winning, it's the taking part- unfashionable though it may be to say it.

Sport at its best is about human beings stretching their God-given bodies to the limit in physical activity and mental dedication to their game. Somebody has to win, yes, by the very nature of competition, but this need not lessen the contribution of the losing opponent. Indeed, at Wimbledon the runners-up still take away a very handsome sum not to be sniffed at, but what's more creditable is the off-court admiration and affection that tennis players so often have for each other.

Perhaps this is closer to the spirit in which Christians "play the game". These days, we might not have to compete against killer lions but believers face every day the fatal attitudes of a secular society where it seems to have become so often every man for himself. Yet St Paul urged the early Christians on despite all provocation to run the race, for the prize which was theirs to be earned at the end. The only victory that really matters to Jesus' followers is that of love over hate. That is even strong enough to defeat death itself. The ball-whacking may have stopped for now, but making a whacking good effort to outlove the other man is a task of a lifetime. Love- All.

Back after the Break

2006-07-16T15:39:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know, it's been a long time since my last posting to Anyway...- just over a month in fact. My apologies to regular readers but it's been a hot and hectic time- not that I'm complaining, much. Following are some of the thoughts I'd been meaning to share during these 31 days and I hope you enjoy reading them. Please don't feel shy about adding your own comments on these or any other postings; my site meter lets me know where you are (though does not give full internet addresses) but tells me nothing about what your own thoughts are on some of the subjects I've raised here. I'd love to hear from you.

During my absence, though, I've not been entirely idle at the keyboard: on the links section on the right you'll notice The Interface, an excellent Methodist Church website which features many thought-provoking articles though modesty prevents me plugging my own contributions.

Brian Draper has also recently updated his excellent blogspot which always includes an inspiring photograph alongside Brian's well-chosen words.

Also joining the links this week will be my fellow British DX Club member Stephen Howie, who has a wide selection of enjoyable and informative photos, words and music on his Myspace area.

Now, carry on reading, carry on surfing- and God Bless.

The Faintest Show on Turf?

2006-06-15T18:58:00.000+01:00

Well, after all the hype and the hope, the might- or should that be plight- of England was finally joined with the tiny nation of Trinidad and Tobago in Nurenberg, Germany, this evening as the Battle of Rooney's Foot finally saw the star striker hit the ground running, and leaving it with his metatarsals intact in England's second match of the FIFA World Cup group stages.

Ironically though for a game supposedly called football, it was the header of lanky Liverpool player Peter Crouch which finally gave England just cause to chant and puff The Great Escape.

Truly it was such a redemption from ignominious defeat, with a final burst of footpower from that star of the FA Cup final, Steven Gerrard. His goal in the closing minutes finished the match off and at the same time rescued it from being a lackadaisical kickabout to deliver something which gives at least a passable hope of success in the second round, which the England side now passes on to regardless of the outcome of next Tuesday's match against Sweden.
It was a pity there wasn't a bit more effective passing on the pitch, mind, but hey we got there, even if by a somewhat circuitous route.

What a contrast tonight's game of soccer was to the astounding precision, team work and sheer entertainment value of the ceremony of Beating Retreat. No, not the hasty exit to the nearest airport which England might have faced if they failed tonight, but the spectacle which was taking place on Horse Guards Parade, London at exactly the same time- and drawing to its conclusion around the same time as the match.

Tonight's ceremony was in honour of HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh's 85th birthday, which occurred last Saturday. However, while the salute to their Captain General by the massed bands of the Royal Marines will undoubtedly have pleased His Royal Highness, he is rather as always basking in the shadow of his wife this rather strange flaming June week, where the mood of the nation has been as mixed as the extremes of the weather: London reached 32 degrees Celsius (over 90 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday on the hottest June day since 1898.

Nurenberg too has been hot and sultry, and I'm bound to ask why on earth the World Cup has to be held in Midsummer rather than the more comfortable conditions of autumn or spring. But life for a football team as much as an army regiment, marine band or even the sovereign herself -and for all of us- can never be a stream of warm, sunny, relaxed days and there will always be the moments of drama and excitement, tension and worry when the heat is on- as well as days of sheer tedium like those demonstrated for much of the ninety minutes of today's socca warriors against the three lions of England.

The "official" celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II's eightieth birthday have gone into their second half now. Saturday sees this celebrated with the annual Trooping the Colour ceremony on the same London "pitch" as tonight's performance by the Marines, which my brother and I witnessed in all its astounding pageantry and precision movements at it's first performance, a dress rehearsal almost, last night. If only that kind of skill and commitment was carried on to the field of play!

When all's said and done though, soccer's only a game, despite what Liverpool's almost monarchical manager Bill Shankly famously once said about it being far more important than life and death. Whatever happens to our side between now and 9th July, they'll live to fight another day, and many more millions will have been poured into the bank balances of teams and sponsors when the plaudits and praise for Gerrard and Crouch, Rooney et al have died away to a faint echo.

Whereas the praises of the saviour of all mankind ring from heavenly terraces even as I type. The part of the church's year celebrating the events of Jesus's life and the birth of the church have now passed. Easter, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday have come and gone for another year, but today- the feast of Corpus Christi- we are reminded that Jesus gave far more than a healed torn muscle to contribute to the victory that matters over all others. He gave up his whole body and his very life blood, remembered in the elements of Holy Communion, only to find God keeping his promises and raising him from death on a cross (not, it has to be said, a netted crossbar. That's far more exciting than rescue from the jaws of defeat by eleven "Trinibagian" warriors. It's the defeat of everyman's greatest enemy, Sin

Fly the red cross of St George, by all means, but it's the holy cross of Calvary which really brings victory. I'll sing Jesus's praises for evermore, for I know that only he can really save us, just as God's mercy has saved our gracious queen to enjoy eight decades of life and service. Enjoy the footie- not forgetting the cricket and tennis, of course- this summer, but above all, remember the one who offers us all not just a moment of glory after ninety minutes, but life eternal through his hands after the most important substitution ever made.
and his feet-

Flowers 'n' the rain

2006-05-28T16:31:00.000+01:00

Readers of RadioFar-far could be forgiven for thinking I've posted to my wrong blog today; 'Flowers in the Rain' by The Move was the first ever record played on BBC Radio One early on a Saturday morning back in September 1967. No mistake though: this week it could well also have been the theme song for the famous Chelsea Flower Show during what's now being described as "the wettest drought on record". To say May has been moist would be an under-statement.

It could only happen in Britain, couldn't it. We're renowned throughout the world for our love of gardens as much as our dependability in talking about our undependable weather. The combination of these two elements made for a classic Chelsea this year, as right on cue the heavens delivered a deluge for much of the six days of this start to the annual social season in the UK. Even HM the Queen, making her traditional visit with other members of the royal Family on Monday, decided that a headscarf was better than a soggy royal coiff as she toured the showground and admired the awesome achievements of dedicated amateur and professional gardeners from all over the world.

I've only managed a trip to Chelsea once, one evening in the early eighties. Understandably, tickets sell out weeks in advance so thank heavens for the BBC's excellent coverage,anchored by Alan Titchmarsh who himself has become something of a national treasure and a best-selling author to boot. It's only a pity the technical bods have yet to find a way to transmit smells across the airwaves, then we could really enjoy Chelsea in all its glory from an armchair.

Rain too is punctuating the last Bank Holiday of the Spring in what was traditionally known as "Whitsun Week" when the holiday always coincided with Pentecost before it was set for the last weekend in May regardless of religious timings. Yesterday afternoon, I went with my brother to enjoy the Brentford Waterside Festival, except most of the water seemed to be coming from the sky rather than the Grand Union Canal and the River Brent at this historic point where both enter Britain's longest river and, in legend if not in proven fact, Julius Caesar crossed the Thames.

Being British means stiffening your upper lip not with starch but with stoicism whatever the weather. That was evident from everybody at Chelsea this year and it was just as present in the hardy souls who braved the rain to enjoy the Waterside festival. This was once a bustling docks, where all manner of cargoes were transferred from the watery way to the permanent way of Brunel's Great Western Railway, and vice versa.

The steam trains and the horses which once pulled the barges have long gone, but the views of flora and even fauna along the towpath here can be as delightful as anything found in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. Barges painted in colourful floral liveries vie with the wild flowers of the towpath for visitors' attention, and are all the more enjoyable when viewed from on board one of these lovely vessels. I was delighted to take a short ride aboard the "Pisces", one of the craft of the Hillingdon Narrowboats Association along with my brother who knows these vessels well and has a certificate in the delicate art of steering and turning them- no mean feet given that they are up to 72 feet/24 metres long!

For all that the weather has disappointed this week, it's ended with a great appreciation of the English spring in all its variety and colour. The great English landscape painter J M W Turner spent his early years in Brentford, commemorated in one of the town's hostelries, but even he could never have captured the scenes of natural wonder on hilltop or water's edge, as finely as God does in leaf and petal, stem and branch.

Britain has so much to offer the lover of greenery and scenery in it's watery reflections and garden paths, but as Rudyard Kipling put it "the glory of the garden lies in more than meets the eye". Or rather, as Jesus himself put it, "even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these".

Penalty Post Script

2006-05-14T09:35:00.000+01:00

Little did I know when I wrote yesterday's posting what a thriller we were in for! After a scrappy start (twenty minutes of nothing particularly impressive), an own goal for Liverpool and then a gaffe from their goalie, things seemed to be going West Ham's way. Yet the match ended at full time with the score line at 3-3 -helped largely by a "hat trick" by Liverpool's Steven Gerrard. It remained so after extra time. Sadly this meant the result had to be decided on penalties, and perhaps inevitably Liverpool then went on to win. As Gerrard himself put it "we summoned up the spirit of Istanbul", referring to The Reds win on penalties in the European Cup just short of a year ago, another nail-biting escape from defeat.

For balance though, I should mention that no less exciting for Scottish supporters was the contest between the tiny team of Gretna, famous for its Green and teenage marriages of yore, and Hearts. The village team with a population of 600 had made it through to the final of the Scottish FA Cup, and their match too was level at full time and went to penalties. Hearts won 4-2, but Gretna surely captured the hearts of many a football crazy Caledonian.

Needless to say, this morning all the talk in the media is of "the greatest FA cup final for ages"- but the real action is yet to come. Love it or hate it, there will be no escape from soccer through til the 9th July with, supposedly, billions viewing the World Cup throughout the world. And English expectations once again move to the hope of lifting the Jules Rimet trophy in Germany, as they did against them forty years ago at the old Wembley Stadium.
The pessimist in me can't help thinking the hopes will all be to no avail despite all the flag-waving, but who am I to say. If a young guy can come from nowhere against the world to win the world, there's hope. Surely I must mean England's hero of 66, former West Ham player Sir Geoff Hurst, showing mixed loyalties this year by advertising for the German Tourist Board on London Underground?
Hardly. The young guy saving the world hung on a cross nearly two thousand years ago. With nails hammered excrutiatingly through his flesh to the post, he was there to save us all not on penalties but from penalty- our deserved red card from God. Yet he rose again in extra time- eternal time- three days later. His match on this earth lasted thirty three years. His legacy and the hope he brings has lasted far more than forty, indeed unlike Geoff Hurst or any sporting heroes, this hero will be with us always, until the end of the age. He has captured, and will continue to capture billions of hearts. He had rescued men and women for twenty centuries from a crushing defeat at the hands of a devilishly red enemy, by his own life given up for his side. Alleluia, what a Saviour!

You'll Never Blow Bubbles Alone

2006-05-13T14:46:00.000+01:00

The venerable John Motson, "Motty" to most, has just announced "the one and only FA Cup Final" on BBC One and indeed it's an event every May famous throughout the world: who needs FIFA and their World Cup every four years? I must confess I'm not really a soccer afficianado, but breaking my habit of recent years, I can't resist watching the build up to the 125th final and the traditional community singing- and I might even watch some of the playing action on the pitch as well.

This year's 22 men - not to mention the subs in the dugout-dribbling and tackling, striking and saving, represent the very vocal fans of two of England's finest teams on Wales's finest turf, the Millennium Stadium in my old university city of Cardiff. It should have been Wembley, of course in my home county of Middlesex, but that's another story. Liverpool and West Ham: the Hammers versus the crowd from the cop.

Whoever wins, at the end of ninety minutes action on the pitch it won't just be the players who are either exhausted or exaltant. The fans, the supporters will no doubt be hoarse from their singing and chanting of their respective anthems. I'm not quite sure how West Ham United came to be associated with "I'm forever blowing bubbles", but surely Liverpool FC's renditions of the Rogers and Hammerstein classic "You'll Never Walk Alone" will as always leave ne'er a dry eye in the stadium, or the house.

SURREY WITH THE FRIDGE ON TOP

I couldn't help thinking of the music and the match as I spent several afternoons this week bowlderising another Rogers and Hammerstein song, as I went out into Surrey, one English county without a premiership soccer side but with no shortage of other top class sporting venues. The annual Christian Resources Exhibition was held somewhat incongruously in another grandstand at Sandown Park Racecourse, on four of the loveliest Spring days so far this year. As a friend of mine wonderfully described it this week, "when May is firing on all cylinders, it can be exquisite". It certainly was, though it was pretty warm and I could have done with a fridge on my top to keep cool at times.
Instead, my half-time refreshment was a reviving coffee or cuppa as I took in the inspiring long view across a lovely part of the Thames Valley and my spirit soared with encouragement and imagination as I attempted to visit some of the 300+ exhibitors while sitting in on just a few of the 110 plus seminars on offer.

Christians of today have almost an embarrasment of riches on offer to present the gospel and to grow with God. Yet so often the media paints a picture of a secular society and of a church in decline. The success of this event, going now for some 20 years, belies that conceit and proves that the church of Christ in the UK is alive and growing, thank you very much.

Yet maybe it's time to remember too that much of what we think secular started with "Christian" activity. In medicine, education, the rehabilitation of prisoners- and yes even in sport, Christians were in the vanguard. What motivated these pioneers, as Gerald Coates, the founder of the Pioneer stream of new churches, noted in his seminar on Friday, was their commitment to Christ. Some of today's soccer teams began as church initiatives. Maybe today, if the church could get its act together and commit to mission rather than survival, yet again Britain could be a nation walking with Christ, who promised "I will never leave you or foresake you" , rather than walking alone on the road not even to Wembley or Cardiff but to nowhere.

Great Great Great Dott Com

2006-05-02T01:14:00.000+01:00

From the tear-jerking drama of inspired fiction to the emotionally-charged thrills of great sport, this morning's posting moves on to the world of the balls, the balls. Yes, this morning's; the final of the 2006 World Snooker Championship has just ended after a last session which broke all tournament records by lasting five hours and eventually finishing well after midnight. More details at the official World Snooker website-click on the title above.

Into the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, the city of sword and steel, strode two players who'd made it through eighteen days of play to show steely determination to win the coveted trophy, and a first prize of £200K (about $US350K). It was the first world championship in the game to be sponsored by an on-line gambling firm after years associated with the smoke-filled world of the tobacco magnates. The company certainly got their money's worth, as did the bleary-eyed spectators who stayed to watch the gripping, nail biting match between former world champion Peter Ebdon and young Scot, Graeme Dott.

Yet maybe the television viewers who stayed the course -even if they did lapse into slumberland for quite a while during the marathon evening, like me- got the best deal of all. Every nuance of emotion and almost every bead of sweat, was brought out by the lenses of the cameras as much as the physical brilliance of the playing duo in hitting their target balls with stunning accuracy through 31 frames over two days. If it's already riveting viewing, how much more so will it become when High Definition TV becomes the norm.

Peter Ebdon came back from being seven frames down to within three frames of victory by a last burst of brilliance on the night. In the end, however, he was beaten by the new champion with flair and yet grace. Perhaps this is what makes snooker such a gripping and entertaining event at this level. While the game has had its more notorious characters, tonight's final was the antithesis of mis-spent youth with which it has often been linked. Instead, both Ebdon and Dott showed true sportsmanship and praiseworthy acknowledgement of their rival.If only more could be like these two gentlemen in an age saturated by prima Maradonnas, bitter adversaries on the field of play and others who seem to have forgotten "it's not the winning, it's the taking part" that matters.

That's surely as true of life generally, as it is of sport; one reason maybe why St Paul uses the analogy of sporting pursuits when he encourages his hearers to press on towards the goal. Those who follow this spiritual precept with discipline and training, and the supreme coach's command to "love one another" to the end will find themselves in front not of a multi-million betting supremo, but of God made man, Jesus Christ. And that's a glittering prize worth more than any earthly trophy.

Who? What? When? Where? Why?

2006-04-30T03:26:00.000+01:00

Questions, I've got some questions. So runs the catchy musical mantra accompanying a BBC ONE trailer on TV at the moment for their local politics coverage on Sunday lunchtimes, the day of rest now providing no rest for budding and thudding residents of the corridors of power. Very appropriate, in a week leading up to elections for local councils in much of England (including my own home borough of Hounslow).

We all want our democratic representatives to give us some answers to persistent political posers, and we like to kid ourselves they'll provide solutions too. Sadly,reality, or at least that version of it presented by the media which so often has its own agenda, has reminded Britons this week that those we elect to govern are still just men and women with feet of clay. They will fail us, they will short-change us, they may even -horror of horrors- be economical with the truth. In short, they don't and never can provide answers or solutions to life's hardest questions.

Maybe another piece of music which I can't get out of my mind even at this early hour gives more of a clue though to where searchers might seek the answers that really matter. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales renders a tour de force performance of Murray Head's superb arrangement of Ron Grainer's timeless Dr Who theme over the closing titles of the second series of this revived science fiction classic. The Saturday night of another Bank Holiday weekend in the UK brought the third episode of what has become a Springtime "must see" on the BBC's flagship channel.

BBC ONE's station ident may sometimes be suggestive red flamenco dancers, but this family viewing ratings "banker" handled issues of love and passion, good versus evil and some eternal questions and human certainties - memento mori (remember you must die)- with great sensitivity last night.
At the same time, as has now become expected of the much-acclaimed revival of a forty-something show, it offered gripping drama, blockbuster action, polished performances and superb writing and character development. I won't spoil the plot for those who have yet to see the show, either in the UK or abroad, but "School Reunion" has to be one of the best ever episodes. I'll have no hesitation watching it again, soon. More details on this episode and the series at the official BBC Dr Who website (click on post title above for link).

Nevertheless, Who is the guy may well have been the answer for one of the ancient Doctor's most popular female companions on the journey, but for believers only Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life- a man who will never fail any man, woman or child who He chooses as his companion (literally, sharing his bread), and who willingly goes with him wherever it may lead. We may still have more questions than answers, of course- anybody who tries to pretend that faith brings all knowledge, all at once is self-deluding. But unlike the Doctor's companions, we can confidently know that as he promised "I will never leave you, nor forsake you". And that's an answer I'm so glad I've heard!

Of Quaintness, Queens and Quasimodo

2006-04-23T15:31:00.000+01:00

Happy St George's Day! A five-day feast of patriotic passion and affectionate tribute concludes today in England, with the celebration of our patron saint happily coinciding with the eightieth birthday weekend of probably the world's most recognised living woman, Queen Elizabeth II.
As "Defender of the Faith" and titular head of the Church of England, appropriately Her Majesty was honoured with a family thanksgiving service earlier today in her own "house [of Windsor] church", the Chapel of St George within the grounds of Windsor Castle. It is also the chapel to the oldest British Order of Chivalry, the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the motto of which is 'Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense'- meaning 'Evil be to him who thinks it'.
It was an appropriately spiritual hour to give thanks to her maker and ours for the enduring life and service of a woman who, though not 'born to be queen' has carried out her duties tirelessly through a long reign matched only so far in female monarchdom by her great-great grandmother Victoria. Just as in Queen Victoria's day, Elizabeth's has seen many startling changes, both for good and bad.
Meanwhile, co-incidentally, on the streets of the nation's capital, thirty-three thousand hardy souls fought the annual battle against the dragon of "the wall" for the sake of sport, achievement and noble aims. At Windsor, the penetrating lens of the TV camera revealed that the queen does, actually, carry cash, as she placed her offering in the collection plate for the benefit of local hospices. In London at the same time, many from all over Britain and indeed throughout the world were nobly running for the benefit of charities big and small, or in remembrance of personal loss.

These were the valiant foot soldiers who were striving to complete a twenty-six-and-a-bit mile course to trudge wearily to the finish line of the 2006 Flora London Marathon, past a sea of union flags- our national emblem itself being 400 years old this year - in the shadow of the Victoria memorial close by the monarch's London front door at Buckingham Palace. The extra "bit" tagged onto the marathon is no mere metric mistake, but the legacy of an earlier British king for whom the race was specially extended so that it could finish in front of the royal box at the London stadium in the 1908 Olympic Games. The distance has stuck ever since, but the "people's marathon" with runners dressed in costumes weird and wonderful as well as more conventional running attire, has been catching the public imagination ever since the strains of Ron Goodwin's "The Trap" first accompanied the TV pictures of this remarkable event 25 years ago.

