Robin Ince at The Arnolfini

Robin Ince seems like a nice chap. I say that because the aloofness of some modern comedians does leave you thinking that they don't want to engage with real people unless they are going to provide new material.

Ince is hanging around at the front of the auditorium as we get seated and stays around during the interval. He invites people to the bar for a chat afterwards. He is not unkind to a young MC who introduces him as 'the guy from Wordaholics on Radio 4' even though he has only guested on that show once and his audience is probably more familiar with him from The Infinite Monkey Cage or The Now Show. Kindness doesn't cost anything. I tweet my thanks for a good gig and get a quick acknowledgement. Impressive. Also, he is, as I described him the other day, 'famously down on faith communities.' But he is quick to point out that he enjoys Greenbelt and shares the frustration of faith communities that the media promote fruit loops (my word not his) to be spokespeople. He is gentle at a guy whose phone rings, using it to illustrate a point he is making about time.

The show is called The Importance of Being Interested and in a manic sweep of the scientific world we are entertained with insights and wit about evolution, parenting, particle physics, astrology and several pictures of the world's most bonkers-looking creatures. The image of a crab that puts a sponge on its head as a defence mechanism will stay with me. Maybe I won't laugh at elderly men in hats quite so much in future.

Ince's point about the great scientists is that they were interested in observing. A story about playing different types of musical instruments to earthworms to see if they had any range of hearing at all is hilarious in the picture it conjures but also, actually, good science. Darwin is famous for deducing the Origin of Species from finch observations but he also did a lot of worm-watching and barnacle scrubbing. His daughter once asked a friend where her father kept his barnacles.

( I lived, as a child, with my mother, father, sister and an aunt - I once asked a friend where his aunt slept and discovering not all people had an aunt live with them was a little bit of growing up.)

Ince describes this show as a four hour one which he has to get into 90 minutes tonight. It does feel a little rushed but, observing the man on stage describing the range of his reading and extent of his contact book, wouldn't be surprised if the four hour one feels rushed too. Not a criticism. He rushes because his child-like fascination with everything and everyone fills him and inspires him.

He has to fit the show into an hour in Cheltenham today. Good luck with that.

But Ince is just the sort of person I need to hear at a festival of ideas. He reminds me to be fascinated. Frankly I don't need much reminding although my enthusiasm is for how people's emotional and spiritual lives work.

Every time I go to one of these events I tell myself to go to more. I will look out, I remind myself again, for things to attend that are slightly outside my current range of interest. In that, will be learning and development.

Nailsea Uganda Water Project

.Since I spent quite a long time on the home page of the Woodspring Conservative Association web-site in 2010, apparently showing warmth and enthusiasm to the Conservative candidate, and having had to live with the large amount of abuse that this engendered from my friends who felt my political impartiality was shot, I gladly reproduce a picture I have been sent of said candidate, now my MP, embracing the Nailsea Uganda Water Project. Why didn't we order red sweat-shirts? Or even funnier, yellow? This, by the way, is our former Defence Secretary, the Eurosceptic, Atlanticist, Unionist, Thatcherite Dr Liam Fox MP. We have so much in common, both being carbon-based humanoid life-forms on the third planet from the Sun.

 

 

Quote Book Index 341-350

Richard Foster again:

348. Submission is power ... when we submit to others, we have access to their wisdom, their counsel, their rebuke, their encouragement.
(Money, Sex and Power)

Quote Book Index 331-340

In case you haven't been keeping up, I am slicing up the job of indexing my quote books by doing it ten at a time as often as possible. I call it eating a slug. If you really, gotta, have to eat a slug you want that critter thin-sliced. I will reward your continuing to read by publishing the best of each ten. This latest, from Richard Foster's book 'Money, Sex and Power', is important and also why Monday is the only night of the week on which I will organise a business or training meeting for the home team:

340. The church understands and seeks to enhance ... efforts to cultivate a strong marriage and family. The church refuses to frustrate these goals by proliferating meetings and commitments that separate the family unit.

Thought for the Day

As delivered this morning at 8.45 a.m. on BBC Radio Bristol:

 

Hang on a minute lads; I've just had a great idea. You may well recognise that as the last line from the original 1969 Italian Job movie, famously spoken by Michael Caine's character, Charlie Croker.

