Mustard Seed Shavings
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Holiday Reading Recommendations
Saturday, June 11, 2022
Lessons from Ironmongery
I have been quiet on the blogging front recently. Many of you know that I retired in January. Circumstances have conspired to leave us renting our old home until a much-delayed new one is ready. Looks like September now.
The good bit of this is that our older son, who came back to live with us last year, has a little more time to find a new home in Bristol. And the rush to downsize and get packed and moved whilst winding down and handing on my job has been much more relaxed. Whatever your position on the map of faith most kind people would agree that 37 years as a clergyman might have been a bit gruelling. I have now been retired for longer than any period of sabbatical or study leave I have ever had so my psyche is beginning to realise that it doesn't have to go back to work on Monday.
Back in the autumn, when we still imagined we would be getting out in the New Year, we went round the house looking at our possessions, especially the larger ones. Stuff had to go,
as the contents of a five bedroomed vicarage prepared to be poured into a three bedroomed home.
![]() |
Figure 1 |
Green = like it or need it, take it with us
Red = hate it or don't need it, dispose
Amber = can't decide yet
If you like my four box diagrams, which I developed during my time as a professional trainer and find usually help explain almost everything, then I have designed one (Figure 1).
Thing is, I was amazed by how little of our stuff I actually liked. All our new wooden storage-type furniture could go as far as I was concerned. Likewise the dining room table and chairs. It is functional, plain and middle-aged. As indeed was I, once. We have a nice big leather sofa which will fit in our new lounge and a few other pleasant and comfy chairs. The chair my Dad used to sit in at the end of my family dining room is with us. I've known it since 1955. It doesn't match anything but it means something.
We agreed about keeping any books we loved, would recommend or re-read. My vinyl and musical instruments were a deal-breaker. We are all being ruthless with our wardrobes and one or two pieces (not mine) are doing well on E-bay. Free-to-Collect Nailsea has been a way our functional stuff can help others.
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Figure 2 |
But the best deal we ever did with Cargo was the counter units. Back in the day, Cargo took over a rather traditional ironmongers called J. W. Carpenter. These shops had wonderful, made-for-purpose pine counters. Cargo chose to replace them with sleek modern plastic and stainless steel jobbies and the old units were flogged off. We offered £100 for four. And they have lived with us for over 20 years since.
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Figure 3 |
The next one (Figure 3) became the TV stand. It also houses birthday and Christmas wrapping paper. On the right hand end (by the yellow cushion) are two protruding nails at an angle. They used to hold the counter supply of paper bags. We left them there. I love that they have history from before they met us. All the drawers are a bit wonky but move smoothly, polished by the retail transactions they witnessed.
'Can I have a pound of number 8 woodscrews Mr Carpenter?'
It is not beyond the bounds of probability that one of the drawers once contained candles and a customer asked for four.
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Figure 4 |
The third one holds a random collection of OS maps, DVDs, photographs and instruction manuals. It sits in a room that was once a little lounge (we called it a snug) which was great when only two of us lived here and one was running a meeting in the bigger lounge. That room has now become a place where things are sorted before leaving. My piano is a bit nomadic in our house. It's currently there too.
And the fourth, the biggest, sits at the end of the conservatory (so it is a bit sun-drenched) and houses the aforementioned 50 sets of crockery and cutlery.
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Figure 5 |
These are all coming with us if possible, or we will make arrangements to keep them in the family somehow.
It's strange what possessions mean. Do your things tell any stories? Money has bought us very little which we truly value. Circumstances, memories and people however have been generous.
Why do I keep waking up with a red label on my forehead?
Thursday, April 28, 2022
In or During
'What I can tell the right hon and learned gentleman is that all guidance was followed completely in No 10.'
Is that what you heard? I didn't.
We need to stop for a moment and remind ourselves of Johnson's style. He is a gifted orator within the character of bumbling-persona he has deliberately created, quick-witted and brilliant at bouncing from the interviewer's question to a related, but irrelevant, reply and then pursuing the subject he has diverted to.
I have upset two of my near neighbours, one because he likes Boris and didn't therefore like the BBC and I defended it in a sermon. The other, admittedly slightly the worse for drink on the day, who lectured me and a friend on how Boris was 'just a human being'. The implication being that we all sin so he should be allowed to. Obviously I am not party to the amount of leeway politicians of other parties are given. But I will never change the minds of these two. They are so wedded to their love of the man that any questions trigger their flight or fight response. When Trump said he could shoot people in the street and not lose support he was talking about people like this.