These are just some of those many quaint facts about our national life and ways which make me love being an Englishman, eccentricities and all. Sporting occasions aside, we're not really great ones for flag-waving in this corner of Britain, unlike the other nations making up the UK. It's rather a shame, really, so I'm happy to fly the flag of St George on this web page today-even if the feet of the middle-eastern soldier whose patronage we share with several other lands never touched these shores. So much of the folklore surrounding him and his saving of a maiden from an evil beast is, sadly, just myth.
Maybe however the ringing of bells throughout England would be a more appropriate celebration this Sunday- they certainly rang out at Windsor after this morning's service, which can be heard until 29th April by following the link above. The BBC almost grudgingly maybe chose today to give the last airing to the "Radio 4 UK Theme", but it was the bells of another St George's church - Benenden in Kent- which on the same radio station heralded the Second Sunday of Easter today , known quaintly in former times as Quasimodo Sunday. Victor Hugo's hunch-backed bellringer failed to save his love from a tragic end, but the victory of the resurrection is salvation, a happy and glorious end indeed, for even the vilest offender who truly believes, as eventually did "doubting" Thomas, remembered on this day in the church's post-Easter calendar.
Christians believe that the dragon, or rather the serpent, of sin -man's evil nature- has been slain with the red blood of Christ on the cross and his triumph over death that first Easter is surely worth celebrating every day- with bells and smells if that's your preference, but surely with a thankful heart.

The Noisiness of the Lambs

2006-04-17T22:59:00.000+01:00

What could be more appropriate and lovely a way to end the Easter holiday than a trip to a sheep farm. Lambs are of the essence of the season, and it was a delightful sight to see two of the fluffy darlings being born today at a sheep farm in the great English countryside. The picture above though shows a little artistic licence, as these were Devon lambs snapped on my recent visit to Lee Abbey.

The farm I visited nestles at the foot of the Sussex Downs. This beautiful part of England has long been a favourite retreat of writers, painters and poets. It's also a place I know well, and have had some very special moments with God and with people over the last eighteen years or so. At this time of the year, though, there's an extra joy in the air. Somehow the soil itself seems to sing re-birth now, echoed in the lovely Easter carol to a French tune, Now the Green Blade Riseth.

The arrival of these aahy animals, helped into the world by human midwifery, or rather midewery, was a highlight of Easter Monday for me. The place was also full of wide-eyed wonder from numerous Bank Holiday under-10 spectators and indeed from their Mums, Dads and assorted other visitors.
Little children and the way they see the world with such awesome wonder bring so much more to the enjoyment of life. Maybe it's no wonder that Jesus himself then said theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But as the Resurrection continues to be celebrated, the sweet taste of the new wine of the kingdom is now on offer again to one and all. Now that's something worth making the loudest noise about, whether adult or child!

Open up!

2006-04-16T17:42:00.000+01:00

Happy Easter! Today is the climax of everything for Christians: a victory parade, in fact. Few greater songs can be sung than those I've just been warbling at the top of my voice in the dining room, watching the BBC's long-running series Songs of Praise in their celebration of Easter from Lincoln Cathedral, in Eastern England. Probably one of the most popular of Easter hymns, set to the tune Judas Maccabeus by Handel, says it all:

Thine be the glory
Risen Conquering Son
Endless is the victory
Thou o'er death hast won.

Easter Day celebrates the wonderful possibility and potential of humanity that, no matter how low we may seem to sink-even into the grave itself- there is the tantalising, exciting possibility of a life that never ends if we but recognise the meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

April is the month of openings- that's what the word originally meant. Out in my back garden, the silver birch has burst forth with its catkins and all around trees and gardens are springing to life. But no matter how marvellous each springtime catwalk of daffodils, bluebells and blossom may seem, the greatest marvel is that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that we might live and love forever. And that's surely something to sing about!

A Nail of Two Cities

2006-04-14T22:12:00.000+01:00

Good Friday. A major cosmopolitan city, full of races and faces up for a jolly on one of the big holidays of the year. Around the city centre, the sounds of music and the hustle of celebrations jostle for public attention.

Meanwhile, at the centre of local government, voices of reason are drowned out with "treason!", as a mob in the miasma cast their inevitable verdict on the innocent young man standing before them. The Roman occupation of this city leaves the passage of sentence to Pontius Pilate, who despite the warnings of his troubled wife who'd dreamt of trouble from the 33-year old before him, says "crucify!". Washing his hands, the civil powers with riot shields carry away the young teacher to be left for dead on rotten wood at the city rubbish dump.

This could be Jerusalem: how ironic it's name means "city of peace". It could be 1973 years ago, but tonight the BBC chose to move the drama, the pathos and the tragedy to another city which has known violence, agony and death at the hands of terror and life cut short. This is Manchester, England, AD2006.

As I type this, BBC TWO is airing the "as live" repeat of The Manchester Passion, a controversial but imaginative 21st century reworking of the story of the betrayal, trial and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Gone are the sacred soundtracks of Handel and Bach, in are the often despairing music and lyrics of the Gallagher brothers of Oasis and the words of Williams, Robbie, minus the voice.

Is this reverent, is it appropriate? As M-people's Search for the Hero Inside Yourself echoes across the rain-washed streets of the North-West, should Jesus' people be mourning or moaning tonight with this radical re-working of the familiar passion narrative?

My own view is it's very appropriate. If anything causes a cynical, secular nation to look again at the most important event in history, it's to be welcomed. The message of the cross cannot be weakened by the creative licence of the 21st century, it can only be strengthened. It is timeless and free of cultural bias. Like the seminal Franco Zeffirelli film of a quarter of a century ago being shown again this weekend on ITV3, Jesus's story can bear re-interpretation in a thousand different ways without loss of its power.

Now, it is finished. Jesus is dead, taken down from the cross. How do you see him: Mad? Jester? Untied.

Buried in a borrowed tomb,the world now waits again for the answer. Promised passionately in the hero of heroes own words, one day soon it will get it.

Love Unknown

2006-04-13T23:20:00.000+01:00

More songs have been sung about it, and no doubt more words written, than on any other subject. Great paintings celebrate it, sculpture captures it in metal, stone or wood. Great minds have sought to explain it, some have even gone out of their minds for want of it.

Love. A four letter word, and yet the most powerful weapon in the universe.

Where does it come from? What is it anyway? Is not a better question, on this cusp between "Maundy Thursday" and "Good Friday" Where did it go?

To a kangaroo court and a timid Roman consul. To religious officials with eyes blinded to any view but their own. To a crowd shouting praises to their king a few days before on Palm Sunday, now baying for his blood. In less than 24 hours, they got it.

This is love unknown. This is the force that brings me to tears, as I write this in my loneliness this late Thursday night, with my brother away at Scout camp and my mother no longer with us. Perhaps I feel more lonely tonight than I have ever done since I was a nine year old boy longing for a friend, and to whom the Passiontide hymn of my title meant then, and still means, so much.

This is Savage bearing his soul. I hope perhaps my British, male readers will give me forebearance. We just don't tend to do things that way here. We're not supposed to show our feelings but instead keep a stiff upper lip and never betray our emotions.

Yet this is folly. Maundy Thursday was when He whose hands flung stars into space knew the absence of love, sweated and wept with worry for fear of death and want of a friend. Even his closest companions of three years, those who earlier that evening had shared the sacred family feast with him, would not stay awake with him as he anticipated the agony of what was to come. When the "authorities" came to arrest Jesus of Nazareth, they all fled. Not one, even the most professedly loyal, would follow him to his fate nor defend him in public.

The saddest fact of life is that, ultimately, we are all alone. We seek love in all its many forms throughout life, but nobody can come with us on that most painful, final of journeys.

Except one, who did- alone, deserted even by his God (his own father, in fact). He was to die the cruellest death imaginable, reserved for the most heinous of criminals.

Jesus wept. Jesus bore injustice, sorrow, desertion. This is love.

This is the reason I live, and its why I need to blog tonight. May you too know this love this holy season.

He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.

The Spirit is Willing

2006-04-12T00:05:00.000+01:00

Yet the flesh is all too weak, this week. And yet, frail human flesh clothed the deity at this passover period in Jerusalem, twenty centuries ago.
Here we are, half way through Holy Week already. From the joy and expectation of Palm Sunday, we've already moved on to the fast-paced, familiar saga of love and betrayal which this most solemn of Christian remembrances recalls. The last week of life of Jesus Christ, before he was mercilessly crucified "to make us good" saw the climax of his ministry, yet all his friends turning away from him in his most needful hour.

Forgive me if my own flesh is weak, i.e mentally tired, to offer too much by way of reflection at this special time. But really, it has already been said so much better by the words of grace of the Holy Bible. Read the gospel of John's final chapters this week, and you meet the deep, deep love of Jesus revealed in his final days and hours. If you've a spirit willing to receive, never will you read more precious words.

Radio Alert

2006-04-05T08:40:00.000+01:00

The Radio 4 UK theme will be lost to the airwaves around the queen's eightieth birthday, somewhat ironically. For more on this, visit my radio blogspot "RadioFar-Far", following the link on the right.

Heaven in Devon

2006-04-01T09:16:00.000+01:00

Please excuse the cyber-silence through the last week of March, but your blogger has been in a place where the wonders of Wi-fi, let alone a mobile phone signal, still don't quite reach. I've not actually been taken up to that place where, like the apostle Paul who claimed some experience of it, we all hope to go one day, but spending four days in England's second-largest county during a finally enwarmed Spring has certainly given a taste of it.

Lee Abbey-click on the post title above for more information- was my location of choice for a four day retreat coupled with a visit to an old friend and my uncle and aunt, who have the good fortune to live around this impressive part of the British coastline. Although I'd visited my family in the area several times, it was my first visit to this famous Christian holiday and conference centre, which was founded in the difficult times following the Second World War. Many Christians then were seeking a spiritual renewal for England while the politicians sought to attend to "practical" needs with the founding of the welfare state. Lee Abbey was one result of the Christian vision, and in the intervening sixty years it has thrived to become part of a widely-respected movement with worldwide support.

I'd been meaning to come down to this beautiful location for many years, and I'd known of Lee Abbey for around two decades though only recently discovered just how much more the Lee Abbey movement has to offer. The first week of Spring "proper" though provided an ideal prompting for this young man to 'go West' for my own Lent reflections and something of the wilderness experience, because it immediately followed the first anniversary of my dear Mum's death on 26th March. With some irony, in the UK this year that was Mothering Sunday, which is our equivalent of Mothers' Day and often called that, though its origins long pre-date the May celebration of these precious ladies in several other countries.

I also happened to be asked to preach at my church on the evening of Mothering Sunday, which went well although I had wondered how I might be able to handle such a co-incidence of timing. I should not have worried; God carried me and my brother through the happy-sad memories of that day and the past week has been memorable too as I seek to move on after this loss.

In Devon, as in Heaven, my past, present and possible future were joined as God made his presence felt a little closer to me and the other dear souls gathered in "Tarka the Otter" country. It was good to meet some new folk and have some enriching, intelligent conversations - food for the soul- as well as a delicious selection of great "grub". With the South West Coastal path skirting the Lee estate, though, fortunately I've found I've lost weight rather than put it on in the past week!

High Lee, How Lee, Holy
The ever-inspiring Brian Draper was the main speaker at the group I attended; follow the link on the left of this page to Brian's always blogspot. Though I'm not sure whether he'll have anything to say about Devon, what he does say he always does skilfully and intelligently with far fewer words than me. Although I'd heard or read some of what Brian said at Lee Abbey in other contexts, I nevertheless found so much of it helpful and challenging stuff. It was an excellent encouragement for all those of us seeking to show that the Christian faith is still as relevant in the very different cultural landscape of 21st century Britain as it was in the first century Holy Land. Another lovely coincidence, incidentally, was that was where I was on this very week sixteen years ago.

Besides the questions applicable to our society in general, the loss of a parent, or indeed any close loved one, naturally causes one to look afresh at the often complex, all too brief experience we call life: how have I used it so far, and how am I going to use the rest of it? What can I do, what can't I do? How do I fit into the grander scheme of things and the way the world is going?

At least, these are some of the many questions I have asked myself during the last twelve months, though it has to be said that they are the sort of probing enquiries that thinking, feeling individuals- whether people of faith or not- should be asking regularly if life is to be lived to the full. Sadly in the Western World today, in my view at least, all too many individuals cheat themselves and others by settling for something less and paddling only in the shallows of life, rather than exploring its wonderful depths.

The Exmoor National Park, in which Lee Abbey is situated, is a breath-taking place where appreciation of the beauty of nature should come naturally to anyone circulating the blood of humanity. Steep granite cliffs slope down to secluded, tiny bays on the Bristol Channel, that stretch of sea where the moodiness of the Atlantic Ocean becomes moderated by the warm winds of the Gulf Stream as it kisses British shores for the first time. I can well understand the appeal of the place.
If you're looking for refreshment and renewal, come on retreat to divine Devon. Choose the wonderful Christian community of Lee Abbey for your stay, and you too can experience a taste of heaven, and you won't find it in a Clotted Cream tub.

Homeward Unbound

2006-03-24T15:42:00.000Z

So often the news from the Middle East and Persian Gulf these days is dominated by heart-breaking headlines telling of yet another bombing, murder, skirmish or outbreak of the evil exchanges which it would be easy to imagine are the permanent currency of the region. How good it is today then to be sharing in the worldwide joy which greeted news yesterday of the release of 74-year old Norman Kember, and two of the other Christian peace activitists kidnapped with him last November.

How much more encouraging to people of faith though, like Mr Kember, to see God's hand in their release, and not just the well-honed skills of the world famous British Special Air Service (SAS) who apparently liberated Mr Kember and his Canadian co-workers from their captors.
Truly this is prayer answered, and I am so glad I joined the Trafalgar Square vigil last month to pray for their release and to stand up for what is right. Some may see their actions as foolhardy, and entering into strife-torn danger zones may not be the first choice of activity you associate with a Pinner pensioner. Nevertheless, these angels have rushed in where fools so often tread, and thank heavens for voices of sanity like theirs.

Even if the outcome was not a storybook ending- weeks of intelligence work and an outcome free of bloodshed did not spare Tom Fox, who was found dead two weeks earlier by a Baghdad roadside- here is an example for the scoffers and the doubters that the good fight can be fought with all might in the 21st century as much as the first, but without force of arms. Love and prayer can still be weapons of mass instruction.

Jesus Christ gave up his life and experienced the horror of the most painful and merciless of deaths, just that those he gave it for might live. Thank the Lord then, literally, that those who follow him do not always have to sacrifice their precious human existence as they stand up for what is right, and peace in our time.
Thank God for answered prayer, and may Norman Kember and all who work for peace in a world riddled by hatred always know Jesus' words of comfort and re-assurance: "blessed are the peacemakers"

Last of the Winter Whine

2006-03-21T14:19:00.000Z

I guess I wouldn't be a British Blogger if I didn't hark on about the weather once in a while! It seems to be our most well-known national characteristic, and is a surefire conversation starter whenever meeting someone new- readers outside the British Isles take note if you've never yet visited these shores but intend to some day.

Today is officially the first day of Spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, with yesterday being the vernal equinox when the hours of day and night were roughly equal. From here on in, lightwise at least we're coasting up to the summit of the year and the longest day in my favourite month, June- I can't wait for the longer evenings, especially when Summer time clicks in as the clocks go forward on Sunday.

Unfortunately, though, the climate's got a long way to go yet before it catches up, and today it is still as bitterly chilly as it seems to have been since the end of last year. Everywhere in the media and in the daily chatter of chilly choppers, the topic's the same: when IS Spring going to arrive this year? Even the poor daffodils are staying in hibernation for want of a bit of sunshine- though ironically in South-East England, it's rain we're needing rather more after the driest winter since 1933.

The BBC's weather experts are blaming it on a late autumn, knocking on to a delayed winter and hence a tardy spring. First time I've heard that one, I must admit, but it's a plausible theory.

Life often mimics the seasons in the same way, and indeed the writer of Ecclesiastes, often seen as one of the gloomiest books of the Bible, said that for everything there is a time, and a season for every activity under the heavens (New International Version translation).

Trouble is, it's not always so easy to read the signs of the changing seasons in our own lives- when we should be moving on from one place, activity or relationship, to another. If only we had the same clues, like the previously naked pussy willow now putting on its spring garb with the tree's soft and furry catkins, or the blackbird chirruping away in sheer joy as well as mate-seeking.

In fact, the clues are all around- and in less than a month, Christians will be replacing the long period of reflection, repentance and withdrawal of Lent with the dark events of Christ's passion followed swiftly by the annual marvel and revelation of the April opening of the empty tomb- and the resurrection! I've no doubt that Jesus's resurrection was an actual physical event, but how much more is it- especially with its timing in the Spring of the year in the place it occurred- the realisation of God's promises to us, and the hope that each new Springtime brings.

Why worry about the passage of the years and the fact we're all getting older? Why should age anyway be any barrier to achieving what you want to, or perhaps are even destined to do by the almighty? Why not instead be like the old codgers in Last of the Summer Wine wandering the idyllic countryside of West Yorkshire without a care in the world, taking each day as it comes and making the most of this extraordinary gift called life, as long as it endures. Surely that's no cause for whining, nor for pining, but rather for shining. There may be no sign of the sun, but we wait to be reminded that the dying son became the risen son-and that puts a spring in my step every day!

Wintry Wesleyan Walking

2006-03-16T18:25:00.000Z

I wonder if John Wesley was ever frozen to the spot? Unlikely that one of the greatest preachers ever froze with fear with as he preached to the masses, but it must have been chilly atop his horse on his famous jaunts, totalling a couple of hundred thousand miles in all, spreading the Word of God throughout the British Isles. There were no centrally heated equines with all the latest accessories for foot and bottom comfort back then: being one of Ye Servants of God on the move was a jolly uncomfortable lot.

Yet Wesley carried on his world-changing work with incredible stamina, right up to the age of 88 when he died. He did so because he sensed a purpose and God's hand on his ministry. Beyond that, however, many historians believe John Wesley saved Great Britain from revolution in the mid-eighteenth century.

"My Hero" -spiritually at least- came much to mind on Thursday afternoon this week, as I trekked the famous streets of the City of London on a fascinating "Christian Heritage Walk" with my fellow Toolboxers on the penultimate afternoon of this fascinating and stimulating course. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the coldest mid-March afternoon for many years, but despite the discomfort we chilly pedestrians had to bear, the tour included a couple of warm churches and even a flame- of the Spirit, at least, warming the heart if not the body.
Having seen the memorial commemorating the Wesley's conversion on one May evening, as close as possible to where it happened, our tour then took us on to the Labyrinth which is the Museum of London complex and a fascinating memorial- which I'm ashamed to admit as a good Methodist I knew nothing about. The "Wesley Flame" outside the Museum of London is an impressive represnation of the kind of faith Wesley had, which motviated him throughout the second half of his life. Beyond this, there were many impressive and unusual sights, including the oldest church in London, St Bartholomew's, where in the mind's ear it was almost possible to hear the monks chanting. A very different world to the Wesleys, but all part of the rich tapestry which makes up Britain's spiritual past.

If the Christian Heritage walk took us back to London's spiritual past, Toolbox has been an education, and insight and an inspiration to help those of us who believe the time is right for a new spiritual revolution in the UK. A rewarding week gave the hope that we may yet see it happen, and the resources and ideas to help do it. Thank heavens for men and women of vision, faith and commitment.

Give us the tools.

2006-03-13T23:59:00.000Z

Why do we lionise our heroes to the extent we can't recognise they are still only flawed humans? For surely, in their weakness can often be found their strength.

Winston Churchill is an unexpected example of flawed humanity who nevertheless achieved great things. Controversy has been stirred up this week over a new statue of Britain's great wartime prime minister. Nothing special in that, you might think; "Winnie" has been represented in bronze and stone in numerous locations. Except the new statue in Norwich shows Churchill in anything but the famous "V for Victory pose". Instead, he's shown in a straitjacket, representing the depression, or "black dog" as he called it, which he suffered with throughout his life.

Churchill frequently suffered bouts of dark meaninglessness in his life, yet this was the same man who said "Give us the tools, and we'll finish the job" when war was at its height. The public saw not his weakness, and indeed this and his strokes and heart attacks were kept from them to keep morale high. Instead, they saw Churchill inspiring them, stirring them on to great service and pride in what they could achieve, given the right tools for the job.

This week, I'm trying out a new toolbox myself, the popular regular course run by LICC for anybody in Christian service. I may not have to face the same battles as Churchill, but the tools of effective Christian service are the only way to ensure we can all play our part in winning a new battle, against apathy and nihilism, to finish the job for Christ.

TW3

2006-03-10T11:40:00.000Z

No, TW3 is not my postcode area, though it's not far away and the "Jubilee Mail Centre" through which the pedestrian post passes is even closer to where I sit as I type. This TW3 though was the short acronym affectionately adopted for the BBC's first serious attempt at TV satire in the mid sixties: That Was The Week That Was.