In the video in question what Johnson says is:
'What I can tell the right hon and learned gentleman is that all guidance was followed completely (during) No 10.'
And after the word 'during' there is a mini-beat. As I said, he is quick-witted. The questioning was about parties and illegal gatherings and a good interviewee always avoids accepting the premise of the question if it is awkward. What would/could have followed the word 'during' if he hadn't caught himself? Meetings? Gatherings? Parties? He stopped himself going there. But he knew. He knew. Something had happened that clearly didn't ring quite right with the regulations and guidance and if he pulled on that thread his whole outfit would unravel. As Allegra Stratton said in the now infamous leaked practice-briefing video, 'It was cheese and wine; is that alright? It was a business meeting.'
Johnson's own goals and gaffs reel is so long, and updated so regularly, that there isn't time to revisit them in detail. I think this one was particularly informative.
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Two Types of People
There are many ways in which the world divides into two types of people. My most recent observation of the phenomenon is the difference between those who are aware of their surroundings and those who are not. You can find the latter type blocking two aisles simultaneously in the supermarket with a trolley whilst they search for something. Avoiding inconvenience to others is simply not on their agenda. Such a person will not register someone coming in the other direction until after they have looked at the view/tied their shoelace/finished their conversation.
One of the ways we now learn that the world does not consist of two types of people is in gender terms. We now understand the old male/female distinctions as being inadequate. There is spectrum, not a division. That said the world does divide into those who are prepared to grapple with the necessary learning and change in order to understand and try to use pronouns properly and those who stick with the old ways.
The danger, if that is the right word, is to identify all these two-nesses as right and wrong. That way lies divide and rule, the top line of the would-be dictator's play book. In this world anyone who says 'Hang on a moment, what about this minority who will suffer when you do that' is dismissed as woke. Or wokey-woke, the insult of choice now being used by the raving right round here. I felt the enemies of the loony left needed a name. And of course there are two kinds of people. Those who feel that woke is an insult and those who would gladly pick it up and wear it as a crown (that thought ⓒ West Wing Season 7 - presidential debate episode).
Our current UK Government is made up of two types of people - those who thought Brexit would be a good idea and those who didn't but were prepared to ignore that for a cabinet post. They are now discovering that more is needed from a government than to allow themselves to be used by Russia to destabilise Europe.
Me or you? Us or them? Maybe the world divides into two types of people - those who like dividing the world into two types of people and those who do not. Perhaps we should all be a bit slower to run to one side or the other.
Monday, April 11, 2022
Get the Reference
I am reading The Cut by Chris Brookmyre. He used to write very dark crime dramas bordering on science fiction, full of contemporary social commentary and black, black humour, as Christopher. Now, as Chris, it is all a little more tempered and very plot-driven. Often who-dunnits or what-have-they-duns.
A few books back he dedicated one to Billy Franks. I discovered we shared a love of Billy's (RIP) 1980s' band The Faith Brothers. At the beginning of The Cut there is an unacknowledged quote from a Faith Brothers song. I got it. I got the reference. Throughout the novel the two protagonists joust with movie references. Not being such a movie buff I missed a lot. But I felt I had been invited deeper into the book's world than others, for which I was grateful.
In my final appointment in ordained ministry one of my tasks was to be Vicar of Trendlewood Church in Nailsea. Its birthday was Palm Sunday 1989 and so yesterday it was 32. Many churches have saintly dedications, some stranger than others. I enjoyed St Leodegarius (Basford, Nottingham) the most, until I met St Quiricus and St Julietta in Tickenham. Who they? I know now. You can google them too.
More common church dedications are to All Saints, Holy Trinity or Christ Church. There's one of each of those within a mile of my house. Really. I guess Trendlewood would have to call itself the Church of the Triumphal Entry. Unlikely.
Yesterday there was a procession between the two churches of the soon-to-be Harbourside Benefice of Bristol we have been attending since I retired. We walked from HTH (Holy Trinity, Hotwells) to St Stephen's, Bristol, pausing to pray at the boundary between the two parishes which made us late. I enjoyed not being responsible for the lateness whilst failing to avoid noting the things which had caused it. Old habits.
The thing that made me ponder was that we were invited to give palm crosses to any who asked us what was going on. I reckoned that a palm cross was a visual aid, of course, but the answer was considerably longer and wrapped in Christian heritage and tradition, missing donkeys, Pastoral Measures and Scripture. And that's the thing. You needed to get the many references.
The telling of the Palm Sunday triumphal entry into Jerusalem by Jesus in the Gospels (it's in all four of them) is littered with references. If you saw a man entering on a donkey you may not have known this was referencing Zechariah 9:9. You may not have recognised the shouts of praise were from Psalm 118. You might have known that crowds were encouraged to line the street when Roman dignitaries came to town but that, thus-forced, they often remained completely silent or even turned their backs. The comment that, if silenced, the stones would cry out references this. The extended metaphor of Jesus on his ass was not for all.
I have always subscribed to the school of Christianity that is a little timid about worshipping on the street corners and would rather Christians referenced acting justly and loving mercy as interest-gathering activities. Look how the Maundy Money thing has become about the Queen not about the poor.
There isn't long enough to explain how we got to processions, parish boundaries and palm crosses in the time it takes for one person to walk past another. You have to hope that interest is piqued and eyes are opened. But what a joy it is to discover you are deeper inside a fabulously mysterious story than others because the author has posted a riddle of an invite and you got it.
Welcome to Holy Week my friends.
Take your shoes and socks off ; it's right around the corner.
Friday, February 25, 2022
The Godless Gospel
If you are unfamiliar with the work of populist philosopher Julian Baggini then this may not be quite the place to start. My introduction to him was the best-seller The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten: And 99 Other Thought Experiments. Which made me think.
In The Godless Gospel (Was Jesus a Great Moral Teacher?) (Granta 2020) Baggini attempts to remove Jesus' moral teaching from its theological framework to see if there is anything to help those who don't want to swallow the whole God thing.
It is an interesting exercise, applauded on the jacket by no less than Richard Holloway, he who wrote Godless Morality whilst still an Archbishop although he has since moved nearer to godless than god-fearing.
Does it work? There is good stuff in the opening sections, especially about individual attitude, humility and the process of doing thinking. He acknowledges that reading the gospel is not like reading a modern treatise on moral philosophy. It is not an argument to be followed but a biography to be pondered. Whether you can think about it clearly whilst dismissing the thing that holds it all together is the big question. The attempt to distance Jesus' teaching from his understanding of God, the Father, in whom he trusted and who he believed he served, seems, to me, to pull on a thread that unravels everything.
The last third of the book is a new version of the Gospel, replacing mentions of God with 'good' in many cases and yet leaving references to prayer unaltered. If there was no God and he was mistaken about praying then surely the whole of Jesus' manifesto implodes? The parable of the kingdom and the return of the king are included. To be fair, Baggini discuses this at length but we draw different conclusions.
Annoyingly Baggini chooses to word his Gospel harmonisation in the language of the Authorised Version because he prefers the poetry. Which makes it harder, not easier, to follow. Living words need lively translation, not archiving or confining to the theatre.
Interesting effort and nicely written but I wasn't convinced. The Gospel writers all, for sure, had axes to grind and used what Karen Armstrong calls mythos to make their points. But they wrote that we might have life in all its fulness in Jesus' name (John says this directly), not that we might pick and choose which bits we like.
Thursday, February 24, 2022
Can't Find My...
Archiving some papers, I found this bit of prosetry for a bygone age when diaries had a physical presence:
I can't find my diary
I have a busy day ahead of me which I can recall. I can get things together for the first meeting but...
I can't find my diary
I retrace my steps to when I last had it. The lounge. Last night. Behind the sofa? Check. No.
I put out the Bibles for the small group which meets here at 10.00 a.m. People arrive. I make coffee. We study. I'm not really into it because...
I can't find my diary
Throughout the day I turn up on time, do what I have to do, but...
I can't find my diary
'I can't find my diary' fills all the gaps and some things that are not gaps until there is a gap big enough for me to search physically. I have been searching mentally all day. Now I have time to find my diary, a thing which is designed to save me time.
Keeping a good diary takes 5% of your time. Losing it takes all of your time.
Friday, February 18, 2022
Turn to the left; turn to the right
At the start of my ministry, in the place I have just retired from, my wife and I invited people round for supper in groups of 15-20 once a month. Primarily this was to thank those who had worked on decorating our house before we arrived (a kindness) but it grew into a thing we liked to do. The first month we scrubbed up and made an effort. I may have worn a tie. Remember those?