TW3 was daring stuff, even in that decade famed for liberation, though it started before the height of free love and flower power from 1967 onwards. Instead, TW3 blossomed in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when the Cold War was at its peak and concerns about 'Reds in the Bed' were everywhere. No more so in fact than when those reds might have the wrong sort of connections with both KGB officials and Tory Government ministers, as a certain John Profumo -who has just died at the grand age of 91- was to discover at the cost of his career after his brief dalliance with call girl Christine Keiller.

"It's over, let it go", intoned Millicent Martin each week, I gather, at the end of each TW3 show. I say I gather, because I've only seen the show in archive footage, being too young to remember its original screenings. Satire has a long tradition in British life, and indeed my birthplace in the next postcode area was home to one of the most famous political cartoonists of his era, William Hogarth.

Some things in the news though are always more tragic than funny, and to treat them as satire is of very questionable taste. The news in the last seven days has featured two very different groups of people, but each of them precious to the God who made them and so they should be to all right-thinking human beings with any sense of the dignity and sanctity of human life.

At long last, the obscenity which is apparently Guantanamo Bay, the US holding facility in Cuba for alleged terrorist suspects, is back in the public eye. In the face of worldwide condemnation at the indignity of the detention facility and the purported tactics of its staff, the American government has been forced to release the names of detainees, if not the prisoners themselves. Meanwhile, the inmates of "Gitmo" as it has become known are said to be enduring a regime of torturous force-feeding as they attempt to make their protests in desperation by hunger strike.

A week ago, I first heard about this latest outrage on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: for its effect on me, follow the link by clicking on the title of this post, which directs you to the following Saturday's Thought for the Day on the same programme. It was delivered by a friend of mine who knows how to use both humour and the power of the Word as occasion dictates. On this occasion, it's nothing to laugh about.

The same week saw an overdue reminder in the media of other captives equally precious and needing to be remembered. It's now just over one hundred days since the 74-year old British Christian peace campaigner Norman Kember was abducted, along with three of his fellow workers, in the tragic hell hole which is post-war Iraq. Supporters of Mr Kember and his compatriots had been gathering regularly near London's monuments to hard-won liberty to pray and pursue this case of four human beings only seeking the peace and freedom of their fellow human beings. They do so regardless of creeds and colours, or ideologies and isms. They do so out of love.

On Sunday afternoon, I knew I just had to join these supporters. It was the natural complement to my actions last Friday. The fact the vigil ended up being shown on Tuesday's TV news, a day when a recently-filmed video of Mr Kember and the others gave new hope was not what motivated me. Maybe what did, instead, was looking over to the peak of the building opposite the square where around 100 souls stood in liberty to remember four others who are not at liberty.

That building was South Africa House. What greater sign can there be of the ability of a higher power than avarice and hatred to overcome evil as once reigned in that country which became so villified by the world for its policies of division and apartheid. That peak had two words "Good" and "Hope", either side of the embossed image of a sailing ship presumably rounding the cape of the same name, though that day I thought of it rather more as the "Escape of Good Hope".

Human awfulness can often beach us on the shores of desperation but this is because we so often set our course with the wrong sails aloft. Faith, hope and love should power our three-masted schooner to lead us to the sea of tranquility found only in God's harbour.

Yes, sometimes, there will be laughter along the way, often there will seem to be disaster, war and tragedy. But, as one memorable sixties portrayal of Jesus had it, casting the Messiah as a clown, there can be 'happy endings' to the human stories behind Gitmo and Norman Kember et al. As apparently happened for John Profumo in his latter years, there can be release, redemption and even the promise of resurrection in the face of death. And, for those who believe, God will always have the last laugh.

Snowdrop

2006-03-09T06:56:00.000Z

Puzzle of the day: what is the image on the left of this blog's masthead supposed to be? Most people I suppose would say, "easy, it's an asterisk of course!" OK, but that's a puzzle in itself: where did the asterisk come from? And no, don't tell me Gaul!

I look at this little symbol in rather more picturesque terms though: I think it's a snowflake or if you prefer, a snowdrop.

Snowdrops from the sky have been a regular sight in many parts of the UK this cold, dark season. We were warned back in the autumn that a long, hard winter lay ahead and the meteoro-prophets seem to have been proved right. It seems like a longer watch than usual for Spring, so I hope Bill Oddie's got plenty of nice hot Thermos flasks with him.

Our perception of time and its passage is an odd thing though, as a BBC TV series is currently examining. Astronomically speaking, Winter is no longer or shorter this year than it has ever been. It still lasts three months. But a succession of mornings scraping the ice from the car or regular TV news footage of kids enjoying themselves in the snow can make the coldest season seem to go on forever.

Perhaps that's why God created the other type of snowdrop, the mini blooming delight which has usually exploded from the ground in the second month of the year. It's a visual delight to the jaded winter eyes of any soul observant enough to spot it's tiny floral form.

Daffodils have a similar effect on me. They are the flower of Wales and of March, and every time I see one my heart fills with joy. Indeed, so fond am I of these yellow-trumpeted splendours that I have one on permanent display in my Eastbourne kitchen in the form of a poster. It bears the wording "But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua Chapter 24, Verse 15). Amen to that!

Lent is a time of patient waiting. It will always have forty days (OK, it's actually a few more because Sundays don't count but let's not be pedantic!). It can seem long and hard at times, particularly if a favourite activity or food has been forsaken for the duration.

But God has promised he will never leave us or forsake us- even in the darkest days, as I endured in Lent last year during my Mum's final illness. The hope of Springtime is embedded in the DNA of every flower piercing the barrenness of our garden deserts,as the elusive sun heads northwards on its course towards the equator. But the promise of Easter is in every buried bulb bursting from the soil, as new life is offered by the rising son year after year.

Taking a Second Look..(and a third, and a fourth...)

2006-03-08T10:52:00.000Z

Now there was me thinking it was only women who'd spend hours trying out a new outfit only to leave the shop unsatisfied!
I've spent much of the morning so far trying out various new looks for this blogspot, using the various templates that are available from the infinite-floored department store of ideas which is Google. I've tried red, I've tried blue, I've tried green- all favourite colours of mine.
OK, superficially they looked appealing in the "mirror" of the Google samples- but try to fit them to my figure, or should I say my words, and they just don't look right on me. However, I did allow a few alterations to my current suit- such as the links now added to your right, and a new profile and description.

Otherwise, we're back to the same template I've been using for most of the last eighteen months, at least for the moment. If any design geeks out there have any bright ideas, I'm open to suggestions. Maybe really though it's weighty words rather than outer clothing I need to change: I'm still working on that one folks, as I attempt to work out my waistline and work out my own salvation too.
In fact, every Lent provides the opportunity to stop and look at ourselves in the mirror of the life of Jesus, who spent forty days listening to the beguiling sales pitch of the tempter, before rejecting it all because he knew he had to put on the garment of rejection. He knew where he had to look for that. It was not to a catwalk nor was it a pec-talk, but his was the most important purchase decision anybody has ever taken in this world- of blood.
The hanger of the cross on Good Friday, where God shed his human clothing in naked awfulness, is where Lent is ultimately focussed. If we fix our eyes on Him, it doesn't matter what we look like on the outside when those spiritually-minded intentions to cut out the fat have failed. Our inner clothing will be transformed; no makeover show could ever do that but a simple decision of faith can.

Simultaneous transmission

2006-03-05T05:27:00.000Z

Today's first post to Anyway is a new departure for this blog: a "simulcast" as they're known in broadcasting with my other weblog, RadioFar-far. I woke up around 4.40 and caught what sounded like a very strange programme at first, but I was soon hooked. It was called...

Object of Insane Desire

On BBC progs I'm full of flattery
Perhaps it's time I change my battery
Those bad news shows in t'middle of night
Why sometimes, they give such a fright
The play's the thing, Oor Willie said
Enough to keep me from my bed
A Play of the Week, entirely in rhyme
Quite word perfect, how sublime!
It's really quite fun, this comedy made play, doh!
I thought I was listening to English by Radio
From Bush House controllers, you still can depend
At least for such drama, throughout the weekend
A laptop dilemma, an object of trauma
And heated debate, in the shop getting warmer
This object you see, lest you hadn't guessed
A micro computer, can cause such distress
But some of us know, even PM's like Tony
That in radio terms, there's no-one like Sony
And Short Wave listeners could be quite bereft
Without for their toy, a new ICF
So now must be time, to the wireless to go
And start listening to another show!

(c) Mark A Savage March 2006. Title credit to the author of the play, Marcy Kahan!
If you haven't a clue what I'm on about, check out
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/play_of_the_week.shtml
before 11th March.

Although written as a comedy, as is so often the case with the best comic writing it makes some serious points, in this case about our all-consuming...consumerism. Definitely worth a listen if you've time.

Radio matters

2006-03-03T03:31:00.000Z

Just a reminder of my companion blog at www.RadioFar-far.blogspot.com, where I've just published a new posting.

It isn't over while the fat lady sins

2006-03-02T22:37:00.000Z

Music's in mind again tonight, but at least the images of rock n'roll in surplices seems to have passed off for the moment. Instead, grand opera is lurking somewhere close by in the Savage thought processes, after hearing of BBC Radio Three's bold decision to transmit the whole of Wagner's Ring Cycle in one day, all fifteen hours of it. It would take an Olympian effort to listen to the whole thing at one sitting I think, but no doubt someone will manage this feat.

Talking of things Olympian, who could forget the tour de force of diva Montserrat Caballe and the late Freddie Mercury in their chart-topper arising out of the 1992 Olympics, their homage to the host city, Barcelona? Farokh Bulsara, to give him his real name, actually spent his latter teenage years living with his parents a mile or so from where I am writing these words- and Brian May went to my junior school! Not a lot of people know that.

The roots of the super sound of Queen may lie here in Middlesex, but the "genesis" of my commitment to Christ came 21 years ago this week, following a holiday in Barcelona. Not that Freddie Mercury had anything to do with it, you understand, but I guess the music he was responsible for might well have been playing on the world's radio stations as I enjoyed a holiday there with a couple of my mates from the British DX Club.

Well, perhaps enjoy is not quite the word for it. Endure might be more appropriate, as on this day back in 85 I had the somewhat comic task of trying to report a crime which had occurred in Spain, in schoolboy French to a non-English policeman at Barcelona airport and occasionally lapsing into German. The hire car which my friends had rented was broken into the night before and some aircraft tickets were stolen, along with my one of my friend's favourite radios and my own 21st birthday present containing half my wardrobe. To cap it all, I wasn't insured.

Such adversity could have ruined a holiday, but although my vacation was ending, my new life was about to begin. One of my friends was an avowed Christian, the other a lapsed believer. Noticing the difference in their temperaments at a time of trouble was a very telling lesson for me, and drew me to want to know more about the faith which kept my Christian buddy so seemingly peaceful despite outward circumstances.

Far from ending my eventful holiday as I waited for my plane to fly me back to the familiar territory of Middlesex, I was actually beginning the greatest adventure of my life, the journey of faith. Barcelona may be an elegant city full of wonderful buildings, but the city Christians are headed for is finer than anything Europe can offer. Indeed, the eternal Holy City is more beautiful than anything Earth can show.
One day, giving account for their sin, that unfashionable word which sums up the basic nature of man, all will be sight-seers in the great auditorium before the whole show's director, at the end of the marathon opera of human history. It won't need a Wagner or a Mercury to put music to the story then, but thank the Lord it will have the happy ending that a survey today shows most people want in their books- or at any rate, even for the vilest offender who truly believes. Give me that ending over musical mythology and fat ladies any day.

Wild Thing

2006-03-01T23:41:00.000Z

Do you know how it is when you get a tune or an image sticks in your head and you just can't shed it? Right now as I write this, I can't help thinking of the guffaw-making episode of The Vicar of Dibley where dippy Alice gets married and one of the songs the church choir sing is the 1977 hit Wild Thing! Sounds an unlikely choice typical of the slowest wit in Dibley, but if you look at the words, it's actually very akin to a hymn of praise to the creator who makes everything- including the wild fowl that are worrying everybody sick at the moment with the spectre of bird flu.

Why did I think of this particular arrangement? Maybe my mind's still thinking about the remarkable Jim Wallis who I heard speak a fortnight ago at LICC on the launch of his new book God's Politics. That man is indeed a prophet that believers and non-believers alike need to hear, both sides of the Pond. He doesn't mince his words, but he's also a regular kind of guy and I was amused to learn that he's married to Joy Carroll, supposedly the real life model on which Dawn French's wonderful lady vicar was based.

More likely though is that I'm thinking of this song because the start of Lent naturally draws us to the Wilderness in which the prophet asked God would build him a safe nest. The wild place, where vicious beasts and scavengers no doubt waited to attack Jesus much the same way as the Devil did for forty days and nights as Jesus wrestled with the temptation to let his his unique gifts and powers run wild.

Thankfully, the carpenter of Nazareth who was to become saviour of the world did not give in to the temptation to abuse his ministry, but by contrast we are still fallible creatures who need to face up to our own wild selves every day and especially during this season.

I've experienced about two and a half months of quite incredible spiritual growth- but I'm still rotten to the core really- like every other being on this planet- without the transforming power of our Lord.

Lent's a time for self-examination, of where we're going, and more importantly why we bother to make the journey in the first place. Along the way we'll no doubt find stumbling blocks, as wise friends have counselled me I may well do as I see the dawning of a new light over my own previously wild, untamed places. But remembering that God loves us beyond measure just as we are, as I was reminded in the sermon at an "Ashing" service tonight at our local parish church, is all the re-assurance I need on the journey. We're being led all the way by an infallible guide who will not let us fall.

Fat Chews Day

2006-02-28T22:06:00.000Z

It sounds much better in French, doesn't it: Mardi Gras and Carnival- literally "fat Tuesday" and "without meat".

It's supposed to be the prelude to Lent, forty days where the finer things of life including fat-filled fare are sacrificed for a period of deep contemplation before the joy of Easter. Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday, as it's known in Britain, was once the occasion when all the forbidden foods of the Lent season, including eggs and fats, were used up conveniently in a frying pan, before the fasting began.

Sadly today, it's largely become just another scoff-up, with little thought for what follows. I'm not denying the enjoyment of a tasty pancake, especially when it's filled with maple syrup or lemon juice, but wouldn't it be good if a few more folk stopped to ask "what's it all about?" not just about what we put in our bellies, but what comes out of our hearts. But that's a subject for chewing over another day.

Who is my neighbour

2006-02-25T09:14:00.000Z

No question mark in my posting title: it's a statement. It could be what the Dalek said to his fellow warring wheely bins when asked who owned the strange blue "Police" box about the size of an average human male which had just pitched up next to him.

It is not good for man to be alone; even 900-year old time travellers need their companions on the journey. So why does neighbourliness in 21st century Britain so often appear to be regarded as a quaint phenomenon destined for the dustbin?

It should be the most natural thing in the world to want to know those who breathe the same air as us under the same sky during this all too brief sojourn we call life. Neighbours should indeed be there for one another, both in their troubles and their joys. Something in the human condition cries out for it and we are naturally social creatures.

It's a bizarre paradox then that in 21st century Britain, too many people get to know their neighbours in fiction rather than in person. EastEnders, getting the key to the Queen Vic at 21 this week, challenges Emmerdale and Corrie as the TV ratings hits week after week. And once student life has introduced you to the Neighbours of Ramsay Street, it's very hard to leave- as I've found getting back into the Aussie favourite after seven months working away from Erinsborough.

Why TV soaps should be such a hit is in some ways a mystery to me. You get the most unlikely hatches, matches and despatches and some of the most disreputable characters around prove to be the biggest hit. But maybe the scriptwriters are tuned into a truth which the writers of the Bible knew twenty centuries ago, before even the(fictional) Dr Who was a lad.

People love a good story and they love to meet intriguing characters within the story. We little understand ourselves, yet by another paradox we perhaps wipe a little of the mist from our vanity mirrors every time we get to know somebody else or help them in some practical way. Jesus used this to great effect not so much in paradox as parable, and perhaps one of the best known is that of the "good Samaritan", otherwise known as the "good neighbour".
I've had fun this week helping out a neighbour who's lived across the street for over thirty years. First I got asked to sort out a problem with her phones, while on Thursday I was challenged with some Latin proof-reading of a Christian message delivered before I was born. In return, my brother and I got a very tasty curry, and I found my mouth had more of a fireproof lining than I'd thought!

Thought of reward should never be our motivation for doing some kindly act and indeed it will never get you into heaven, even in a tardis. Love your neighbour, as you love yourself.

Frozen Fish Fingers

2006-02-22T04:36:00.000Z

How does anyone end up with the name "Clarence Birdseye?" It's a mystery, but the aforementioned gentleman most certainly existed and I'm one of many millions who grew up with the frozen fare he made his name from.

These days, I don't buy fish fingers very often, especially while I'm currently trying to cut down on my calorie intake to shed some of my ample girth. Like too many people in the affluent West though,I'm often thinking of food, which is understandable given that there is such a tempting array of it in super-sized hypermarkets run by the giants of the grocery world in modern Britain.

While there's nothing wrong with variety, particularly when it introduces us to the cuisine of other cultures, much of the problem of the 21st Century World is we have too much choice. We've opened a Pandora's chest freezer which does both our bodies and our spirits no good at all.

Television's love affair with the cookery show is abundant testimony to both the good and the bad in matters culinary. The BBC's latest variation on a theme, which ended its first run last night in between the latest calorie-burning thrills from the frozen rinks and runs of Olympic Italy, is "Two Hairy Bikers". This bizarre pairing, no doubt inspired by the Two Fat Ladies stable of programme making, has actually proved to be a bitter-sweet show, and I'm not talking chocolate or Seville oranges here.

The unlikely duo of two-wheeled Geordie petrolheads have been focussing this fortnight on Romania, a country with a sad past which is still struggling to shake off the evil legacy of Ceaucescu. To the credit of the two hirsute presenters, in between concocting mouth-watering delights they visited a museum about that nation's evil tyrant who met his fate while in a turning- aside West millions feasted on Christmas Day 1989.

The bikers' visit to the museum was an emotional experience not normally associated with indulgent food programmes. One of them understandably vented his anger at how the complicit West yielded to the temptation to eat at the table of this madman, while his actions ended or shattered the lives of millions, not least helpless children, the sight of whose pitiful existence still produces more tears than an onion.

Food fattens, but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thank God then, that the one who saves our souls from our own awfulness did not yield to the temptation to eat, or even drink, for forty scorching days and frozen nights in the wilderness, which we now commemorate as the Christian season of Lent.

As observance of Lent 2006 rapidly approaches and Britons look forward to the delights of Pancake Day on "Fat Tuesday", I'm glad that the sign of the fish can lead even my frozen fingers this chilly night - our central heating's broken down- to prayer to the one who never yielded to the temptation to sin. He alone was nice but never naughty. Instead, he gave up his life to the hands of an evil regime and an angry, ignorant mob- even forgiving them as he did so. Thanks be to God that as he thawed from the stone-cold tomb, the lives of those who choose to believe in his unique life and name can be preserved for evermore. That's a mystery which should be on every menu.

Good morning, and here is the news...

2006-02-19T04:43:00.000Z

While work continues on the re-launch of Anyway, I've just started a new blog dedicated to one of my main interests and a hobby since boyhood. You'll find it at www.radiofar-far.blogspot.com.

Meanwhile, if you read this in time and are within reach of a TV capable of picking up BBC ONE from the UK, do watch or video my fellow scribe, Brian Draper, who's appearing today on The Heaven and Earth Show , the national broadcaster's main Sunday morning show on issues of faith and ethics.

It promises to be an interesting and stimulating show today, also featuring Jim Wallis, renowned US preacher and commentator on the issues that really matter. He's been much in the news too this week, while he's been over in the UK to launch the British edition of his book God's Politics, a best-seller in the US for over a year.
Meanwhile, after doing what really matters to me on a Sunday morning, I'm off to join my fellow radio anoraks in Reading. Keep reading and listening- and 'Turn Your Radio On' (Ray Stevens, where are you now?) for the good news that's really worth hearing!

Me

2006-02-17T03:25:00.000Z

It never really quite caught on as the ideal product name: "Windows Me." It was the software so adaptable to the needs of individuals in the 21st century that Microsoft wanted everybody to pronounce it as a word rhyming with "twee", rather than initials standing for "Millennium Edition". But I've yet to find anyone who calls the program version I'm using by its proper name, and thanks to Silicon Valley's unquenchable thirst for the next new thing, it's a name that will soon be forgotten anyway with a replacement for its successor Windows XP supposedly due for launch sometime soon. Perhaps Bill Gates got it wrong and people were chronically fatigued at seeing a post-viral software package which always makes me think of a rather unpleasant medical syndrome called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

Launches and re-launches. The marketing and ad man's stock in trade. If brevity is the soul of wit, there's often little evidence of wit in the torrents of words gushing "new"" every year from the men and women who invest giga-loads of cash in trying to convince us of the virtues and value of their product, whatever it may be.

Even the humble potato crisp is not immune to the attentions of the marketers. Britain's leading brand has just been foil-wrapped in stylish noughties garb with a new logo and unashamedly chanting the lower fat mantra. Gary Lineker's paymasters no doubt decided to change their image before some nanny in the Food Standards Agency tries to ban us from eating these savoury delights altogether.

Everybody likes a makeover once in a while. It helps to re-vitalise our sometimes drab lives and give new value to the best qualities of old favourites. And it can work as well for the person as for the product, the idea as much as the tangible. But it needs to be done with care and caution, lest we throw out the baby with the bathwater.

This blogspot is, I feel, due for a re-launch. The dis-interested advice of trusted friends has made me realise that my words are not always working for their readers or for me as well as I had intended. Anyway has become far more than I ever imagined it would for me when I first wrote some comments on the Athens Olympics eighteen months ago, and it's been a pleasure to post.
But, just as munching rather too many potato crisps in the past has caused me to pile on the pounds to the extent I've now re-launched my diet, I'd like my first web presence to have less verbal calories and to put more cerebral nutrition into what I do write.

You, dear reader, can be part of my focus group and, no, I am not asking you to pile into a Ford family car to do so. Just hit the "comments" button instead or, if you know me, send an e. Henry Ford may have been a genius in some respects, but he made a big mistake when he tried to limit his buyers to just one colour, black.

Life is neither black, nor white, and its expression can and should come in many colours too. I'm currently on a mission to "sell" my own best points as I seek a new occupational direction, possibly a vocation even, and trimming down the portly forty-something figure is just one aspect of it. But the wisest marketer knows that some things never change and word of mouth can be far more powerful than words of flannel. Google has become the world's most influential company by little else.
The most important launch and re-launch in history happened with little ceremony and unpromising beginnings in a small country in the Middle East at the beginning of the first millennium. Unknown celebrities from afar took two years to reach the launch but knew it was the most important journey they'd ever make. 33 years later the young man they'd come to see was re-branded a blasphemous criminal and given the most excrutiating, humiliating punishment possible at the time. Despite the love and attentions of his backers of three years, his future seemed as hopeless as a well-regarded slimming product did when their name started to sound like a fatal illness. He died.

But the maker of this product knew what he was doing from the beginning. Had he relied on his focus group to fulfil his marketing plan, he would have given up the ghost long ago, just like his own son did when he hung on a cross on the first Good Friday.
Unlikely as it seemed, the death of the old was crucial to the birth of the new. And only this man could then -and still does- point the way to life which makes no false claims, but can be lived to the full with no artificial additives. Its a high-risk strategy, but for millions of believers around the world it's the answer to life, the universe and everything. You'll never find a finer "brand" than the name of Jesus and indeed, if you believe what it says on the "packet" called the Holy Bible, then one day every knee shall bow in his presence. Any way you say it, JC is the name for me.

Lovers of the World Unite

2006-02-11T08:15:00.000Z

Lovers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your inhibitions. This could well be the rallying cry of Clinton and Hallmark, Thorntons and Interflora or even Marks and Spencer for the next frantic four days. With Christmas but a distant memory, retailers need a boost to their coffers, especially when the feasting of Easter has to wait until late April this year.
Right on cue, along comes Valentine’s Day and the opportunity to pledge undying love to Mr or Miss Right, with only a little help from the cash card companies. “Hang the expense” seems to be the thinking behind the giving for those that want to pledge their passion – and yet tradition dictates it should all be done anonymously. Not very practical though if you fancy spending a hundred thousand on a night of sweet nothings between yourselves at the Oxo tower, as went on offer this week to London lovers.
This year though, however much is spent, sweethearts and passion-seekers will need to remember their number in a little red book, albeit a well-disguised one. Unforgettable Valentine’s Day has been chosen by the money industry to get normally reticent Britons to wear not just a heart on their sleeve but a PIN. On that date, at least nominally, signatures become a thing of the past as four little numbers hidden in a tiny piece of metal secure the price of love. Woe betide any man or woman who forgets their digits!
It’s just as well then that the numbers that matter to God are things like the number of hairs on our head, every one of which is counted. He could never consign our secret details to the back of a diary or some other anonymous place, and actually he already knows every one, such is the unique identity of his love. In fact, his love was demonstrated in flowers of mourning turned to dancing, in nails rather than PINs. Or, as Charitie L Brooks, an aptly-named Irish hymn writer, put it in the nineteenth century
A great high priest whose name is love
My name is graven on his hands
My name is written on his heart
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my saviour and my God
That kind of love will never be forgotten by numberless Christians, whatever the date.

More than a LICC and a promise

2006-02-07T23:30:00.000Z

Occasionally, I dedicate these blog postings to individuals; today, my scribings are dedicated indeed to the dedicated, my hard-working, creative and ever-enthusiastic erstwhile colleagues at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

LICC as it is known for short, understandably, or pronounced "lick" by those who have abbreviationophobia has been my employer for the past seven months. Although there have been liberal clues to their identity in these postings, I've hesitated to name them publicly before now. Firstly, because it can be a risky business to talk about your employer on such a publicly-accessible medium as the world wide web, as one employee of a well-known British bookstore chain found to his cost. Secondly, it's a matter of courtesy perhaps to remain tight-fingered on such details.

However, I feel a positive plug for Licc is well overdue through this channel, which is why you'll find out more about them by going to www.licc.org.uk. Licc was the inspired vision of Dr John Stott, CBE (the "gong" came in the 2006 New Year Honours), back in 1982. At an age when many men in secular employment would be thinking of settling down their cardigan and slippers, John Stott's second career was just beginning. Today, in his mid eighties, he remains the life president of the Institute, which is housed in a fine eighteenth century listed chapel in an incongruous setting off London's Oxford Street.

St Peter's chapel itself is an amazing building to work in, with it's classic vaulted ceiling, modelled on several other London churches of the period by James Gibb, a pupil of the inimitable Sir Christopher Wren. Gibbs' church may lack the grandeur of Wren's masterpiece of St Paul's, obviously, but what it lacks in scale it more than makes up for with its sense of peace and spiritual permeability. Used today by a couple of church congregations since ceasing to be a chapel of ease to nearby All Soul's, its main occupancy is to the small but ever-resourceful and busy team of LICC that make up the part-time faculty and full-time administration of its world-famous ministry.

John Stott's is a name renowned throughout the world for his classic evangelical ministry, and he has a string of books to his name expounding on subjects ranging from the skills and arts of preaching to the exposition of many of the bible's 66 books. He is especially renowned for his introductions to Christianity, which remain in print and popular with new and established believers alike.

Dr Stott himself remains a much-admired figure in the institute's history, but the infirmities of age and orders from a doctor to take it easy mean that his preaching these days is somewhat limited. However, his legacy of creative Christian communication lives on in the legacy of his successors, several of whom feature regularly on national radio and TV as Christian commentators. Brian Draper, who merits a mention of his own elsewhere in these blogspots, is but one of them, while Mark Greene, the institute's current executive director, is much in demand for his creative, insightful teaching (he is a former principal of the London School of Theology, formerly London Bible College) honed through his many years working in advertising both sides of the pond.

In recent years, the focus of LICC has been on the important concept of "Whole-life discipleship", the idea that you cannot compartmentalise the Christian life into the sacred and the secular but, actually, every moment of every day matters to God and a follower of Jesus is actually a Full Time Christian Worker. Not that this need be an onerous responsibility; it can be remarkably liberating, fun and fruitful, but can be a challenge to live out at times, particularly in the workplace. This is well catered for by another of LICC's current emphases.

This is the sort of background against which yours truly has been privileged to work since the summer of 2005. Sadly, the time has come to move on, but I go with many happy memories of the many events and people I have met in my brief but very rewarding time with LICC. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that the colleagues with whom I have worked have been among the most loving I've ever encountered. As followers of Jesus, if their faith means anything, how could it be otherwise? Oh, not perfect of course- far from it, and just like me.
The London Institute's ideas and insight, their commitment and enthusiasm are the exact opposite of one dictionary's definition of that rather strange feline-inspired phrase " a lick and a promise".: A superficial effort made without care or enthusiasm. Rather, the whole team give their contribution to carry out John Stott's original and highly quotable idea of what Christians should be doing which he termed "double listening" - listening to the Word of God, AND to the world. With its attention to the complex issues of 21st Century culture, coupled with the historic mission of Christianity which aims to reach a nation for Christ, long may their mission prosper.
If you're a seeker or a follower, why not follow the link and learn more about LICC today, from its regular Monday evening public events dealing with everything from CS Lewis to a destiny beyond death, to bi-weekly words of inspiration and insight from its team of knowledgeable and highly readable writers, to its latest venture, the Imagine project, which has the bold challenge to Imagine how we can reach the UK. With prayer, and with pounds and even more with power- from God, it can be done. That's not just a hope, it's a promise. And organisations like the London Institute will do their utmost never to stop working at winning, until the salvation of a nation is licked.

Seven Days without X Makes One Weak

2006-02-05T22:26:00.000Z

Now that's caught your attention, hasn't it! Quiet at the back there! What can the rambling Savage be going on about today; surely he's not about to launch into sordid territory here?

Quite right- not my style at all, though latest statistics do seem to show that married men and those who enjoy their marriage to the full live longer and are happier than unmarried men. Oh dear, time I start feeling like Marvin the paranoid Android again, maybe? Pass the Prozac, brother? Certainly not. Maybe Miss Right is still out there for me, but finding her is not the most important task in my life.

So what's X the unknown tonight then? Seven days without singing maybe? Mmm, listening to the dirge which passes for entertainment from some of our TV wannabees or even accomplished singers- sacred or secular- makes that questionable. But actually, research does show that singing is good for you, and who am I to disagree. I've inherited my late Mum's love of a good warble and it's one of the things that keeps Sunday special for me to sing a belting hymn, chorus or too. Indeed, church music can be full of surprises. Tonight, I was surprisingly delighted to hear- and later to sing- that classic Amazing Grace, to the tune of the Animals' old hit House of the Rising Sun. Clearly someone learning a lesson from William Booth here: why should the Devil have all the best tunes. It works amazingly well!

Seven days without beer or wine prompting lassitude, maybe? No, I can't agree with that either, though I enjoy my little tipples in moderation. My brother recently joined the Tesco wine club: both of us enjoy our Sunday sampling of the fruit of the vine but we must be careful not to become wine snobs.

Seven days without laughter? Could that be it? Well, there's not much to laugh about in the news at the moment, really. Tragedy in the Red Sea, where hundreds of poor souls drowned in a ferry accident; continuing tension in the Middle East and disturbing Muslim outrage at the publication of cartoons depicing the prophet. Even satire is dangerous territory, it seems, though Britain's masters of this genre must be as relieved as we believers that the bill which could have outlawed poking fun at religion or even preaching the gospel in some contexts, was defeated earlier this week. Ironically, the bill was lost for want of the vote of a certain Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.

Certainly, Christians who take their faith seriously can laugh at its excesses and themselves as heartily as the satirists, without ever compromising the heart of it, a liberating, tender relationship with God. That is a precious freedom which needs to be preserved at all costs.

Seven days without Big Brother maybe? Well, thank goodness, the annual farce which is Celebrity Big Brother is over for another twelve months, but it won't be long before another dose of throwing them to the lions, or should that be the lens, returns in some other guise. Anyone in the public eye is fair game these days, it seems.

Perhaps, then, seven days without blogging makes one weak? At least, that could be the conclusion from research this week which purports to show the benefits of sharing your thoughts, opinions and frustrations on the net for one and all. The computer monitor has become the new confessional. I can't deny I much enjoy writing these postings on a regular basis, but I think one look at the dates they've been published show that I don't rely on them for my spiritual well-being and to get all my frustrations off my chest. That's not to say those frustrations are not there, mind, particularly this week when I face big uncertainty again over where I'll be earning my living and, I hope, fulfilling at least part of my vocation from now on. But that's still in God's hands at the moment.

Which brings us back to the opening question and what must be my final answer- even if it doesn't bring the questionable riches bestowed on three Europeans this weekend as the Euro Millions multi-rolledover jackpot was finally won. Seven days without PRAYER makes one weak; I can't claim it as an original pun, but it's as true as ever. Prayer is the lifeblood of the believer and, actually, many would argue that it's a natural human instinct to pray- though the method of doing it and to whom it's will of course vary. It's been compared to breathing, actually- and without breathing, we wouldn't just be weak, we'd be dead- and very rapidly. So not just seven days, but seven hours, without prayer can make one weak. That's one reason I have so enjoyed the daily prayer meetings at my current employer- and why I should so miss them if I have to leave my employment there later this week.

I try now to include deep prayer as part of my routine in some form every day- and it doesn't have to be formulaic, oft-repeated or liturgical for it to be efficacious. True prayer is sharing your heart with God, the Father of the universe and the most important person in any life. Anyone that seeks to grow spiritually should spend more time in prayer, difficult though it is with our modern lifestyle. If you seek to be no longer weak, spare a prayer and you'll find your strength renewed. Who needs press-ups when you can pray up!

Whacked!

2006-01-29T09:23:00.000Z

Not a post on the current national campaign in the UK to ban the smacking of children, even by their parents. Nor am I complaining that I'm tired, though Sunday's the best day of the week for a lie in and another nap later- it's well named the day of rest.

My "whacking" came courtesy of that magnificent beast which is Google, who own the gigabytes of storage space you're now reading alongside the world's most popular search engine. I've been Googlewhacked!

Laud Google as we may, it's not a perfect search engine, if such a commodity can ever exist. I think it would be a sad day for mankind, really, if just by inputting a word or two into a computer you could find the sum of all knowledge on everything known to man. When I was a young lad of 9 or 10, I remember the dreams I had with my friend Michael over the road about putting together a book which would contain absolutely every bit of knowledge ever, ever, ever. Maybe at that tender age, we were just aspirant encyclopaedia salesmen both.

Algorithms and sophisticated computer code can do its best, but it can still be beaten. That's the fun and the challenge of the strange new pursuit of "Googlewhacking". The object? To find any two search terms which, when grouped together, produce only a single hit on Google.

Much to my amazement, that's what happened to me after a quick check on the sitemeter at the bottom of this page a week ago. Someone somewhere had keyed in a search in cyrillic for "Andry Moneyphilia": Anglicise that, and much to my amazement it brought up only a page in this blog which contained the words "Andrew" and "Moneyphilia" in close proximity.

Of course, it won't work now, because I've done the search myself- there should be at least two hits there. But maybe it shows the way to win the game- come up with a neologism or a contrived word like "moneyphilia" and link it with a common or garden male name! Try it and see- it's a great way to waste time on a chilly Sunday morning.

Yet there are still so many things I find you can't always track down on Google. My question to leave you with this morning is: whatever happened to Tivvy? Does anyone remember him? And can you Google me an answer? I'm not talking about Tiverton Town football club either!
But the truth is out there, or should it be out, where? It's been a week for a lot of revelations which some would say have no place in the public domain- nobody's business. Does it all really matter what politicians get up to in their private lives, or when closeted together with other wannabees and nobodies in an ersatz house on a studio lot in Elstree close by the faux square which masquerades as a part of Walford, E20.

What really matters is how we behave towards each other in this brief span of years we get given on this planet, in other words how we love, not who we bed. It's how we show Respect towards our fellow men and women and above all to God. It's turning the other cheek when we are whacked, literally, or going the extra mile when we are tired and whacked, figuratively. It's the most rewarding thing on earth, and that's why I must leave you now to go and learn a little bit more of the googol of things there are to know about Him which make Sunday morning the time for church. Thank Heavens that his search engine always hits the heart with delightful, life-changing results!

Forty

2006-01-27T17:51:00.000Z

No, my heading doesn't come because I'm celebrating reaching two score years, sadly. Read my profile and you'll soon be disavailed of that notion. Nor is it the number of this post- apparently, I've now committed 132 collections of my verbal meanderings to cyberspace. Quite prolific I suppose, but nothing like the output of some of the world's most famous musicians and writers. It's over two centuries since his death, but there can scarcely be a country where this musical superman's works are not being played somewhere right now. If my words could stand the test of time the way his symphonies, operas and sacred musical compositions have,I'd be a happy bunny indeed.
Friday was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birthday, but in Salzburg the party's only just begun. Were he not buried in a pauper's grave, he'd be remarkably well preserved for his age. But his music, if not his body, certainly is. The attention and the adulation that will be showered on Austria's most famous musical son this next year are more than justified by the quite extra-ordinary range of his music, made even the more magnificent by the prodigious age at which he started composing and playing it.

There was, of course, much media coverage of the anniversary yesterday, and BBC Four TV whiled away the night hours with a five hour concert hosted by the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) featuring a wide selection of the great man's output. Among the more interesting Mozart matters though was the little known connection between WAM and my late musical mother's birthplace of Kent. Mozart passed through here in his young life and played concerts in the Garden of England in between his appearances before royalty and an adoring public in London. Meanwhile, yesterday in a Canterbury primary school, children as young as six were being introduced to the finer nuances of Mozart's symphonies, much to their enjoyment.

For many of these children, the head said, it was their first experience of live classical music. But I bet it wasn't their introduction to Mozart; how many of them, for instance, had been singing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" since they were tots, unaware it was composed by the Austrian wunderkind? I was a little bit older than them, however, when I first started to enjoy the music of Mozart, thanks to a one-hit wonder called Waldo De Los Rios. His interpretation of "Mozart Forty" had the rare distinction for a classical composition of reaching the top ten, sometime in the seventies I think.

Unless you're a (Nigel) Kennedy or a Mylene Klass- just awarded the prestigious Sunday morning slot on Classic FM recently vacated by one-time boy treble Aled Jones who's defected to Radio Two- it's likely that the musical preferences of most kids soon turn to boy bands or girl groups, rebellious rock and loud lyrics. I then must have seemed something of a weird kid when the kind of music that soothed this Savage breast through my teen years was generally the light music that was filling most of the airtime on BBC Radio 2 , and still does if only on a Sunday evening when the grey zone takes over with music to soothe the more mature audience over their cocoa and biscuits. Melodies for You, Your Hundred Best Tunes and the seemingly ageless David Jacobs are the kind of programmes I mean. As long as they continue to be there, like a warm bath on the sabbath evening before school the next day, there's hope for civilized life.

Music unites like few other emotionally-led factors can, which is why two centuries after Mozart's birth, his life and his story is still Salzburg's biggest, albeit most expensive, tourist asset. I've never visited Austria, but maybe this might be the year to do it. From Mozart to Von Trapp, the Eastern Kingdom has a musical legacy which will last forever and to share in it is a pleasure open to all through the simple joys of making music together.

But music can also be divisive of course, at least of the generations. Was it fear that my parents might not approve which meant I was 25 before I really got into listening to rock music seriously? Living at home til I was 28 certainly made me more wary of discovering and enjoying my own tastes than I can now, but yesterday I made a point of having a bit of a music fest with my trusty turntable while I was at my flat in Sussex. Of course I'd had plenty of exposure to the more populist stuff through my radio listening hobby, and the assistance of the likes of Mike Read and Steve Wright on the kitchen radio, making my pot-washing labours a little more endurable while I worked in catering for seven years. Boy George I guess is the sound I most remember from that era, and a beautiful but rather dippy girl colleague who was forever singing Karma Chamelon. Now whatever happened to Gary Davies, another star DJ of that era,I wonder?

Interestingly, it was at the same time that I became a Christian I first got into some of the names my contemporaries had been enjoying among their chums for nearly a decade. Slightly ironic, that, but that period of my life, like now, seemed to release in me an ability to be myself and enjoy life to the full too - in music and in companionship. Had I been a more sociable schoolboy, I expect I would have done so much earlier while at school too, though I remember well the oft-repeated sound of Peter Frampton and Genesis on the sixth form record player.

Then, circa 1985, my mate Andrew introduced me to a certain Irish group called U2 and said one reason he liked them were that they were Christians. As he was working in the radio industry at the time, Andrew had a unique opportunity to listen to all the best sounds, as well as some of the worst- the chuck outs from some of that period still populate my record and CD library! But it's funny how these musical memories can stick so much and you get a sudden urge to listen to or sing them again; on Thursday morning, in the shower, another "Forty" came to mind, and I desperately wanted to sing and hear it again! U2's unique treatment of one of the Psalms is brilliant. It kind of sums up in minim, quaver and semi-breve what I was doing while I was only semi-breathing spiritually until a few weeks ago, how I quavered or maybe quivered at who I thought I was and being too minimalist in my understanding of the riches of God's love for me, and for you, too.