Just before the second event my wife asked what I was going to wear that night. We do have this conversation or, from time to time, we dress a little too similarly and it scares us. I recall that my reply was that 'based on last time I thought I'd go for a fleece with food down it.' We dressed down a little bit but always felt part of our job was to pull the standard up.
Three things caught my attention over the last month under the heading 'fashion' - an article, a quote in a TV programme and an individual. Juxtaposition being the secret of most creativity, putting them together in my mind I wanted to have a go at talking about clothes.
Clothes are an important cultural signifier because of the response speed. '...you can react more speedily to the demands of the times with three-and-a-half metres of cloth than you can with, say, 5,000 tons of reinforced concrete.' (Marion Hume, Fashion Editor, the Independent 2/12/1994)
But we are increasingly mindful of those clothes which contain microplastics and the need to move on from throwaway society as we try to reduce, re-use and recycle.
Culture, Brian Eno once defined, is 'Everything you don't have to do'. So clothes aren't cultural but fashion is.
Of my male friends I am probably the one who cares the most about my appearance. I do care. I like to look good and to be individual. I realise I am setting myself up for a fall here but, as I have made my living in the Christian church for 37 years, I have to say it has never felt onerous to be the best-dressed person in the room and, when I notice that I am not, the person I notice is always very well turned out. As Patsy said in Absolutely Fabulous 'You may dress like a Christian but there the similarity ends.' I am talking here about those I perceive to be of my own gender (and I wouldn't have put it like that that 37 years ago, for sure).
Comments on the clothing of those I perceive to be of other genders or non are kept to myself . Or discussed with Mrs T.
A few years ago, and I can't attribute, I heard this:
Men tend to dress to impress women; it doesn't work.
Women tend to dress to impress women; it doesn't work.
A more nuanced version of this would be Jess Cartner-Morley's, 'Much of fashion operates on a complicated code system that relies on your being sure of the level of sophistication your audience will bring to your wardrobe appraisal.' (Guardian Weekend 28/1/12)
Building on this, writing in the FT weekend the other week, Robert Armstrong drew a distinction between those who dressed ivy (as in Ivy League and almost effortlessly good) and those who were preppy (as in prep school and trying a bit too hard). I know it all gets frightfully snobbish when you step back a bit but, in very general terms, it is good to make an effort with your appearance, not necessarily with overspending; it is bad to make no effort or too much. Dolly Parton once said 'It costs a fortune to look this cheap.' To get to ivy not preppy, which means understanding classic lines and styles and keeping them contemporary, Armstrong says 'You have to care a little bit, spend some time shopping, and try things out. For most men, this can feel like a chore.' Still with me? Or going out in that dirty fleece?
That was the first of the three things.
From a relatively young age my Christmas and birthday presents usually included something fashionable. I enjoyed dressing up for special occasions and probably now spend more on clothes, hair and products than many men my age. I'm not sure whether I was influenced by my Mum, who trained as a dress designer and had a short career in the industry. My sister is a graphic designer and layout artist who worked predominantly in the fashion world. 'You think your job's tough but try getting a supermodel out of bed at 5 a.m. for a sunglass shoot.' If I let things slip she will have a quiet word and tell me what I should do (usually something very small) to show I know what it's all about. Those sideboards needed to be an inch longer. I wasn't one of the Thompson Twins.Most of us who enjoy the attempt at being fashionable probably started young. Which means there are some appalling, but thankfully pre-social media, photos of me making an effort mimicking the Tremeloes (pictured), on a non-uniform day in the late 60s. Buying yellow loons and making myself develop the personality to be seen in them in 72. Massive stack shoes and kipper ties in the mid 70s culminating in my wedding photos.
One guy must have been cold. Boat shoes. No socks. Thin baggy chinos turned up twice. He was carrying a dog. The dog wore a cricket jumper. The dog was a bag. The bag, which we googled, was a Thom Browne. It retails at £2,690. You read that right.
I filed that away in the 'ways I will never use money' section of me until a TV programme I accidentally watched in the unnecessary-extravagance-on-Alderley-Edge genre. A well-off family were having a small party for which they had rustled up caterers, live entertainers, a dog-groomer ('so she doesn't feel left out') and a wardrobe consultant, a man dressed in several layers and textures of white, plus jewels
At one point the presenter, who was also getting a makeover for the party, asked the fashion guru 'Aren't you hot in all that?'
The reply:
'It's fashion darling, It's not meant to be comfortable.'