I couldn't get my fix of U2 in Middlesex, as most of my record collection is still in my other place, so I was glad yesterday to make a point of listening to it when I was in Sussex. But still no Forty. Where is it- I want it! Never mind, the day was full of musical surprises and delights, as I listened again to the first LP I was ever given, on my sixteenth birthday- more of that light music stuff but especially the original piece with its funky phasing used at closedown and start-up by Radio One- called, you've guessed it, Theme One. Of course, there had to be some Mozart yeterday too, and when I put on a U2 EP of The Unforgettable Fire- betraying its age by the pre-barcode Boots price sticker - I got my first hearing for a while of Bass Trap, a wonderful instrumental by Bono and Co. When it comes to U2 favourites though, can I name one? Difficult. Close contest between New Year's Day, Forty and the one which I think best describes my own experience: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.
Some now question the present Christian credentials of U2, especially since Bono became world superstar and joint expressor supreme with Sir Bob Geldof of the plight of the poor of the world. He's been on the campaigning trail again this week, in pursuit of the great and the good at Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum- not so very far from Salzburg, Austria where some rich folk will let go of their Euros for the rest of the year, unheeding of the irony that it takes music to fight poverty, yet this greatest of classical geniuses himself died penniless. Maybe his own requiems can serve as his eulogy,but as long as poverty and human depravity remain, as remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day which also fell on Mozart's birthday, the world will need the solemn sounds of the Hebrew prayer for the
dead too in its songs to counteract the joyful exclamations of Mozart at his most lyrical and his operas at their most comically absurd, like life itself. Until the Lord comes again, we will need to wait patiently for him, when we can sing a new song. He inclines to us, and hears our cries, in music whether of exaltation or mourning. And he sets our feet on a rock every bit as permanent as a Salzburg, a mountain of salt.

.This posting's dedication is for my mate Brian Draper, U2 fan par excellence and regular contributor to their official sites. He's currently doing the Saturday Thought for the Day on Radio 4 -one more to go in the current series- and is imminently approaching his 37th birthday. Ah, I remember that- alright for some for whom forty has yet to come! Brian's new book Searching 4 Faith is a recommended read if you're asking questions about Christianity- but meanwhile, if you want to share any thoughts or indeed have a burning question you want to express, hit that comments button right now!

You'll never swim alone

2006-01-22T15:49:00.000Z

It's not exactly the sweet, silver song of a lark that has got me thinking of that most inspiring of tunes from Rogers and Hammerstein's Carousel today. Nor am I chanting from the digital terraces of the antics and indiscretions of England's beleagured football manager, Sven Goran Ericsson, who perhaps wishes right now he'd never stopped selling mobile phones in the family business ( I jest, of course).
Something more profound and primeval brings me to my blog today, as the thoughts and attention of the nation have at least for a few hours been diverted from the life- mocking twaddle that has so dominated the scandal sheets these first few weeks of a new year, to the pitful fate of a juvenile cetacean whose death wails if inaudible to the ears, at least filled the hearts and no doubt emptied the tear ducts of readers and viewers across the world this weekend.

The drama all started around rush hour on Friday morning, when a passenger on board a train on London's Waterloo railway bridge said he thought he was hallucinating but he'd seen a whale in the River Thames below him. Understandable reaction, but not caused by any magic mushrooms on this occasion but a fact. An eighteen-feet long (six metres, for the benefit of those not schooled in imperial measures), Northern Bottle-nosed whale had apparently taken a wrong turn at the Thames estuary at Southend-on-Sea and, instead of following his mother to the cold, deep waters of the Artic, found himself stranded in the shallow tideway of London's river, next to some of the most well-known sites in the world.

The image of this magnificent young beast attempting to stay in the swim to find his way home, is in marked contrast to the Church Times- sorry, I mean News of the World causing another would-be political leader to drown with its scandalous revelations about his private life this morning. Mark Oaten, MP for Winchester, must at least be grateful this Sunday that he has been displaced on most other front pages by an animal whose species frollicked in the world's oceans centuries before man even feigned to beach lives on the questionable altar of 'truthful' journalism.

London's whale's fate could perhaps have been foreseen from the moment he raised his awe-inspiring head above the waters of Old Father Thames. His natural fountain as he spouted salty water skyward, offered a more magnificent sight to watchers on the London Eye observation wheel than anything nearby Trafalgar Square could offer. These giant mammals were created to swim in deep waters, enjoying those dark, vast depths still largely unexplored by us. Though pursued, persecuted and exploited by its only real enemy, Greedy Man, for centuries, at least in these environmentally sensitive times the whale has been given a fighting chance of survival as human beings finally recognise the folly of their careless and senseless exploitation of the natural world.

But river-journeying tourists they are not. The shallows of London's waterway could never support a mammal weighing in excess of seven tons (metric or imperial) for very long. This poor animal never even got given a name, as so often we have a tendency to do, and yet his care and his loss was followed and sadly mourned by the thousands, perhaps even millions, who had followed his attempts to survive even when precedent and circumstance made this seem an unlikely outcome. The noble efforts of divers, vets and mariners to return the baby whale to deeper waters on the back of a barge seemed to have brought out the best in people who so often want to see the worst in others.

What a peculiar, almost obscene, species we can be. Yet what beautiful acts and compassion we are yet capable of. Why this paradox, this constant stasis, in the human condition? A writer I am currently reading, Gerard W Hughes, suggests in his book God in All Things, that it's because of the heats of our desires, or rather the conflicts of them. What St Paul I guess referred to as the conflict between what I "know" I should do, think, feel and what so often I do instead. I should be compassionate, caring, selfless, my mind set on people -even marine mammals- beyond myself. Yet so often, I am reduced to gloating at or criticising the failings of others. Surely such miserable creatures as we are deserve the wrath of God and to meet our ends without pity! Yet thanks to Amazing Grace , as written in the words of one-time slave ship captain John Newton, the sweet sound I hear this afternoon is not of larks, heavenly though their sound may be. It's instead a sweet sound that saves a wretch like me- for I'm no different to any other reader of this blog, I'm a miserable sinner, let's make no whalebones about it!
Maybe the fate of this whale, and our hopes for him, awakened in many the longing for a connection with a long-drowned past, when nature was at one with her maker. Some have likened it to our fascination with dinosaurs, but for me there's an obvious connection with the story of Jonah and the "whale" portrayed in the Bible. Some commentators point out this is a story teaching about obedience, willingness of spirit, gratitude and compassion, together with God's patience and mercy.
Was God merciful to a beast who died at Gravesend, despite the best efforts of bargemen and specialists to save him? Quite plainly, yes. Jesus said (quoted in chapter 10 of Matthew's gospel and also in Luke's account that sparrows -now also rarely seen in London, sadly- were sold for two a penny, making them almost worthless in human terms, yet not one falls to the ground without God's knowledge. So when many worry about life and what the future holds, whether anyone cares any more anyway, maybe a beast of ancient stock should tell us that we are safe and have no cause to worry, whether we flail in the shallows or are overwhelmed by the depth of our troubles. Our father loves and cares for us as he does for the sparrow and the whale, and most certainly the lark, whose heavenly song will be heard again in the summer. These creatures matter to God. But we are far more precious to him than any of them. We need not sink or swim, but fly on eagle's wings into his loving arms. Now that's something worth singing about!

A Little Application

2006-01-12T23:22:00.000Z

Avez vous un cuppa? I'd drink Britain's favourite brew til it was coming out of my nostrils if I could. Whatever the hour of day or night, you can't beat a good hot, strong cup of tea and the nation's most popular brand is Brooke Bond PG Tips, or "the tea you can really taste", the one-time strapline accompanied by images of cheeky chimpanzees up to all sorts of antics. Follow my link (click on the post title) for more info on them and some fascinating facts about the makers and packers of Britain's best beverage. I never knew til tonight, for instance, that PG Tips comes from a place better known for Footie than tea, Trafford in Manchester.

The PG Tips chimps were the longest running advertising campaign on British TV, but sadly somebody in the advertising agency managed to convince Unilever, the parent company of Brooke Bond, they were no longer cool enough to advertise hot tea and they've now been replaced by a peculiar plasticine species known as the T-Birds. But in the wake of Avian flu, now apparently claiming young victims in the ironically-named country of Turkey, could the days of these clawed clay interlopers be numbered already? And could chimpanzees be in the ascendant once again?

You might well think so, judging by the attention paid to this species of ape on prime time BBC ONE television these last few days. It's Chimp Week, and the ever-intrusive lens of the wildlife cameramen has sought to venture further into the daily doings of this fascinating primate than has ever happened previously. However, I've not had much time to watch myself, since I have been either too shattered to stay awake to view after work, or too busy dealing with other practical things. Yet chimps themselves are remarkably intelligent and capable animals, perhaps one of the reasons their commercial cavortings entertained the nation for so long. "Mr Shifter" is surely the best remembered of the many films made over fifty years, and who can forget Michael Robbins' immortal voice-overed line in response to the question "Dad, do you know the piano's on my foot?": "You 'um it son, I'll play it" - and tinkle the old joanna the chimpy thespian did, but not apparently without a little bit of cheating, such as removing the innards of the piano!

Sometimes, achieving the desired result in any endeavour-be it shooting a TV commercial with wild animals or seeking to best sell yourself for a new job, takes a lot of effort. It's something I in particular find very difficult. But there's no gain without pain and often the best results are only achieved through a lot of work-or a little application if you like, to quote one of Mr Shifter's other catchphrases.

Certainly the Christian life's like that: it can be an uphill struggle, like pushing the pedals on a racing bike ("Can you ride tandem"?) with all your might as you press on to claim the winner's yellow jersey. But there's no room to turn a cowardly yellow, nor reason to become sickened and jaundice when things don't happen quite as quick as you hoped. The taste of victory awaits those who press on to the end, pausing as often as necessary along the way to consult the personal trainer par excellence. With God, we're more than just imitative, dumb animals; instead, we're the crowning glory of his creation and there's no apeing that.

Why Can't Life Be More Like The Movies?

2006-01-08T22:17:00.000Z

It was Shakespeare who said "All the World's a stage, and all the men and women on it merely players". Were he writing today though, he'd probably have to modify his wording a bit :"All the world's a sound stage, and all the men and women in it merely CGI copies".
Well, maybe it's not quite as synthetic a medium as that yet, but it's quite astounding what has been achieved in the world of cinema even in the past ten years, through the development of computer techniques and digital imaging. Nineteenth-Century Fox (Talbot) would be incredulous as to what the mighty megabyte has managed to do to his humble exercises with light. It's truly an industry full of magic thanks to technology, as if it hasn't always been.

It's rare to find a movie these days where the name of George Lucas's benchmark-setting digital effects company hasn't had a hand. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is no exception. But can ILM do anything about the awful British climate and the general gloom in early January, once the magic of the Christmas lights has disappeared for another year, apart from the odd tree which some council contractor has forgotten to de-luminate? Probably not, but thank heavens their handiwork, and that of talented directors, can bring a little sparkle into the glumness which afflicts me and many others this time of the year.

After church this Sunday morning, I decided it was high time I went to see this long-awaited epic adaptation of the C S Lewis Classic which fired my imagination and illuminated many a childhood day for me. Dashing down to my local children's library to catch up with the adventures of the Pevensie children was a highlight of that wonderful period of young life when nothing is impossible and the only limits are determined by your mind's horizon. Thirty-seven or so years later though, could the magic and the message be conveyed just as well by the silver screen (or whatever other material they make them from these days)?

I needn't have worried. Although I confess there was the odd moment when I was dozing off - but then that's what I always do on a Sunday afternoon- this was 140 minutes of sheer enchantment and creative genius which C S Lewis would, I'm sure, have been proud to put his name to. The mere fact that his stepson Douglas Gresham is co-producer must say something for the faithfulness of the cinematic adaptation to the spirit of his original.

Quite apart from the digital imagery which created battle scenes claiming to be among the most fantastic ever seen on screen, or animals vivified by the combined power of the animators' art and the voice talents of such luminaries as Dawn French and Ray Winstone, the performances of the juvenile cast were scene-stealing. Georgie Henley, no more than 9 when the film was shot, captivates as little Lucy in a way I've seldom seen a junior achieve and which for me was one of the most memorable performances in a fine film. No less worthy of praise though was the performance of William Moseley as Peter, the eldest of the Pevensey children and a kind of surrogate father to his younger siblings while their father is away fighting in World War II.

But what of the much-mentioned Christian allegorical components of the film, much maligned by humanist critics but equally lauded by many Christian groups? Well, for those looking for them, clearly they were there- though I doubt I would have spotted them as an eight-year old and I suspect few primary schoolers would today either. This is entertainment and fantasy which can be enjoyed as much by believers as by those sad souls who have nothing to believe in their world beyond the existence of the here and now. But young Peter in the story could be as much the life-changed disciple of the Christian accounts as the strong and sensitive hero every child wants to find triumphing in their literature. It doesn't really matter, does it?

Returning to the rain-drenched streets of Feltham after the film was like stepping back through a cupboard door to the dreary reality of everyday life for so many of us. Of having to consider the possibility of new employment, of paying the post-Christmas bills, of finding enough hours in the day to do all those things that need to be done, let alone that which I would most like to do, and particularly to write more. But am I really any different to a million and one other souls around the world every day of their lives who have to face the same issues? Indeed, it can be very easy to overlook the blessings of life in all its fulness, particularly the life redeemed from the nihilist, going nowhere outlook which seems to be the ultimate lot of the non-believer. Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Someday, the feasting has to stop, just as Friday brought the official end of the Christmas season in the Western World with Epiphany. There can be no more Turkish Delight for a while. But that's not to say the rejoicing has to stop. Life is there to be lived in all its fulness, and for Christians it's there to be en-joyed, literally filled with joy. C S Lewis was the proponent of this par excellence, particularly when in a marvellous literal irony, he was surprised by joy- both in emotion and the person of the true love he found in his sixties- there's hope for me yet, then!
For when you do count your blessings, indeed you will be surprised by what the Lord has done. Yesterday was another of those moments for me, when dashing over to my local Saturday branch of Barclays desperate to pay some money in to my current account, I discovered that a certain much-coveted "glittering prize" was on display in the branch, and you could have your picture taken with it for a small donation to the Shooting Star Children's hospice. When I moved on for a pot of tea and a frangipan tart in The Bridge centre within Holy Trinity Church, reading about precious young lives likely to be shortened by the grip of serious illness, outside a busker played Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven (qv in this blog's archive), I could do nothing but weep, for them and with them, but count my own blessings indeed.

Well, I may never again be within touching distance of the Barclays Premiership Trophy, although maybe there's a delicious irony that in what little knowledge or understanding I had of soccer as an eight-year old - I couldn't play it for Everton toffees, and perhaps my sensitive little mind was always scarred by the handicap this was in your average class of lively boys- Chelsea were my team. The blues of Stamford Bridge now seem invincible under Ronan Abramovich's bottomless wallet, but I guess like all human institutions, they are destined to fall eventually- certainly that would be the hope of reigning European champions Liverpool, who put up a superb performance in a thrilling F A Cup tie against Luton Town yesterday.

But for those who put their hope in the Lord, life doesn't need to be like a movie with a perfect but fabricated happy ending, nor a long hard slog to re-born Wembley stadium for the cup final in May. Every step of the road can be an adventure every bit as exciting as that enjoyed by Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy. Sure, there will be heartaches, sorrows and struggles along the way, but always there's the promise. Of a strong lion coming again to save all his people, and holding all the attention of all his "audience" for all time, not just two and a half hours on a soggy Sunday. A better script than this has never been written, and I'd rather be an extra in the live movie house of the Lord than on a directorless stage any day.

One Hundred, and Eighty

2006-01-03T22:14:00.000Z

Darts commentator Sid Waddell was one of the "celebrities" on the last Celebrity Mastermind of the Christmas holidays, last night on BBC ONE. Not that he seemed to have much idea of the rules of the quiz, mind you, as he kept interrupting questionmaster John Humphrys with his answers. Nothing like enthusiasm, but this is England, old boy, where you have to play the game, play the game, there's a good chap.

Mr Waddell may not shine at marginally challenging quizzes, but at least he has scored his claim to fame by his elongated exaltation when someone at the oche hits the Bullseye with the perfect score. Numbers are the name of the game for him.

However, I digress, since tonight's excursion is not to a world of smoke-filled bars but to family memories on what would have been my dear Dad's eightieth birthday, had he lived another six years or so- which he might well have done had he been able to quit the evil weed rather than succumb to emphysema.

Some time this year, if the government has its way, smoking in many public places will be banned, just as it has been in Ireland now for a year or so. The massed ranks of libertarian puffers will of course be out in force to cry "foul", but the most foul thing about our society's continued tolerance of tobacco hitherto has been the air that non-smokers so often have to put up with in pubs and restaurants (which, actually, are probably about the only public buildings which haven't banned smoking already). Everybody should have the right to enjoy clean air and somebody else's "liberty" should never be allowed to compromise the health of others.

And the One Hundred? Well, it's the time of year for remembering anniversaries, isn't it, and this year will have its fair share of course. Last year brought us many military-related ones; this year we may not have that so much, but there will be reminders a-plenty of Britain's past engineering greatness with the bi-centenary of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's birth, while on the classical stage all lights will be shining on the memory of Mozart.

Worthy figures of commemoration both, for their contributions to the growth of the railway system in the UK and the musical enrichment of generations respectively. But for my part, I'm turning my thoughts back to a relative now gone who was as much a celebrity to my younger self as any wannabe starlet on today's TV might be to others- and much missed still. 30th December last year marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of my maternal grandmother, to whom I was close- and without her of course, well you wouldn't be reading this, I guess.

Indeed, when I interviewed my grandma for an English project in the third year of secondary school, not only was my best English teacher, Mrs Dudley, most impressed but I added a few more coins to the precious currency which is my memory bank and learnt just a little more of the earthy, human side of history. It's the stories of real people, told by real people, that make the study of the subject so enjoyable- and important.

Grandma Wallace meant much to me, and I sigh that longing sigh of temps perdu, if I may borrow from Marcel Proust, as I think of her lovely house, built for a railway worker and his growing family in the thirties, which the short-sighted council housing policies of the seventies saw demolished. But at least I and grandma's surviving relatives have a point of reference to return to should we so wish, a still-standing house in a neighbouring road which was at the bottom of grand-dad's much-loved garden.

Time without reference points, personal and communal, becomes meaningless. For everything, there is a season, said the writer of Ecclesiastes, sometimes the biblical equivalent of Marvin the Paranoid Android. The trouble is, in our world where our own actions, it would seem, have so upset the natural order of things, it can be hard to spot the marker posts of each season's coming and going. It's no longer a straightforward task to know when to sow and when to reap, and who the sowers and reapers are.

Certainly in my personal life, I'm wrestling as to whether I should try to sow a new seed in my current workplace, or accept that the time has come to be plucked up from there after a six-month season, before I become a "weed" through inadequate capacity to serve as well as I would wish in my present role. It's the sort of question maybe many are asking at this time of the year too: January is apparently a peak time for recruitment and therefore, logically, for people to change jobs. Maybe I need to reap my harvest elsewhere. It's not easy,though, as there are folk there who have become really treasured examples and friends to me and who I do not want to lose- just as I wished I'd never had to lose my loved ones. Likewise, there is much I think I could still offer and do to help my current employer thrive. But wanting and having are not always mutually compatible, just as some plants will never thrive in acid soil and yet blossom in alkaline.

Thank heavens, then, for one who knows the times and seasons far better than we do, and yet can be relied on as the faithful gardener who knows exactly what needs planting, or should that be who, and where, and when. Alan Titchmarsh may currently be working his way through the gardening year on TV, but God's been working as the gardener supreme through the generations from Abraham to Jesus. 42 of them in fact, which according to Douglas Adams, was the supposed answer to life, the universe and everything.
Strange such a significant number should come from a non-Christian mind in a work of science fiction, but numbers are far more significant, perhaps, than we give them credit for. Maybe Thirty Three years, the lifespan of a young man called Jesus, who knew the seasons far better than we and used many a horticultural example in his timeless teaching, is the number that matters more than any other. And the life- and more significantly, death and resurrection- that should be remembered every day of every year, not just once every one hundred and eighty or so.

Lights Out

2006-01-02T23:05:00.000Z

Well, here we are at 23.00 on 2nd January 2006 and, at least for those of us South of the (Scottish) border, the party's over for another eleven and a half months. Another Bank Holiday Monday draws near to its close, and the rest of Europe no doubt asks itself again how Britons get away with so many of them, plus informal time off on an individual basis, at this time of the year. Well, next year with a weekday Christmas and New Year, we'll be as back to normal as we can be :-(

Returning to work tomorrow will come hard. Isn't it perverse that while the evenings rapidly become lighter after the Christmas celebrations end, dark mornings linger on well into January and rising at 6.30 is no pleasure for most of us. But do it we must, and soon all the festive lights, decorations and other accoutrements of the season must be consigned to the dustbin or storage boxes once again. Unless you're an Eastern Orthodox getting ready to "keep the feast", or having a twelfth night party (a shame nobody does these days!), "normal" life must begin again.

But what is normal life? For many, it's a dull, repetitive, often lacking meaning kind of affair,which is so sad because that's not the way its meant to be. The truth of the Christmas message is that we carry with us a light in our darkness: the message of one of the epiphany hymns you might just be singing this coming weekend re-affirms that.

In that heavenly country bright
Need they no created light...
So most gracious God may we
Ever more be led by thee.