So, for what it's worth:
You can spend too much on an outfit. Spending alone will not make you cool. You could end up preppy, or even Dolly but without the self-deprecation.
People who can afford expensive, timeless clothes spend less on them than those who buy cheap and seasonal. See the Terry Pratchett Sam Vines boots theory in his book Men at Arms. Expensive clothes last longer but there is a tipping point beyond which you can pay to look stupid when you think you're paying to look good.
If you are in sales, or at an interview where you are selling yourself, you need to match your customers' expectations if you are to sell to them. A young man I knew was told he could have a job as an MP's research assistant but he needed to remove his ear-stud. This was late 1980s. We've moved on from that and nobody blinks at most piercings any more. We've also moved on from the attitude discussed in Cosmopolitan in September 1994 '...dressing for success is a moral imperative for men and women'. A moral imperative? It was never one of those. But you will fail a live appointment process in the first ten seconds if your fashion isn't pitched right. Can you sell yourself better?
I think it's stupid not being comfortable but this includes being mentally comfortable that you can bear what you're wearing. I have a pair of electric blue trousers which I love but I can't mood-match them very often. You need to feel good about feeling good.
If you don't like talking about clothes you probably didn't get this far and never normally notice that I care.
As the French philosopher Barthes said '...fashion exists only through the discourse about it.'
Quite so.
Monday, February 07, 2022
Silbury Hill
I like to read a local book when staying away from home. It's a habit I began about twenty years ago when I happened to read Captain Corelli's Mandolin on a Mediterranean island and, even though it was the wrong island, the book came alive.
We've been staying a few miles down the road from home, in Castle Combe; proof positive that you don't have to get away far to get away. In a bookshop in nearby Corsham I asked the friendly proprietor what to read. I wanted something that wasn't a guide book but was good writing, evocative of the area. She gave me a fine selection but On Silbury Hill by Adam Thorpe stood out. It has been an amazing companion; a metaphysical, biographical introduction to the area known as the Wiltshire Downlands covering six millennia of history from Neolithic times.
We went to Avebury and Silbury Hill. As Adam Thorpe (almost the same age as me) recalls his Marlborough College school-days so I recalled my own, not least because in about 1967 I came there on a school trip.
To be fair I can remember only one incident clearly from the trip. Walking from what was probably then the coach park to the hill we were approaching a gate and Max Oates ran at it and cleared it in, what I later found out was actually called, a gate-vault. Max arrived at King Edwards (a place that gave an experience not unlike Marlborough but was not a boarding school and thus reduced the bullying hours somewhat) as a highly proficient gymnast and diver. My reaction, as one who had been convinced that getting into King Edwards was a verdict on my all-round genius, was 'Why can't I do that?' It was one of the first of many steps to realising that in order to really get on you have to be more than a smart kid. I grew up in a big old house but it was rundown and we had little money for much of my school-days. I got a free place through the entry examination. But I hadn't had gym classes, diving lessons or the pushy parents to lead me to young specialism. Indeed I spent my secondary school days trying out every new opportunity and moving on. Fives, squash, hockey, rugby, cricket, tennis - I never settled, always looking wistfully over my shoulder at the sacrifice of going to a school that thought rugby football was the only type of football worth playing. I also had undiagnosed asthma, which meant my shortness of breath when running was treatable (and eventually was, aged 24) but I merely thought I wasn't very good at it and kept trying harder.
Silbury Hill is an enigma. The conclusion of most experts, after two to three hundred years of modern archaeology, is that they don't know what it is. It is a thirty metre high mound in the middle of a huge natural downland amphitheatre. It is the largest human-made mound in the world and is near the largest standing stone circle in the world. The secret it has revealed is that it was human-made over a couple of hundred years and has at least twelve cycles of layering. It reminds me of a a cairn where every newcomer places a stone. Except that generations have placed huge layers of chalk, turf and sandstone without, or at least without us being able to tell, if of any of them had the first idea of what the point was.
So today it just sits there, next to a busy road. Visitors are not allowed to climb because of erosion although we saw two do so during our brief visit. They would have had to squeeze through a gap, ignore two notices and climb a fence so I guess they knew what they were doing. Walking a mile away to West Kennet Long Barrow the Silbury Hill becomes small - looks like a spoil heap in the wrong place.
The Standing Stones, Barrow and Hill are accessible without paying. It has managed to resist becoming the downlands visitor experience although there is some of that in the museum and nearby Avebury Manor and Gardens (National Trust). Otherwise local agriculture simply lives and works alongside.
On a grey February day the place conjured up all sorts of alternative thoughts. It's not what some theologians call a 'thin place'. I felt it was a full place. When we don't know what something means everyone has a go at defining it. It's become somewhere with too much meaning - none of it that helpful. It's a reminder of people keeping their eyes on something bigger, grander and out there. A striving for meaning. A desire that the point of all this be something other than my own self-actualisation. Which is, at the very minimum, what the Christian Gospel does; it anchors the truth elsewhere.
Avebury and Silbury change your vision by looking at the work of people who bothered to change their horizon. The lack of clarity about why they did it leaves their work as the record of a universal question.
The book is a knowledegable friend on the same journey.
Sunday, January 23, 2022
Review of the Year 2021
Thursday, January 20, 2022
The R Word
A funny thing happened the other day. Something that hasn't happened in January for maybe 40 years. You may ponder. I'll tell you later.
I've been retired (that's the R word) for two weeks now. I've noticed a few weird things, such as finding myself reading a newspaper on the day of its publication. Ages since that happened. Also my head. I am normally thinking ahead. Pondering what needs to happen next, tomorrow and eventually. There is currently no eventually and little tomorrow in here. I've planned supper.
I was chatting to Gary the plumber this morning, back for his annual visit to fix the toilet in our family bathroom, a place that's a triumph of style over function. Told him how I didn't want to be the sort of person who complained about trivialities. 'What, writing strongly worded letters?' he said. Exactly. Not that. Please. Let me carry on caring about the fight to save liberal democracy and not if a Waitrose carrot deteriorated faster than usual.
A local friend has just won a long-standing battle to obtain funding and permission to have his house altered to take into account the degenerative disease he has. He doesn't need it now but will do soon and when he does he won't be able to cope with the disruption of the alterations. He told me, with a twinkle in his eye, 'I don't think they realised how much time I had on my hands.' Having an empty diary gets results, sometimes. Strongly worded letters are not totally irrelevant.
Another couple of locals, in retirement, became people of such repetitive regularity that they always did a walk on Thursday, the chores on Saturday morning and the shopping on can't remember but it was time-tabled. Thing is, I can see now how having some structure provides a week with routine. Flip-side is that if it is all routine and only routine the days, so I'm told, pass very quickly and before you notice you're routinely dead. By all means have some fixed points but don't get them stuffed and mounted. I will in future read on a Tuesday (the day in my working life most likely to have had some space for study) unless you have a better offer or there is an emergency. Likewise Fridays, a rest day for the last fifteen years or so, will continue to be a day free from jobs. Our bio-rhythms mandate it.
I am good at packing up and handing over, or at least I think I am. The process of thinking about who would do various jobs I used to do helped me stop thinking about them when I finished. How do I know that thing will not be forgotten? Because I remembered to pass it on to someone who is reliable. That's the best I could do. That said, I am surprised how little I have thought about my old duties. It helps that I have received no phone calls or emails (yet) asking 'What did you do with the...?'
So my first two weeks have been relaxing and the list of things to do is getting pruned. It is nice to be able to cut down on duties and jobs. I'm not quite like a colleague who told me he was going to make a New Year's resolution to ruthlessly eliminate hurry. I asked him why he couldn't eliminate hurry slowly. But I am slowly slowing down and looking forward to a couple of weeks holiday away coming up soon.
So. The thing that was weird. Another friend invited us to come for the weekend some time before Easter. And after taking a moment to enjoy the idea of going somewhere for the weekend I found myself asking a question the answer to which I would normally know at this time of year:
'When's Easter?' I honestly didn't know.
More when we get it.
Monday, December 20, 2021
Thought for the Day
2. To support a colleague
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Christmas
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Thought for the Day
Monday, October 11, 2021
Thought for the Day
Last time I had a job other than vicar I worked as a writer. I once got paid for eight words. A building services company were happy with my slogan: 'Large enough to cope; local enough to care'.
Monday, September 06, 2021
Thought for the Day
Wednesday, September 01, 2021
Thought for the Day
Friday, August 13, 2021
Thought for the Day
Thursday, August 05, 2021
Thought for the Day
We had an interesting discussion in our house. I was gently nursing our ancient dishwasher through its final few tasks before it went to the domestic appliance graveyard. My family laughed at my efforts to turn the water off as the programme finished, which involved squeezing into the cupboard under the sink with a pair of mole-grips and a torch.