One of my final reflections on Christmas 2005/6, as if in a Christmas tree's shiny bauble, is that Christ is the light of the world indeed, whatever the season. For we'll have dark days and struggles always,in any month, but we needn't fumble like a miner who's safety lamp has failed. God has poured his light on several issues in my own life this last fortnight: if you're stumbling around looking for the matches right now, don't live your life like a candle in the wind but let the divine spark be your tinderbox! Who needs a nightlight? Sleep tight.

Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot...?

2005-12-31T19:13:00.000Z

The question mark is mine, not the immortal Robbie Burns', I think. IS it a statement, or a question? Well, I don't know what Scotland's greatest had in mind, but for me it's a bit of both.

As the timeless words of Auld Lang Syne ring out across millions of places over thousands of kilometres of land and sea today, I'll be taking a cup of kindness indeed- tonight at a party in Eastbourne. But as I sing, I'll also be thinking "Yes" and "no". Like life itself, ALS is a contradiction.

"Yes" the auld acquaintance with the horrors of 2005 which show man or nature at his worst should be forgotten, but the people it affects even today should not. "Yes", the acquaintance with the sadness and the sorrows and the things that have held us back, sometimes for months, sometimes for years, or even decades, should be consigned to the compactor of healed memories, like the dustmen and the recyclers doing their round today collecting all our Christmas detritus.

But then again, "No": the auld and indeed the new acquaintances who mean so much should be brought to mind frequently for their love, their support, their fun, their personalities- and their prayers. The lost loved ones of this last year should be ours, treasured in our memory, not just on New Year's Eve but through all of life.

For Auld Lang Syne- for Old Time's Sake- for the hopes and fears of all the years, not just the one now dying, let us give thanks to the "Potentate of Time", whose footprints span the gap not just between 2005 and 2006, but between man's time and God's eternity.

Here's to the time beyond time, coming some time soon. Thanks for persevering with my ramblings throughout 2005. If you want to let me know what you've thought of any of them, or your own views, please make use of the "comment" tab now, with thanks to all who have already. I hope you enjoy your New Year's, as they say in the States. And here's to your health, happiness and well being, this New Year and always.

Cheers, and I'll see you the other side of the international dateline in 2006!

God Bless

Chitty Chitty Blog Blog

2005-12-29T19:59:00.000Z

I hope the lawyers of Ian Fleming's estate aren't working long hours over Christmas. If they are, then I'd better watch out as they might not like the title of this piece of writing and they could send some nasty men my way. Well, when you've got the creator of 007 James Bond at your disposal, even when you seem to be dead you can do some very frightening things!

Right now, most people in England are too busy watching their villains, heroes, champions and chucklers on the television- or reading about them in books- to go in search of trouble in the often horrid world outside. I bet you're doing the same! Apart from which, spies don't like freezing, they prefer to come in from the cold. Whoops, better watch it or I'll have another famous author after me who wrote spy stories. Sorry Mr Cornwell (and there's a small prize for any of you down by the sea if you can tell me that writer's pen name!).

Television at this time of year can be great fun to watch and very comforting, like the best stories which always have a happy ending. I had cause on Christmas Eve to experience a rather different Christmas Eve, with my brother and some friends, German-style. Over in Deutschland, like much of Europe, they don't have quite such a long wait to open their presents, and all the excitement of unwrapping and trying out the new toys come on that most beautiful and twinkling night of the year when the little star is the baby of Bethlehem, who was and is the best present of all.

German television at Christmas is full of lovely little programmes and beautiful music and images which are a feast for the eyes while you wait for the feast for your tummy, which is the traditional Christmas Eve meal of sausage salad.

Along with the stollen and the mince pies, this was our Christmas Eve memorable munch. Matthew and I really enjoyed spending Heiligernacht, the Holy Night, with our friends and the next day we had a great nosh too with our own full English Christmas Dinner- in an Italian restaurant! Mind you, we made sure we didn't eat too much food at once: that's not good for you, of course. If you have over-eaten this Christmas, dear reader, perhsps you'd do well to take the advice of Professor Stanley Unwin:

"If you've done an overstuffy in the tumloader, finisht the job with a ladleho of brandy butter, then go all the way to the toileybox."

Well, quite, very clear advice. Almost as good as his words of gobbledegook wisdom as Chancellor of a sort-of-German place in the wonderful film of Ian Fleming's only children's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which made an appearance on ITV1 yesterday.

This has been a favourite family film of mine ever since I saw it as a lad of ten during the summer holidays with my brother and the three little boys and their Mum who were our neighbours over the road, the Povalls. Chitty has since gone on to be a very succesful stage show, of course, and -yes- the car really can "fly"!

There are some sad bits and some really joyful bits in CCBB. Lots of good dancing, some nice songs and of course loads of surprises. I still remember my sadness now though at all the little boys and girls who were locked up in the dark by the awful childcatcher, far away from the joys and toys of playing outside, despite the efforts of the toymaker to help them and keep them safe. The jealous and terrible baron and his wife did not like and would not permit children in their country of Vulgaria. When I saw this bit of the film, I looked over at my best friend of the time, and wondered what he was thinking about these sad happenings.

In films and in books, you will find things to make you laugh as well as make you cry. None of us like to cry, but it's a part of life we all experience from time to time. In the Christmas story in the gospels, it may seem out of place, but important to remember that bad king Herod got rid of all the tiniest children, under two,of Bethlehem(except Jesus, who escaped to Egypt with his parents, as scripture predicted). How awful that must have been for the mothers of that time, and indeed for older borthers and sisters. We remember them still today on what is known as Holy Innocents, the 28th December.

However, crying does not last forever and believe it or not for all its horrible happenings and the wicked things people still do to each other, for many of us our stories will have a "happy ending" The inspired writers of the greatest book of all tell of it, and it has been filmed with its many different "chapters" and stories so many times, because to many people like us it contains the most important, true happenings in history. Can you tell what it is yet (where's Rolf Harris? Probably busy painting the Queen!) It has sold more copies than anything else ever printed- more even than James Bond or, indeed, than The Railway Children. Now there's a story worth seeing and reading time and time again!

I would gladly have watched The Railway Children right through, if it wasn't on at the same time I was out for my Christmas lunch. It's wonderful, full of engines of all different colours, and steam and whistles, a friendly helpful stationmaster and a kindly old gentleman, and children doing all sorts of special things for other people or saving them from disaster. Meanwhile, their very caring mother writes stories, to earn some money while their father has been sent away to jail for something he was supposed to have done wrong. Whereas in fact, he was innocent of any crime.

Does it have a happy ending? Of course it does, though in fact very few people can't cry when they see it. When you hear eldest daughter Roberta cry through the mist of the train's steam.. Well, I don't want to spoil it for you if you have never seen the film, but have your tissues ready.

I've loved writing ever since I was a little boy. Indeed, I used to produce a small magazine which I'd sell to my schoolchums for three old pennies, called Hey Presto! Perhaps I ought to give that as a new title for this blog, seeing as I'm not the first to bag the title Anyway... But it's not the title that matters, it's what you write in the stories that you write that you inform, entertain, intrigue and please your readers. I hope you've enjoyed reading this little story about a little part of my life, and whether you're large or small yourself, why not get writing?

Whatever you write though, oh best beloved, remember that the greatest happy ending has yet to come, and that will be in real life for us all. It will be "Just So", to borrow the title of some wonderful little stories written by Rudyard Kipling for his children about how things came to be the way they are. The best selling book of all time still remains The Holy Bible, which tells the story of God's love for man and of his adventures with us, especially through his only son Jesus.

When we see Jesus, along with his father, face to face at the end of time, as the Bible tells us we surely will, then I happily expect we too will run to him and cry "Daddy, my Daddy"! Now there's the best ending of all for you to this anytime story.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

2005-12-27T10:10:00.000Z

The weather outside is not so frightful in uptown Feltham, but the snow is so delightful! At last, only two days late, the snow is falling and the seasonal atmosphere is complete, particularly when accompanied by The Muppet Christmas Movie on TV.

It's strange how seduced we are by white precipitation from on high at this time of year. Of course, it brings out the child in all of us, and my thoughts turn immediately to the winter of 63, when I were nowt but a boy of 4, building my first snowman in the garden here with my little brother. Coal from a brick bunker for his eyes and a carrot for a nose- the snowman, that is, not brother Matthew. The best thing to do with carrots, as back then I certainly wouldn't have been eating them with the Christmas dinner. Indeed, Matthew and I often hatched elaborate plans to disguise our non-eating of them, mainly "plan b" I think.

Snow gives everything it kisses with its multi-faceted flakes a seasonal makeover. When I first saw it one winter day in the sixties, I exclaimed "Oh look, Jack Frost has been round and painted all the rooves with talcum powder!" It's like the seasonal sequins on a New Year's Eve ball gown, and nothing looks more wonderful when nature in its nakedness is clothed in white glory. Somehow when it snows, the cinderella of our lives becomes the wide-eyed, anything is possible dreams of our childhoods again.

But the problem with snow is it melts. Like our dreams...?

There the analogy should stop, for as the author of a Christian book once put it "Dead Dreams Can Live". This Christmas has been for me, contrary to my expectations, one of the happiest I can remember, certainly since childhood. And yet, in my imagination I expected anything but, it being the first one spent without our dear Mum with my brother and I. And Suddenly, there is inside me a new hope that my dreams can live, that they needn't become like the deceased Snowman in Raymond Briggs' perennially magical and yet poignant tale. I feel that I have crossed over, as it were, from a winter of discontent to a new season of opportunity, and the Holy Spirit, in his divine wisdom, is showing me things about myself and my potential I had always thought could only exist in dreams.

Time will of course tell. The Holy Spirit blows where He will, like the blizzards currently engulfing parts of the South East, causing me to think today of friends in Kent who may well be snowed in for a while. I know that they were looking forward to snow, and with a two-year old and five month old baby in toe, what better festive scene could there be to finish their Christmas.

However, the romantic notions of pretty scenes become rather more like nightmares when trying to drive on ungritted rural roads. But even the stranded driver, not knowing where to turn next, knows that the snow will eventually melt and he will find his way home. God does that in our lives too, and the more of him that falls on us from on high, the better. He did it for Moses and his people with manna: he still does it today where people will trust him to turn a weary planet to a world in white. Unlike U2's visions for New Year's Day though, when that happens, everything changes.

Just Another Day?

2005-12-26T03:14:00.000Z

Christmas Day is, in reality stripped of that collection of emotion, history and sentiment which make it such an adored day on the calendar, a collection of just a few short hours which every year seem to pass by quicker. No sooner have you digested the best and biggest meal of the year, than it's time to get under the blankets to sleep it off neath the wrapping of sheet and duvet as we enter Boxing Day, the holiday after Christmas in many parts of the Christian world. But the birthday of no ordinary boy means that Christmastide proper, which runs for another eleven days yet, can be no ordinary feast, so we should rightly join the celebration and keep on hurrying down to Bethlehem.

The birthday "bit" is now over for another year- at least as far as the UK is concerned. On the other hand, if you're one of my American readers or maybe even watching the ocean swell break on the shores of the Pacific as you read this on Christmas night, you are fortunate indeed to be enjoying the special feel of that evening, and pondering still perhaps like the shepherds and the wise men the mystery of it all.

Not in that poor lonely stable,
With the Oxen standing by
We shall see him,
but in Heaven
Sat at God's right hand on high
When like stars his children crowned
All in white, shall wait around

I can still hear the descant notes struggling now as if to pass through the celestial ceiling into eternity's portal, just 36 hours ago now but it could have been an eternity away. The strange way in which all time seems to roll into one at this time of the year, like wool used to knit a Christmas jumper, is part of the special magic of the season for me. Yet Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander never intended Once in Royal David's City to be a hymn just for singing at Christmas actually. Its underlying message is timeless and relevant to every day of every life as it has been for two millennia. Though you'll rarely hear it done so in church, it could actually be sung on any day of the year, and that is part of its brilliance- and the brilliance of the Christmas story.

For we're dealing with events which weave together the past, present and future of all humanity- whatever our race, colour or creed. I'm writing this in the wee small hours of a dark December day in Southern England, the world around me still but for the ticking of a Christmas present clock from many years ago and the clicking of my own chubby fingers on the keyboard. Yet somewhere on another shore, in another country even beyond the reach of Google Earth, souls who once lived and breathed as I do are celebrating for us, with us, day after day, until He comes again, making music which will still be sounding long after the last organ stop is closed on the the final chord of Christmas 2005. For they lived and died for and with their faith, just as the first Christian martyr St Stephen did back in the first century. His feast is the one we celebrate now, feeding on leftover turkey and trying, maybe, to keep the peace of Christmas Day going on in our domestic life for just another few hours before the holy atmosphere has quite dissipated. And meanwhile, some of us might actually get round to giving the little boxes of love we could not find the time or energy to open and wrap on Christmas Day!

Stephen had seen Jesus, not in Bethlehem, nor in Nazareth, but as a grown thirty-something man doing the work he was born to do.He had seen, worshipped and believed in Jesus and accepted him as his Messiah. Tragically for Stephen's earthly life, others did not share his view, and indeed mercilessly pursued him with sticks if not stones which did break bones. The names that people call us, and the impressions we so often form, do hurt us actually. Put your hope in the God of the manger and the God of the cross, however, and there is a life waiting even beyond death- which ought to cause us all to cry "Alleluia" as loudly as the master Handel did with his own timeless musical celebration of The Messiah.

I guess looked at with the eyes of faith and a long view like a GPS gazing on earth, Christmas might also be called Crossmas. Like all of us, actually, Jesus was destined to give up his last one day all too soon- but he gave his all so that there might be life for all, in all its fulness, now and forevermore, i.e. both sides of death.

This Boxing Day will be the proper remembrance in many churches and on other shores from Africa to the islands of Asia of the death which came suddenly, unexpectedly and seemingly without merchy to numbers still impossible to count accurately, twelve months ago. The Indian ocean tsunami was a reminder of what a precious gift life is, yet wrapped in only flesh and bones which need to be protected and safe from harm.

Our Boxing Day response in 2005 might seem all too small, but it can still be given with love, whether of wallet or words. Prayer can and still does bring a relief which no human agency alone can handle, vital though this is. Stephen knew this, as he saw his wonderful vision of Jesus, sat at God's right hand on high, before his life was taken by those who knew not what they were doing, as it so often has been through the centuries in war and tragedy.

Yet beneath the horrors which the workaday world so quickly brings back to our consciousness after the dreamy romantic visions and imagery of Christmastide are gone for another year, lie the unexpected happenings, the miraculous healings, changes of heart, turn in world events and ordinary human stories, that our world still brings. It brings the heart-rending and yet heart-challenging words of forgiveness from grieving mother Gee Walker, following the conviction of her son's racist killers a few weeks before Christmas. Or the astounding grace with which the parents of devout Catholic Abigail Witchell showed to her presumed attacker who later took his own life. Several thousand more such stories happen everyday, unheralded by trumpets, unreported in the media. But they are the reason why I, and even a devout Jew called Saul, later come back to the boy born in a barn, and the man muredered on a mount, day after day. Saul's story may be for another day, but for the moment, let's just remember, indeed, that God is for life, not just for Christmas.

Last Christmas

2005-12-24T07:41:00.000Z

The time has come, the Savage said, to talk of many things.
Of Christmas Trees, and times to please, of cracker jokes and kings

Christmas Eve 2005: just another number at the end of the year's date, or a reminder of the secular bard's amazed exclamation: "What a piece of work is a man!"? I'll opt for the latter. Christmas brings Christians, at least, to gaze in awe and wonder, with the mind's eye and a heart filled with love, at the piece of work which gave life to all man, lying helpless on a bed of straw.

But what of the rest? What does this ancient,beautiful,enchanting festival say about the great mass of humanity that will celebrate this next couple of days largely oblivious of events that happened twenty centuries ago, in a tiny village hitherto unknown to the rest of the world.

Perhaps, just for a moment they might pause to remember not a sentimental song which gave an answer to the office Christmas quiz, alongside all the other music of heaven which makes this season an aural treat. Maybe they might stop stuffing their face with mince pies and all the other Turkish Delights of this annual visit to epicurean paradise. They might even be prepared to give Great Aunt Agatha a peck on the cheek.

Maybe, with a little help from the media, they will remember what a fragile, tender, treasured thing is life itself. Eyes might turn from a stable in Bethlehem to a wrecked home on the shores of another place beginning with B, Banda Aceh. The "port" or "haven" where celebration was shattered with the almighty wham of a wave 363 days ago and millions of lives were shattered in a "natural" event these precious souls cannot and the world must not forget.

When the "Boxing Day Tsunami" first struck the world's airwaves, few paid much attention to its impact on a one-third world still poping the Rennies from too much rich food the day before. In our sleepy ignorance, those of us inhabiting comfortable brick-built semis were relaxing with little care for the devastation wrought on communities of men and women, and particularly children, just like ourselves. Familes that lived and loved, needed care and clothing for their bodies, occupation for their hands and emotions and thoughts for their minds.

All that was to vanish in an instant. Lives were shattered by the occurrence of events deep beneath the sight of man on this revolving glitterball we call our home. Suddenly, the dancing had to stop and humanity had to remember its own. Wallets were emptied and the richer nations of the world gave a record amount for the relief of the suffering of those caught up in the terrible suffering unfolding before our eyes. And as the world changed, in remembrance there was silence.

What connects these terrible happenings in Asia with the partying and the packaging, the rushing and the ringing, twelve months on? What brings sorry souls like you and me to our knees in worship and adoration of a tiny bundle of flesh and bones, yet with a street value of about 50 pence if seen merely as a chance collection of atoms and molecules of about as many ingredients as make up the average Christmas pudding.

It brings us back to a boy, named Emmanuel or "Jesus". It reminds us that every mistake made by man hides an opportunity, like the deceptive boxes we make up to conceal the tiny gift so carefully chosen for our loved one. It reminds us that tragedy, sorrow and grief are not the natural state of man but his fallen one. It shows us why the mixed emotions, the family rows and the misunderstood intentions even present in penguins, at least of the Pingu variety, on Christmas Eve can still bring tears to the eyes as they do to mine as I write this.

Christmas is for precious treasures too important to be hidden wrapped beneath a shimmering tree. It's for children, yes, and their wide-eyed expectation is one of the joys of this amazing time I'm looking forward to seeing in two young friends of mine later today. In the meantime there's work to be done: decorations so lately retrieved from the loft to adorn the living room, food to fill the fridge and freezer and those forgotten greetings cards to be passed on to those fondly remembered close at hand as the big day dawns closer by the minute.

Christmas is a reminder, last Christmas, and every Christmas until he comes again that God- Father, Son and Holy Spirit- is at work in our world, far busier than any one of us will be today, and far more hopeful, joyful and loving of those he made his own, by his own. Murderous hands may threaten the peace of the world, but a tiny heartbeat crowns the Prince of Peace this December night as it did when princes and potentates, shepherds and angels worshipped and adored him beyond the mists of time.

If the Victorians created our modern British celebration of Christmas, then it was an inspired Sunday school teacher of that era who, through the many experiences of adversity each year brings, was able to remind us in a hymn what it is really all about and why we NEED Christmas as much in AD 2005 as we did in AD 0. Indeed, we need it's message, coupled with its "adult" companion Easter, every day of our lives.
Let the power of a single treble voice, sounding like the needful cry of a tiny infant mentioned by the Archbishop of Westminster in his Christmas Eve Thought for the Day, fill your heart with joy this Christmas. Listen to the last verse sung by the choir triumphant, in perfect harmony,from King's college today or on the BBC website at any time this week and remember why we celebrate. Or take these words and make them your Christmas Eve aide memoire of why we do so much for just 24 hours or so of each year.

For he is our childhood's pattern,
day by day like us he grew;
he was little, weak and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew.
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.

I wish you a very Happy Christmas, and may God Bless you and those you love, now and always

Some Enchanted Evening

2005-12-15T00:47:00.000Z

...you may see a stranger. Well yes, I did actually, at the office Christmas party tonight. Several strangers, all new faces to me, but familiar to others as the spouses of my colleagues, or the various supporters and associates of my charity employer. Nice to meet them all, and to chat to a few of them.

Office Christmas parties can be strange affairs, and sometimes rather tense too. You want to be open, friendly, let your hair down a bit-but there's always that danger that you drop your guard or blot your copybook in a moment of carelessness. I'm pleased to say though that, as far as I know, I did none of these things tonight, but instead had an extremely pleasant evening- much to my surprise and delight. I even earned three stars as one of the Rookies of the Year from the big chief!
Never judge a book by its cover, or an employer by its Christmas party. Beforehand, I felt a little uncertain of what to expect of my first Christmas do with my current paymasters, held as it was in our HQ in London's Mayfair- but I needn't have worried. I have to say in all honesty, that this was the best office do I had ever been to, and probably the most historic setting too! Converting the main meeting space of our building in the West End into an intimate dining setting for 34 people, different personalities but all souls (if you think this identifies the building-close, but not quite!) worked amazingly well. It was a reminder that early church buildings were indeed multi-functional spaces intended to be places of welcome and activity, as well as worship.

It was a joy to spend a December evening over turkey and talk, quizzing and fizzing-though I didn't get to grab a glass of the large bottle of champagne which had been popped especially for the occasion.

Good company and conversation are of course what make occasions like this special, though a tasty drop of the fruit of the vine is a big help too. I'm writing this perhaps still slightly enjoying the effect of about 6 glasses tonight, and glad that the Bible is happy to endorse moderate drinking- though how tragic that the consequences of excess will once again be felt by bereaved families somewhere or other this Christmas. the blameless casualties of drink-drivers. I was very grateful for public transport tonight, but the more so for Shanks' Pony, which my brother and I will be able to use on Christmas Day after our glad imbibing to celebrate the Saviour's Day at a 3 star hotel, ten minutes from home!

But there's work to be done before then, so I must to my bed, but wishing you an enjoyable time if you're about to start your workplace festivities. Take it easy, though!

Don't Hurry, Be Happy!

2005-12-07T06:50:00.000Z

Now, who was it who had that minor hit with the song on which my post's title today is based? Whoever it was, the little song he wrote (which I'm singing "note by note" in my head, of course, as I write!) was a cheerful ditty in an age which seems to have lost the vital art of being happy.

It may seem that we've every reason to be unhappy with the cares of the modern world: that was some of the thinking in my meditation on Sunday. There's a lot, on the surface, to be careworn about. And of course, it's right and proper at this time of the year particularly, to be charitable in both word and deed. But that shouldn't stop us BEING happy - it's more than a feeling, it's an attitude.

The BBC have just finished an interesting, if occasionally irritating, series which, rather than place a bunch of questionable celebrities in an actual jungle took fifty "real" people from a town which from many perspectives has often been seen as one of the worst concrete jungles in Britain, Slough. Pronounce it the American way, as in the slough of despond, and you would be in the good company of Betjeman and Brent- David of that fictional ilk from The Office (set in the Berkshire town) whose attempts at worktime bonhommie showed him for the plonker he was and in so doing made a comic creation sure to make anyone happy who's ever endured the 9 to 5 with the laughter of recognition.

Finding happiness at work today though is a hard task for many, and in many other aspects of life people seem less happy than they once were. The proviso of Making Slough Happy was to take a group of fifty volunteers and take them through a programme of various approaches to do just that with this multi-cultural melange of a community of commuters and retirees, students and workers on the massive Slough Trading Estate. The show's assortment of various social scientist and happiness specialists had a brave task on their hands to cheer the community and at the same time not send the viewers off to sleep like one of the town's most famous products, Horlicks.

Happily, and surprisingly, they did it! One of the not so surprising revelations of the show, is how therapeutic singing can be. I've inherited my dear Mum's love of a good warble, and the numerous opportunities for communal carol singing in the next three weeks are surely one of the happiest harmonies of the festive season. But why does nobody whistle these days? The show didn't bring this out, but it's an interesting example of another lost art. Disney's heirs may be singing all the way to the bank today as the world premiere of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe hits the movie screens, but another snow white heroine of decades before, popular as ever, surely had the right idea when she enjoined her workers of reduced stature to Whistle While You Work.

At which point, I guess I ought to put my tongue to my teeth and set the kettle on its stand for another day at my particular office- a long one today with an evening lecture to be served tonight. But even kettles no longer whistle! Nevertheless, the words of a far greater teacher than any psycho-babblers and academics who attempt to tell us what ought to be obvious are music to my ears. Jesus Christ knew what it was to be happy even in a life which was to end so tragically- because he knew the Lord who made us all to enjoy him forever and thus, "be happy". Except he used another word for it, and his suggestions seemed more unlikely than anything Making Slough Happy could come up with, but remain as true as ever. You'll find his suggestions for happiness in chapter 6 of Matthew's gospel: they're properly known as the Beatitudes or, if you will the Be- Attitudes. But most people call it the sermon on the mount.

In knowing him is true contentment, and how to be happy!

A December Meditation

2005-12-04T21:44:00.000Z

On this second Sunday in Advent, here's the meditation I intend to use at the office prayer meeting tomorrow:

December again, all reddy
Oh yes it is, the year’s behind
And winter brings a pantomime
To the season of myths and mellow tackiness.
Red indeed is colour of the month
-from Aids Day ribbon to party bow, the year ends up
in heaving pillar box and cheery cup
While one ruddy fellow brings festive goodies
one silent night, to tots with teddies.

So why, so often, do I feel blue
Like Oxford Street lights, while waiting for you?
Is it because, I ask myself,
The message is lost
In the indulgence and wealth
Or is it because, while wishing good cheer
Nothing changes, from year to year.
As African children are forced to fight
For some twisted cause their elders think right

And workaday journeys end up in death
For innocent souls in their carriages beneath
And family upon family, every day, faces grief

So can we have Christmas, with minds so often green,
While news cameras show, an ever more evil scene
Can we believe, like kids seeking Santa
That you’re the real thing- not Coke, nor Fanta

Oh yes we can, we know, it’s true
That still there is hope- but only through you.
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord” said John
announcing your Advent, the boy-king now grown
Brings life in its fullness to those who would hear
A gospel of love- not message of fear

We celebrate Christmas, and life lived more fully
Since you o’erpowered Satan, the beast and the bully
For Christmas is red, as remembrance’s poppy
Since life comes from blood, from your crucified body.

A helpless baby came into our world
And Heaven’s banner for all unfurled
Promising new life through a name we can trust
Though ashes breed ashes, and dust turns to dust
So your birth is the reason, your rising our dawn
For white-lit ovation, of Jesus that morn
The Word was made flesh, beheld for a time
That we might find reason, find purpose, find rhyme
This Advent, Lord Jesus, please set us apart
To find in your coming, true place in our hearts.

Amen

December All reddy

2005-12-01T23:40:00.000Z

The last month of the year with us, and Advent Calendars- if you can find them still called that rather than the hideous secular attempt at being politically correct with "Countdown Calendars"- would have been eagerly opened in many homes this morning by the young and not so young.

It's funny, over the years I must have collected umpteen Advent Calendars myself with the best of intentions, which usually ended up being entwined in a mad rush of paper door opening a few days before the celebration, rather than each morning as should be the case. This only demonstrates what a horrendously disorganised soul I am much of the time, or rather because of time-there's rarely enough of it to fit in all the things I'd like to do, let alone need to do! If I have a prayer for one weakness in my make-up I'd like to overcome, it's surely this, coupled with my untidiness I guess.

However, I do know the proper time and place for prayer and the preparations for Christmas in just 25 days time. I've come down from town, just for the night, once again, principally to help support the Prayer and Praise evening at the church I attended here while my main home was in Eastbourne. It was a good time of prayer, but that shouldn't be the end of it, and now I guess I really ought to take a look at my advent devotional before I hit the sack ready for an early start tomorrow.

My employer has a half-day of prayer once a quarter, which in my short time with the organisation I've found a very pleasing and fulfilling experience. This is in addition to the daily ten minutes of prayer which I'm always rather sad to miss if transport delays mean I'm not in the office before 9. It's a nice touch which I wish a few more Christian organisations could find time for in their working day. The peace and setting of a historic building helps, of course, but it's the presence of the one this season really prepares us for that gives these precious interludes in the day such meaning.

Having said that, I feel a bit daunted about being asked to write and read a meditation at our next half day on Monday. With no particular theme prescribed, I nevertheless feel that Advent is where my heart is naturally at spiritually at present and so I must get my thinking cap on for what to write. Meanwhile, there's a clue to one of the ideas I've had in the title of this posting.

Link from this page today takes you to the newly-launched blog of Brian Draper who I've featured on this blogspot before. Brian's not just a gifted writer but knows a good photograph when he sees one too. Check out his latest offerings by clicking on "December All Reddy" (my title for this, not his!) above, and bookmark it now!

But, the Magic Roundabout of time and Eastbourne tide wait for no man. It's time for me to go to sleep to the accompaniment of the wind and the not so far off waves outside my maritime bolthole. Time for bed, said Zebedee.

Underneath the Larches

2005-11-11T13:56:00.000Z

Well, OK, it wasn't actually the arborial species made famous by Monty Python under which I consumed my lunchtime eats in Cavendish Square today- there it's mainly pollution-beating London Planes, actually- but what's wrong with a little artistic licence in order to pay homage to two of the most popular entertainers of those dark days of the Second World War when spirits most needed a lift? Flanagan and Allan, underneath the arches of London's many railways or wooing the audiences at the Palladium caught the eternal need of the human spirit to see a brighter hope and to revel in the comforting little things of life in dark times.

I'm not sure that their ilk exist in today's society. Maybe we need more of that kind of homespun, cheery sound again as a world made dark not so much by war but by terror tries to let normal life go on, just as much as beleagured Londoners did during the toughest times of the blitz.

Today is Armistice Day, the enduring reminder of the time and date in 1918 when the guns fell silent on the Western Front and other theatres of war, in the most bloody and meaningless mass atrocity ever to assault humankind. It is still hard to take in the magnitude of millions of promising young lives, snatched from us in an instant through a conflict most folk had forgotten the "reason" for by the time it came to an end. If indeed it ever did have a reason. All that World War I proved was that mankind does not often learn the lessons of history, for it is destined to make the same,horrific mistakes all over again, albeit in another time and/or another place.

And yet... there is hope today, in the ironic fact that the years have not dulled the senses of a new generation like mine who had no personal experience of the horrors of either global conflict last century, but want to respect the memory and the sacrifice of those that did. We are not glorifying war, far from it, but recognising that these were humans too, with feelings,families and fears. These were barely more than boys out of school, called to do a nation's dirty work on the bloody field of pre-nuclear conflict. I shall never forget how deeply moved and touched I was by the War Poets module of my A'level English course back in the 1970s, when there were far more old comrades around from the First World War than there are now. And yet, I never knew until last year that I had lost a great uncle to this senseless collective slaughter near the fields of Flanders, where poppies still grow today and remind us with their scarlet petals of the blood shed there and the bodies which are indeed buried in the corner of a foreign field which is forever England- or Kent, or Middlesex, or Surrey- whichever the regiment these poor, hapless souls gave their lives with.

This morning at 11.00, I stood with four colleagues, only one of whom is old enough to remember the Second World War, and along with much of the nation observed the restored Armistice Day silence, which has become a much needed pause in our national lives these last few years. For much of this week, I have been remembering and pondering, thinking not just of my own losses but those of others, and I was deeply moved too by the very thoughtful piece contributed this week by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity's Nick Spencer. Find it at www.licc.org.uk/culture. Delve deep enough indeed through the links on that page, and you'll find another familiar name, but modesty forbids me saying more here.

At the end of our silence, I read out Lawrence Binyon's ever-familiar but never failing words of homage and remembrance:

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning:

We will remember them.

Amen.

England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Tea

2005-10-23T18:15:00.000+01:00

Ah, that's better! A nice hot cup of Earl Grey at 3.10 on the last Sunday afternoon of British Summertime, after a satisfying siesta. What better way to pass the Lord's day, I ask myself?

There's a sacredness about this time of the week like no other, I find, equalled perhaps only by the cosiness of Sunday night, when it's become domestic practice for my brother and I to have our main Sunday meal settled in front of the telly watching Hertbeat or some similarly familiar but undemanding fare. The meal, meanwhile, is the best one of the week. With apologies to my veggie friends, tonight it will be the roast beef of Old England, doubtless with all the trimmings and washed down with a glass or three of a decent red. I used to be rather partial to a nice Corbieres after an early duty-free excursion introduced it to my palate, but haven't had this particular wine for a while so tonight will be the chance to return to an old friend in a glass.

MEANTIME IN GREENWICH

Trafalgar 200 week brought for me a much-needed break from the stresses, strains and mistakes of my labour which have been giving me some grief of late and are still causing me worry on a Sunday afternoon when as I said above, my thoughts are normally far from my workaday woes. However, this is not the place to go into them.
I have been careful in these blog postings not to name my employer although there is an early clue for those that want to go looking for it. Be a code breaker if you like, and if you're a new reader of this blogspot interested enough to read more of these thoughts, see if you'd agree with the final school report comment of one English teacher of mine which has remained with me, yet inspired me, through close on three decades of adult life:
"Mark could do very well, if he tried. He remains an enigma".

Quite possibly I am, still, Mr Duggan-but cracking the enigma code was a vital contribution to the winning of the Second World War! I thought about those words again as I passed through Bletchley earlier this week on my first trip on the finest ship of the rails of Richard Branson's fleet, the Virgin Pendolino. My destination was Manchester, that hub of all that was both good and bad about the industrial revolution just beginning as Nelson took to sea.
Ever since the autumn reunion retreats I'd hitherto enjoyed in Wiltshire with my ccompanions from a 1990 Holy Land pilgrimage came to an end, I'd been at a bit of a loss of how to fill this too long a period between the summer holidays and Christmas with an alternative way of re-charging my batteries before the dark evenings draw in and November nothingness takes hold of the soul with it's depressing greyness for another thirty days.
Step forward then the North-West of England with all its delights, from the cosmopolitan metromix which is modern Manchester, to the awe-inspiring serenity and natural, timeless beauty of the English Lake District. Yes, the Lord is my shepherd, and he leads me beside still waters [where] he refreshes my soul indeed, but from time to time he uses places and people to do it. This week, the comfort and counsel of treasured and trusted friends in the North were just what the doctor would have ordered, had he seen me- and indeed did when I was suffering from stress in an earlier period of worry about this time of the year.

No Lake District this year, though after honing my 'brand awareness 'and taking in the beers and other tangible delights of Greater Manchester, I also managed to fill up on a spot of spiritual refreshment beside two very different bodies of water this week. Thursday saw me in Disley, a pleasant village in the High Peak area of England's first national park, marred only by the peace-challenging artery which is the A6 trunk road between Manchester and the historic spa town of Buxton (where I must go some day). The still waters through here include the Peak Forest canal, a lovely discovery for me where I sat down on the banks where horses once pulled the cargoes of industry and brought my own burdens before the Lord. It could have been a million miles from that other metropolis I currently have to commute to five days a week and my soul was in another realm far beyond the affairs of men.

Friday brought my departure from Manchester, and a thoroughly enjoyable and impressively prompt journey back down South on another Pendolino, aurally punctuated by one of the best episodes of Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy courtesy of the on-train audio system and a spot of rolling radio. More on the permanent way anon, although my own permanent way never leaves the rails, alleluia!

En route to my "must be there" destination on Trafalgar Day itself, I had my dose of enduring the misery line, much beleaguered this last month due to the failings of the fiasco which is the Private Public Partnership [sic] on the London Underground Northern Line. At Bank, I was glad to decamp onto an altogether lighter railway for my first journey on the recent extension of the Docklands Light Railway south of the river down to the home of time and an afternoon in Greenwich.

Most of the day's big ceremonial events of course were reserved for royalty and today's great and good, so I did not even attempt to go to Portsmouth nor to buy ticket costing a Nelson's arm [ and a leg] on board the senior service's senior ship. However, Greenwich as the home of the old naval college and the world heritage sites where Nelson's body lay in state on return from battle, was the next best place to be to discover more of his heritage and toast his memory with a pint of Fuller's special brew in honour of him, Nelson's Blood. A pint of rum, to which this nickname usually applies, would have rendered me even more senseless than some might say I normally am!
Before the beer though came the sightseeing, and quite apart from another due tea in the cafe, surrounded by naval memorabilia and the white ensign, given dispensation to be flown everywhere this weekend, I had looked round the extraordinarily beautiful Hanoverian masterpiece which is the chapel of the Old Royal Naval College, now leased to Trinity College of Music.

The sound of sopranos wafted across the air as I walked across the quad to the chapel, and the sight of the gilded altarpiece which was St Paul's escape from death on Malta drew me to my knees in prayer. Having enjoyed the architectural landmarks of the temples to industry of Manchester earlier in the week, here at last was man meeting with his creator in the skill of his hand touching the everlasting arms of the one who made him. Does it say something about contemporary man that so much modern architecture owes nothing to worship of God yet everything to idolising the "triumphs" of consumerdom?

Finally, my watery celebration of Trafalgar Day told me I must go down to the sea again, so it was off to Eastbourne for the Ceylon Place house group, another beer and an overnight stay in my other home

BATTLES AND BOTTLES
It was Adnam's Broadside to end my Friday night in Eastbourne, and Shepherd Neame Spitfire with supper and Casualty back here in Feltham last night.Drinks a plenty will have been supped up and down the land this weekend in honour of the man of the moment, Horatio, Viscount Nelson. Let's not just lump him in with the lesser league of Lords, please: the title he died with acknowledges not just Britain's but many navies' recognition of him even two centuries later as the C in C, fleet to excel them all. Even a pacifist like me is moved by the victory he secured for liberty from Napoleonic oppression off Cape Cadiz in 1805, but the more so by the man's humanity and humility which have been much trumpeted in this bi-centenary year of the Battle of Trafalgar.
A cossetted 21st century man like me could have no cognisance of the dreadful conditions of service life of 200 years ago, were it not for the history books and the museums and now the websites which tell so much of the life of the sailor or indeed the ordinary toiler of that time. In an age of cruel discipline and marked disregard for the failings and frailty of man, Horatio Nelson gave those who served under him -including a few closet women, actually!- a reason for respect far removed from the savagery of so many of his contemporaries, yet which even in another millennia is the lot of so many souls in other conflicts, other countries, other cultures.
The Battle of Trafalgar may have been our triumph, and France and Spain may now be our allies in a very different Europe to that of the early nineteenth century. But let nobody pretend the battle for the human soul has yet been won, although victory is actually foretold. Evil stalks in so many guises in contemporary society throughout the world, and modern media bring it so close to our attention that nobody can turn a blind eye to it, even if it be the blindness of convenience which caused Nelson to put a telescope to his sightless eye to ignore the signalled orders of his superior and thus win the Battle of Copenhagen.

Wretched events no better than the ruthless ones witnessed by our forebears are so close at hand on both land and sea so often in this infant century. Let nobody pretend that the liberty Nelson toiled for or the Victory he won has brought us freedom from the prison of our own selfishness, pride and apathy. Great though he may have been, seeing the battle won before his death and ever-lauded for his heroism, Horatio Nelson's sacrifice aboard a vessel of oak is as nothing compared to what was given up for all humankind by one man's broken, pierced, blood-spattered arms on a cross of crude wood twenty centuries ago.

So what a sad homage today is then to Britain's greatest naval hero, the son of a country parson and a devout Christian all his days yet in his private life so obviously a flawed human, On this Lord's day, fewer folk will have gathered in churches and houses of prayer to honour the man who is the Son of God, than will have huddled in pubs and ships with a gill or two in these last days to honour a much lesser man. Would the Nelson whose prayer on the eve of battle has been described by some as a masterpiece of English prose, have fought so valiantly had he known what a sorrowful, sacreligious nation we would become:

May the great God whom I worship Grant to my Country and for the benefit of Europe in General a great and Glorious Victory, and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it, and May humanity after Victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet. For. myself individually I commit my Life to Him who made me, and may his blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully, to Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to Defence - Amen Amen Amen

These were the words quoted just two days ago over the spot where the great man fell on his flagship, and doubtless repeated countless times over this weekend in the numerous ceremonies and special events to mark this momentous moment in history. Yet I'll wager a ha'porth of tar that Horatio Nelson would put aside all his great victories, all the glory of the moment and the defeat of an alien foe, to see the land that he loved come back to the Lord of all and the Saviour of the world. To that fact and that redemption indeed, sealed in blood and born again in the victory of the Resurrection, I cry this Sunday AMEN, AMEN, AMEN- so be it! Amazing Grace indeed: time for another tea and Songs of Praise counting down the nation's favourite hymns.

Samuel Peeps

2005-10-22T00:31:00.000+01:00

Do you like being like Mr Nosey when you read books? Do you feel like you want to spy on the author's life and see who means the most to him, or perhaps her? Some writers are very secretive, others say a great deal about themselves. Guess which type I am? What type are you. A bit of both, maybe?

When I buy a new book, often the first bit I turn to is what used to be called in the olden days the "frontispiece". That's the bit where the writer or their publisher has sometimes got someone else famous to say nice things about the new book- especially useful if nobody has ever heard of the writer before and they want to sell more books: I suppose even Roald Dahl had to start somewhere, after all! It's also often called a preface or a foreword.

However, that's not the bit at the front that arouses my curiosity the most: it's the "dedication" or "acknowledgments" that I like to look at. You don't have to include it in a book of course, but doing so says more about you than good reviews ever can. It's where the writer names all those people who have helped them with the book, taught them important lessons in their life,given them advice or maybe just amused them. But just as often too, the Acknowledgments are where you will find out about really special people who the author just wants to mention because they love them!

Thinking all this through today on a historic day in British history, I thought it was high time I dedicated one of these blogs to somebody. Who will it be, you ask yourself? Will it be my favourite teacher? Mr Weir's probably long gone, but who would be yours? Or a relative- my grandma perhaps, who used to love reading my stories of what I had been up to on holiday? I suppose you could even dedicate your blog to a favourite pet- but we've had so many lovely cats, it would be unfair to single any one of them out.