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.'
Thursday, July 29, 2021
Influential Books
I love reading the question and answer interviews in Sunday supplements. Given how unlikely it is that anyone will ever want to publish my answers I thought I'd have a go at the question about 'influential reads'. I reckon all books influence me, even if it is to eliminate the author from my future enquiries. But what tomes really changed me? If we are honest they are rarely the books alleged to be 'improving'.
Here are ten. They may not be quite the top ten because I didn't want to overthink. I may do ten more later. The order, by the way, is the order in which I read them:
Aboard the BulgerAnn Scott Moncrieff
1935
Wednesday, July 14, 2021
Lesley Tilley RIP
Lesley Joan Tilley 1928-2021
Steve Tilley and Jacquie Clinton
Tuesday, July 06, 2021
Holiday Reading
Pete Paphides - Broken Greek (8/10)
Pete is a music journalist from a Greek family based in Birmingham. This autobiographical book covers his childhood and early teenage years. The pull of the music industry was strong but the peer pressure that formed his early opinions was also influential. As a Brummie who recognises both the landscape and the chart-music of my young adult years (I am older than the author) I loved this journey.
Ben Machell - The Unusual Suspect (9/10)
Ben is a newspaper columnist and feature-writer. This is the account of Stephen Jackley. He was an Asperger's student so his decision making was unconventional. Channelling Robin Hood he began, in 2007, a life of crime designed to help the poor by robbing banks and building societies. It didn't go as well as he expected.
Simon Mayo - Knife Edge (7/10)
Yes, that Simon Mayo. Page-turner, thriller, bit short on likelihood but ticked the boxes for a quick read.
Bill Bryson - The Body (7/10)
A very entertaining account of the different bits of our bodies and how progress into understanding them was made. No need to read in one go. Fit in a chapter here and there between novels. And rejoice that you were born when you were.
Val McDermid - Still Life (8/10)
The very undisputed queen of the police procedural at the top of her game.
Francine Toon - Pine (7/10)
Slow-developing, ghostly gothic Halloween weirdness in a Scottish community. Delightfully creepy with portentous moments regularly spooking the reader.
Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless Street (9/10)
Two children, a weird guy and a cat take it in turns to narrate this story. All are unreliable witnesses at one time or another. Not so much a whodunnit as a who did what to whom and when? Brilliant.
Thursday, June 10, 2021
Reliability
I'm pretty sure that most people would prefer those in their employ to be reliable. I have worked with a few crazy creatives in my time and their unreliability was something we took into account because we wanted their genius ideas on our side. We didn't mind that they occasionally forgot to wash, their desks needed police incident tape and their punctuality for routine meetings was a thing worthy of having an office sweep. I have woken two people in my working life who were asleep near their work, surrounded by pizza boxes.
If you are unreliable you will not be missed for days. Seriously injured in a ditch will become dead in a ditch unless you are unreliable but lucky. Gosh how I love chaotic but lucky people. Also, they live longer.
I am spending more waking hours than is healthy these days pondering things that may be worth handing on. The trigger was when I was asked to do an awkward burial of ashes because 'You're a safe pair of hands'. I guess I am. I am punctual. If I am late people tend to ask if everything is OK rather than look sternly at me. Which is nice. Reliable people are late sometimes. But they have good will to be so. If I say I will do something I usually do it. I got reminded in a meeting the other day to do something that was on my list to do next. Really irritating although we may note in passing that control freaks don't trust anyone, even reliable people.
A speaker at a conference I was at said that people who use trains are usually punctual. It is true but it sounds wrong. People who use trains regularly have to get themselves to a station at a particular time or they are late. Trains are sometimes late but the person was there to catch it. We generally only hear that someone has come to an event by train if they are late and explaining. Most trains are on time. Most train users don't usually feel the need to say how they travelled.
But reliability isn't only about punctuality. As a professional writer for a few years I used to hit deadlines. Had to. I wanted the fee. Part of being reliable involved, from time to time, phoning a commissioning editor and asking if there was any flexibility in the deadline. It was usually fine because they'd built in some time for emergencies. Once or twice I encountered a strict deadline and had to stay up late finishing. Because that's what reliable people do. By the way, if you want something from a writer first thing in the morning make the deadline the previous night. We consider a deadline of Monday means Monday at 11.59 p.m. You will get it before Tuesday.
Reliable people feeling they might disappoint, warn those who are depending on them at an early stage. No-one will be cross with you if you tell them you are going down with some illness and may not make it. But give the expectant recipient an extra 24 hours to make plans. Reliable people hate letting others down. The memory of so-doing haunts us.
Once you have a reputation for unreliability it will be hard to shake off. You will feel nagged. If you are unfortunate enough to be in that position my advice would be to over-communicate yourself out of it.
'Hi Fliss, I'm just calling to say I'm getting on with that piece of work you gave me and it will be finished in a few days.'
'Hi Fliss, just checking in to say the piece will be with you at the end of the week.'
'Hi Fliss. I've just posted it first class.'
Of course, because you're now reliable, these statements need to be true or you become real lieable. Not good.
On a much larger scale, the Japanese worked tirelessly and ceaselessly on acquiring a reputation for reliability after the expression 'Made in Japan' began to be used as shorthand for shoddy in the 1960s and 70s.
If a product becomes unreliable in the eyes of the public it may well be withdrawn for a while and returned with a different name. It's a label nobody wants.
Reliable people do what they say they will do. If they think they will be unable to do something they don't offer to do it, or negotiate the arrangements. Try 'I'll do this for you if you take that off my hands'. From time to time you can put people off by charging a lot. If they call your bluff and agree to pay it either sub it out for less or decide that for that amount of cash you'll stay up all night to finish.
Reliable people don't offer wisdom about things they know nothing about. That sort of bluffing comes back to haunt you.
Reliable people are usually busy and seem to fit a lot into a day.
The word 'reliable' doesn't crop up until the sixteenth century or so. It may come from old French and Latin with its roots in 'binding back'. That word religare also gave us religion. In the Bible it is sometimes used to translate the Greek word pistos but that word encompasses faithfulness and belief. When 2 Timothy 2:2 talks about entrusting Paul's teachings to pistois people it means those who share belief and trust in Jesus.
If you are embarking on a calling to ministry don't over-commit early doors but deliver what you say you will, well and on time.
Wednesday, June 09, 2021
Thought for the Day
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Thinking Foreign
Concentration
There's a moment in Pulp Fiction where Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta (Jules and Vincent) confront some minor hoodlums in a small apartment. These guys have taken something that belonged to a Mr Big who can afford really good muscle to get it back.
Whilst one of the punks is trying to blurt out an explanation Jules shoots his buddy on the sofa saying 'I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?' Yes. That worked.
I think I have pretty high powers of concentration. Eighteen years of my life spent in open-plan offices probably made me better than most at blocking out distracting noises. Once at Eagle Star Insurance someone backed a lorry containing girders through the office window. That was a Jules moment. But conversation and background buzz? I could ignore that.
But recently I've got worse. Used to working at home alone most of the day the pandemic has delivered me with first one, and now two companions. Planning for our retirement next year we have been trying to concentrate enough on finding a place to live. Our other housemate is also house-hunting. Both of us may have been successful. We're waiting on completions. My final year in ministry is not quite the walk in the park I had planned. My concentration got shot.
To all intents and purposes I am doing OK but for two months I wasn't able to read. I'd pick up a book and read a chapter but then have no idea what I just read.
It's getting better. The habit of regular diaried reading days has been part of my DNA for 20 years now. Even if I only manage a few short chapters of some simple, but improving, books it keeps me ticking over. Not 200 pages a day with studious notes, but maybe 75/100 and some progress, a few quotes written down and a sense of personal development.
One thing that I find helpful on these reading days is variety. I'll pick 7 or 8 of the 30 books I have on the go at any one time and read a chapter from each. I'm amazed how often these chapters inform each other and feed into a grand thought about something altogether different. I begin with the shortest chapters because then, psychologically, I'll have dome three books in the first hour. I'm an easy person to fool, me.
Sometimes I share this insight with others and it is dead marmitey. Some look as if I have changed their lives for ever; others as if I am no longer connected to my trolley.
One of the cave rescuers who performed an endurance dive to rescue some lads a few years back was interviewed. The interviewer asked 'I suppose when you get to that point where you are not sure you can make it you rely on your courage.' He was corrected, and quickly. 'No. You rely on your training.'
The habits and skills you develop over your lifetime in your chosen profession will hold your hand when your concentration is no longer with you. It's your training. And with that I will pick up today's first book. Enjoy your Marmite.