So perhaps I should choose a figure from history. Now, who could that possibly be today, Friday 21st October AD 2005(only just as it's nearly over!)? How about a certain Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson? Surely on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar that might be an appropriate choice, and what a day it's been for followers of England's greatest man of the sea and the hero of the moment those two centuries ago.

I wish I could even dedicate these words to my secretary ( I wish I had one!) or to other people who have helped me as I've written these little bits and pieces over the last seventeen months or so. But apart from the encouraging comments that my friends do make, which boost my confidence no end, there aren't any little helpers out there, or even any much bigger ones. I haven't got any gnomes who come in and eat all the brain waves inside my head every night (do you think that might be what dreams are all about really?) and then scamper around like little ants on my computer keys so that you too can feed on my thoughts, for what they're worth.

If I did have Marky's little helpers like this, then maybe you'd have seen a bit more writing from me at this web address over the last month; so sorry, dear reader, if you've been disappointed that the Anyway cupboard's been bare for a while. Truth is I have either been too tired or too weighed down by other cares to say very much in my blogs lately, though I have been very keen to.

However, I couldn't let this auspicious (love the word, but still not sure exactly what it means, are you?) time pass without dedicating this latest posting to one special little boy out there in computer land who had his own great celebration today. I'm going to be Top Secret like the best special agent and not tell you all his name. But he must have a mention, because today remembers the day he battled his way out of his Mummy's tummy back in the late nineties, so now he's celebrating his EIGHTH birthday no less, and days don't come much more special than birthdays, do they!

I was very happy to have a bit of an early celebration with my junior friend Sam this week, along with my (very!) old friends his Mum and Dad on a flying visit (well, by train really!) to the North West of England where he lives. He's a great little guy and such fun! The lad's getting on very well with his sums, is good to his baby brother most of the time, and he even told me some great poems about the seasons.

Mind you, I don't know whether Sam likes keeping a diary or not, like the very famous man of the same first name who wrote so much about the Great Fire of London and also worked for the Royal Navy, I discovered today while visiting a navy museum in South East London. One thing's for sure though: Sam doesn't miss a trick at all and I wonder whether when he's playing hide and seek, Samuel Peeps?

Many Happy Returns of the Day, and God Bless, little man from a rather bigger one!

Summer leaves

2005-09-23T00:02:00.000+01:00

Now, you looked twice at the title of this posting, didn't you? Poet and painter from time immemorial have tried to capture in their respective mediums the glories of the Autumn, particularly the deciduous delight which is known in the US as the Fall and when leaves turn every shade of red, brown, amber and orange, before they, well, leave their branches and once again the perfectly-rounded cycle of nature turns.
However, that's maybe a subject for six weeks or more hence here in the South of England at least, just before the gloomy nights of November set in once daylight saving time (BST) ends. Instead, I'm focussing in this late night blog on the thoughts and emotions that the departure of the warmest, lightest season of the year brings tonight. The summer of 05 has now gone in the Northern Hemisphere; it's the Autumnal Equinox and although the mild temperatures bely it, the last season of our Northern year is with us again. It's all downhill twixt now and Christmas :-( Summer leaves, hopefully to return again in nine months time. Well, it was good while it lasted!

For my part, I've had a last gasp of summer and sea air at my "other" home here on the South Coast tonight where I came to support the poorly-attended house group I was a regular at while I was working and living here full time during the week. The downside is that means an early start tomorrow as I head back to London for the last day of the working week, but at least I'm guaranteed a seat and a snooze, noisy commuters and manic mobiles not withstanding, on the 90 minute or so journey to Victoria.

Not that I mind rising before dawn; my employer has been holding a conference all this week for 32 delegates which has really kept me on my toes and working from before 8.30 in the morning til 7.30 at night one evening, without even a lunch break. But moaning, moi? Not a bit of it: I love it, and I've been well fed too, both spiritually and literally.
Somehow, like the seasons getting into gear with the bursts of energy and change each three months brings, I've been in my element! In fact, it's been one of the most enjoyable parts of my working life since my BBC days, which seem a very long time ago now. The course finishes tomorrow, and I shall miss the delegates, every one of them. Here's to the next one in March, as Le Printemps puts a spring in our step and a not so young man's fancy once again turns to hard work! God hallows the seasons: it's Harvest Festival in many churches including my Feltham this weekend, and we're reminded that "Thou visitest the earth, thou crownest the years with thy blessings". Amen to that!

The Dark Side of the Monday

2005-09-12T07:55:00.000+01:00

Dawn attempts to break out over Feltham, thwarted by cloud cover and a reminder that "the summer's gone" rather than being in the meadow that the lyrics of the "Air from County Derry" so poignantly convey.
There's always a touch of the melancholy about this time, and yet the Summer won't actually be gone for another nine days yet when the autumnal equinox beckons the start of the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. But the great yellow presence in the sky has been struggling to put his hat on these last couple of days- and in so doing may just have been the salvation of English cricket!

The final test against the old adversaries from Oz, where Spring's about to begin, has put a spring in the step of eleven good men and true who may today fly from the wicket as phoenixes, and seal their place in the annals of cricket as the side that freed the ashes from the prison of Australian stewardship for the first time in sixteen years. With England in to bat on their second innings, the run race is on to meet their target and show themselves invincible.

Can they do it? Can those feet in modern time walk across Vauxhall's outfield green, up to the wicket and shine forth upon the crowded bails? Well, cricket's the sport of the clergy- the late great David Shepherd, former England cricketer and later Bishop of Liverpool- proved that. But The Independent, going against the trend of harmless jingoism which has filled the press and inspired the masses as eyes focus on the Brit Oval these last few days reminds us that God is impartial: he sends his sun on the righteous as well as the unrighteous.

Whatever side wins, this has been widely recognised as perhaps the greatest test series against the Australians ever. Even sporting simpletons like me who can't tell a silly mid off from a slip have been thrilled with every nuance these last couple of matches particularly. And Channel 4 has surpassed itself with some gripping and insightful coverage of every match. What a cruel irony it would be then if England were to snatch victory, only to find the jaws of defeat hold the false teeth of an Aussie-born media baron who is set to darken terrestrial screens to the glories of the game forever. The sky may save our side; Sky must not be allowed to steal our view.

Fire from the Madding Crowd

2005-09-02T15:31:00.000+01:00

In England, holiday time draws to a close. Not just for the denizens of desks but for thousands of others who after the last Bank Holiday of the Summer at the beginning of this week, now face the long run downhill to Christmas.

Endings and beginnings, starts and finishes. The dawn of September can so often seem like a sad conclusion to the lazy, hazy days of Summer although I've discovered this year that I'm not the only one who feels a certain melancholy even after the passing of the longest day back in June, which seems so long ago already. Of course, strictly speaking, it's not over til the fat lady sings, or should I say until around the 21st of the month when the autumnal equinox really prepares us for the mists and mellow fruitfulness to come.
This year though, unrelated to weather or almanac, but intimately linked with mood and feeling, it seems as though the summer stealers have had a field day. The horrific events of July 7th and their consequences robbed us of some of the joyous highlights of the best season of the year, and even London's glee at securing the 2012 Olympics was violently blown apart by mindless maniacs intent on disproving that two wrongs don't make a right.

Even now, on September 2nd as pupils and students fill their backpacks with harmless pens,pencils and books ready for the return to a term of mind-planting, the merciless fools who would water seeds of hatred and maim and kill with the same innocent-looking bags are allowing their festering manifesto to find outlet again. This time it's through the posthumous release of a video supposedly recorded by one of the 7/7 suicide bombers. Foreign secretary Jack Straw is wisely treating this latest affront to deceny with the scepticism it deserves.

Meanwhile, 4000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, the richest and most powerful nation on Earth somehow seems rendered impotent in the face of the natural disaster which was Hurricane Katrina. The scenes on the news pictures these last 24 hours almost defy belief: can this really be happening in the land of the brave and the home of the free? What freedom is it that fails to bring thousands the basic necessities of life- food and water- for days on end while the federal government gives every impression of being totally unprepared for the devastation that ensued? Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico are hardly unique, yet the poor souls (and many of them are economically impoverished even in good times) who are now witnessing death, devastation and utter lawlessness on streets that once rang to the music of jazz have no voice left now to sing the blues, only breath enough for tears.

But New Orleans has jazz, it also has soul. Somehow in the midst of the latest apocalyptic events to engulf a small corner of the globe, the song of hope and joy can still be heard over the clamour of anger and desperation. Music is a universal language born as much in adversity as celebration and my hope and prayer is that New Orleans and its people will rise again from the miry pit of the 2005 floods with hope and a new song and, somehow, life from death.

Death's pitiless face has put in so many appearances this week, both in actual events and in memory. In Baghdad, hundreds died not from the usual horrors of insurgent action which have become so commonplace in Iraq, but from a stampede caused by the mad effects of a vicious rumour. These were pilgrims, Sunni Muslims endeavouring to celebrate one of their most holy festivals and ending their lives in a grim jumble of bodies and limbs. Once again, the sacredness of life has been stolen by the mindless actions of a few, just as it was for hundreds of precious, innocent little ones a year ago this week in the slaughterhouse of a Beslan schoolroom. From the ecstacy of celebration came the agony of destruction. Scores of young minds untutored in the horrific excesses of the so-called human race were brutally assaulted literally and psychologically by the bloody hand of terrorism once again.

How can people ever recover from these horrors? Can any mind, let alone the gloriously inventive,imaginative, creative powerhouse of potential which is the brain of the under-18 ever live and love again when life robs them so cruelly of what should be their birthright, a normal loving home and the security of schoolroom and family?

Remarkably, because we are made in the image of God, we can and do recover from even the most unimaginable of horrors. Events like we have seen this week, this season are not the place to launch into hunts for theological answers, as if these could be found like the treasure at the end of the rainbow. They are instead the time to seek the Kingdom of Heaven, where the compass needle points to love. For everything, there is a season. A time to laugh, a time to cry. A time to weep, and a time for every purpose under Heaven. This season of awfulness will have its end. What is sown in sorrow will be reaped in joy. Man wherever he lays his head will find rest and restoration.

It was with these thoughts in mind that earlier in the week, I sought to make the most of my last leisure of the summer, or at any rate a few brief days of respite from the 9 to 5. I certainly chose one of the best weeks to have off from the daily run up to Oxford Street, as the temperature on Wednesday topped 32 Celsius, or 90 Fahrenheit in old money. My brother and I chose that day to seek our fun in the sun down in one of my favourite English counties, which some say is the most beautiful of all of them. Dorset was our destination for a day out at the annual GREAT DORSET STEAM FAIR, which Matthew has been attending for many years but I have not had the chance to get along to before now.

After facing the usual expected though relatively minor hold-ups of the South's motorway system, we got to our destination at Tarrant Hinton around lunchtime, just in time for a very welcome pint of the sponsor's brew, Badger Best. Tanglefoot, their other justly famous product, is not the stuff for a lunchtime session, tasty though it is but rather strong at 4.9 per cent alcohol. Who should we just happen to encounter in there but a contingent of our local stationary engine buffs who were spending the week there. I'd say given the fact there were over seventy thousand on site that day, the chances of that happening were almost as improbably as Matthew bumpting into our cousin and his son at the same spot a few years ago!

The Great Dorset Steam Fair is quintessentially English and all the more a tonic to a jaded mind and body for all that. It's a reminder of our ingenious past,from the nation which managed to harness the elements by combining water with the black gold of coal and oil to produce the multi-amped mobile megabeasts which are the traction engines. Or rather, the road locomotives of Burrell, Fowler and Foster et al, not a firm of office-bound solicitors but the champions of mechanical power whose finest works have been preserved or restored for a new generation to enjoy more than a century after they were first assembled.

The fair is also a reminder that we are, still, essentially a nation under the plough. As a teenager, I found it hard to understand all the prophets of doom who complained about how much land was being lost to housing and other developments. The English countryside at harvest time, at any time, is still a wondrous sight, and the fields and hedgerows of Dorset are surely among the finest of examples. I've had a soft spot for this county ever since boyhood holidays on its coastline, now a World Heritage site as the Jurassic Coast. Years later, though struggling through literary criticism was a chore I'd rather ignore, the school set texts of Far from the Madding Crowd and later Return of the Native, only re-kindled the flame of desire for this historic corner of Wessex which Thomas Hardy so immortally capture in his works.

Somehow, there is something about these places and events which is an escape from the perils and the trauma of modern life, as restorative as a pint of liquid nutriment which is the brewer's masterpiece. It's something which we do so well, and with two heritage weekends giving the chance to visit some of the country's finest homes this month, maybe there's still something to sing about in September.

The Baguettes of Wimpole Street

2005-08-19T15:46:00.000+01:00

Alright, I know it's a terrible pun, but at least it makes a change from quoting or parodying song titles, doesn't it? I was beginning to think after my last posting's title that I ought to rename this blog "Name that tune...". However, Tom O'Connor's already nabbed that one so I think I'll stick to Anyway... for the time being, anyway!

Unless of course, anyone's got a better suggestions. A prize of my lunchtime fare today, a cheese and onion baguette and a fruity scone complete with jam and butter from what has to be the West End's best bargain for whoever comes up with a new title for these musings, though you'll have to come and join me to collect it. Or buy it for yourself. Believe it or not, there really is a sandwich bar called "The Barrets of Wimpole Street" about 300 metres from where I'm now sitting, but I don't choose to offer them my custom. Rather, Vita's the place around this time every weekday for a torrent of West End workers who know how to make the most of their daily bread. I'm not on commission, but I thoroughly recommend them. These mid-day mega mouthfuls really are a bargain for the meagre sum of £1.35!

THE SPIRIT IS WILLING...
I'm sorry it's been a month now since I last posted on here, but it's not been through lack of interest. I've just been either too tired or too busy to actually get down to writing, despite the creative juices eagerly lubricating my brain cells.

"Citizen journalism" as it's known has been really coming into it's own these past few weeks, especially here in the capital where the horrendous events of early summer may have passed and the city attempts normal life, but the fall out remains. My last posting pre-dated the events of 21st July, when fear power came up against the un-nerving experience of potential fire power in London once again. As if enough blameless civilians had not already felt the impact of the events of 7/7. tragically on 22nd July a young Brazilian lost his life to the momentary but fateful mis-judgment of the Met.

As a consequence, today Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police but no relative of that other more senior public figure, has nevertheless become equally controversial with calls for his resignation. Does this ring any bells? It certainly did for that great cleric and poet John Donne, who wrote so famously that we should not send to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. Death whether by the ballistic force of bullets fired, apparently, at the wrong man or by the sad effects of bodily illness diminishes us all. Today brings news of another sad loss to British public life, as Mo Mowlam passed away after her long, brave fight against the effects of her previous illness. Coming so soon after the loss of Robin Cook who was lost to a heart attack, it's been a summer so far of constant reminders of just what a fragile case contains the miracle which is human life.

ANGELI MINISTRAMUS

In a world which seems to be increasingly losing its sanity as well as its sanctity then, you would think that more people would be turning to religion for the answers to these great questions of life. Spiritual life and enquiry ought to be thriving right now, but the reality appears to be rather different according to today's Christian Herald. Of course, you can do anything with statistics and they are famously unreliable as a source of truth.

The Way, and the Truth, and the Life is found now, as it has been for two millennia, in the life,death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Because he died, we live. And because he lives, and cares for each detail of human life, even the most miniscule matters, we can have Hope in an often hopeless world.

And I know that there are angels standing guard over us. I often miss the benefits of a classical education, even if my two days at Eton College in 1975 were a help. Even with my flimsy grasp of Latin, though, I can work out that the insrciption above the stunning pair of celestial beings in a window above me right now are angels, and they are ministering to us. Even the cynical secular world has a fascination with these most prevalent of biblical figures. May they watch over you now as you return to whatever you do, and may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Or maybe cause you to meet him, if you haven't already...

A Nightingale Wept in Berkeley Square

2005-07-17T10:41:00.000+01:00

Regular visitors to this page may well have wondered why there has been no comment from me so far on the events of 7th July 2005, or 7/7 as has inevitably become the shorthand for referring to the horror of that day which London now so tragically has to add to its collective history.

Some may even have wondered if I was safe myself. Mercifully I am, but only by the grace of God and not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was touching to find many of my own friends trying to find out if I was OK on the day of the atrocities, as so many thousands of other friends and family were doing at the same time, even if they were hampered by the mobile phone system going into major emergency mode and being deliberately blocked to non-priority users of the service.

What anguish flowed through the hearts and minds of not just Londoners but millions of ordinary, civilized, thinking, feeling human beings around the world that dreadful Thursday morning. A flood of tears which might even refresh the rain-starved Thames, the watery vein which flows through London's heart and gives it the symbol for the 2012 Olympic games so euphorically celebrated just 20 hours before four young men with poisoned, de-humanised minds turned our dancing into mourning.

One reason I haven't written, is because it is so difficult to know what to say. Should there be any need to say anything? Actions do speak louder than words: the actions that spoke of the real effect of this cruelly calculated act of barbaric disdain for the sanctity of human life recognised by all major religions were thousands of silent but live human bodies standing as one at 12 noon on 14/7. Taking two minutes out of a hot summer day in a great city whose heart with sorrow is torn was the most moving collective act of remembrance I have ever experienced, I think.

The Eye has it!

2005-07-07T00:55:00.000+01:00

The British gift for understatement and restrained emotion was much in evidence in the West End today. When I took my lunchtime stroll down to Regent Street, I was totally unaware that about half an hour previously, the nation's capital had been awarded that most glittering of prizes, the 2012 Olympic games. Yet look at the expressions on people's faces, or listen in to passing comments, and you'd never know. I was convinced that once again we were the nearly men (and women) of the world. Only a hastily scribbled "We've Won!" across the newstand poster, where the earlier edition was still on sale, liberated me to hear this wonderful good news!

The awarding of the Olympic games to London of course offers the greatest potential the city, and indeed the nation, has had to show off to the world and to re-brand for years. The mud of Iraq and Britain's controversial involvement there still sticks. Yet seven years hence- another jubilee year, funnily enough, should her maj live to the grand old age of 87- will our nation really rise to the challenge? My hope and dream is that it will also herald a renewed spiritual passion in the UK, that the historic Christian traditions of this island can really be celebrated with renewed vigour as much as the best the human body and mind can offer in competitive sport and culture. Vivat Londinium, Christus regnet!

Where the streets have no shame

2005-07-05T22:22:00.000+01:00

Back at work in the West End after a hectic schedule but a largely very pleasant week off. More on this no doubt in another post, because there's plenty I'd love to share. Journalists are normally stuck for stories at this time of the year, but this has to be the heaviest summer season for news we've encountered in many a decade. The week just gone had enough of them, and now there's just time for a brief pause before 6th July brings probably the most important and significant events of the year to Britain, as the G8 Grandees gather in Gleneagles and Britain's Olympian hopefuls gather in Singapore to learn tomorrow whether after all the hype, London will finally get the games for 2012.

The last days of June brought the Trafalgar 200 celebrations, with the biggest fleet ever assembled in English waters to commemorate our great man of the sea and what was billed as the biggest fireworks Britain has ever seen. Funny, there was me thinking they were going to be happening in Scotland from tomorrow as the jaw jawing starts all over again, but there you go. Meanwhile, the first weekend of July saw the thrilling climax to Wimbledon fortnight, with both the men and the women giving a thrill a minute.
Lindsay Davenport literally jumped for joy at the end of the longest ladies' singles final ever, while the unstoppable Federer Express once again de-railed poor Andy Roddick. A great shame really, as I rather like the US fall guy, and fall he did a couple of times. It certainly looks though as though the young Swiss could go on to be up there with the greats- he's certainly proving himself to be one of the most astounding talents ever seen on a grass court.

And yet I've managed to get through three paragraphs already without yet mentioning the media drowing in a Saturday Sea of Superlatives, as Live8 took place, billed as "the biggest worldwide event ever". However saintly Bob Geldof KBE may be to some, he shouldn't be called a "Sir" as an honorary knight, and neither should grown up journos who ought to know better be trumpeting a mega musical concert, however worthy, as anything other than that. The biggest worldwide event ever was clearly the creation of this terrestrial ball, and none of us had the advantage of satellite to see that, but we do have the eyes of faith to see that the only thing maybe worthy of a an even better "audience figure" is the death and resurrection of God's only son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

U2 headlined Live8, with Bono proud to sing alongside "Macca", Sir Paul McCartney, on what was apparently his first ever live performance of "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", hard though that is to believe. Strange to think, really, that these worldwide megablast attacks on one of the greatest evils in society owe so much to two Irishmen, viz Bob and Bono, who sound like a pair of dogs to me. For the origin of the song I allude to above, look no further than the lyrics and interesting story behind its genesis by clicking on the title above. Genesis, by the way, were one of the few ancient rock acts, it seems, who were not persuaded to reform for Live 8. Meanwhile, The Who and Pink Floyd seem to have seen no harm done to their own record sales by their show-stopping performances in Hyde Park.