 

I wonder. What was the idea?

 

It's great living near a city that has a festival of ideas.

 

This evening, at the Watershed, Francis Spufford will talk about his book Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Make Surprising Emotional Sense.

 

Then tomorrow @-Bristol will host Anthony Grayling on The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism.

 

For me, I find as much learning in the conflict between these two ideas as I find in them individually. I would gladly attend either. I enjoy debate.

 

Words are always better than warfare. Christian writer Brian McLaren talks of there being as much blessing in the conversation as the conversion.

 

St Paul was hanging around in Athens, a place the Bible tells us where people loved talking about the latest ideas. He got to chatting with some of the people there. He was in the market place.

 

He didn't have great success. Some sneered. Some wanted to talk more. Some believed.

 

On Wednesday I have tickets for comedian Robin Ince at The Arnolfini. I may not agree with everything he says as he is famously down on faith communities, but at least I'll be laughing. His title? The importance of being interested.

 

I hope you find something to make you laugh and to make you think today. Have some serious fun. That's a great idea.

Quote Book Index 321-330

A second from Derek Tidball:

325. ...the fact that the outcome of the decision went wrong may not say anything about whether the decision itself was right or wrong.

And Improve Our Communications Skills...

'The main problem here is communication.' I have often heard this said in church meetings, groups and organisations. And when it is said it is often greeted by nodding heads from some (who agree but have never said so) and surprised looks by others (who had no idea it was a problem and even having heard it expressed still can't believe it).

So you carry out a communications review maybe? You discover that people value things that are relatively unimportant and don't want to think about them being changed. When they hear 'communications review' they imagine their favourite thing (organisation's notice board or special place on a shelf full of leaflets) is under threat.

And the review ends up with a huge reporting bias because people will find a way to include that one thing, the single occasion, where they didn't know something they should have known and missed an appointment or responsibility.

And they will weigh in with a critique of that so strongly that they don't recall all the times communication was good. Because no-one ever leaves a meeting or hall and says, 'You know that was exactly the right length.' Or 'The temperature in that room was perfect today.' The one bad experience casts a long shadow over the good ones.

And of course, because this always happens, in a church that has abandoned their Parish Magazine as an effective tool (and I have worked in three) there will be a call for its return.

Three of the parishes I work in currently have A4 folded magazines on white paper (with cardboard, A4 folded covers in a pastel shade) containing predictable vicars' letters, filler 'funnies', cartoons, rotas, adverts from undertakers and information only the members of a small group (who already have it) need to know. But those people get very upset if their group is omitted.

There is an organisation at a local church called After Eights. I have said for some time that the advert for its meeting gives no indication whatsoever as to who might be able to attend. Is it a men's group? Ladies? Adults? Older people? For the first time ever I saw, in the text describing a future meeting, a sentence that addressed 'Ladies'. I had no idea. Shouldn't that be the headline?

Here's the trouble. Initiates easily forget that communication is not only internal. And if you forget that you end up with a notice board containing seventeen different sheets of closely-typed A4 and an organisation that is proud of its communication because, 'Everything is there for you to see.' See? You mean 'read' - with a magnifying glass and a strong constitution.

The trouble in this day and age is not too little communication but too much. And too much poor communication at that. A notice sheet with a notice of the week underlined verbally and any extra local notices that people need to do for an individual congregation. Notice boards in obscure places where no-one stops. Weekly emails (to some congregations, not all). A four times a year parish mailshot. A web-site. Some Facebook and Twitter presence but not consistent. A few leaders have blogs but not all are updated regularly. Extra emails and of course, phone calls, for urgent matters.

We don't have too little communication, we have too much. It is so constant and repetitious it is like missing all the signs in a big store because there are too many. Oh, baskets only. Sorry I never noticed.

And a final problem. Not all those who communicate in writing or up-front are trained at it. But they all seem to think they are good. (Pause to chase cat out of garden.) I hear Dick Lucas say, 'Brother can you summarise your message in a sentence or two?' It means that he thinks you are waffling and should pay more attention to deciding on your main point before speaking. You have to give feedback to the bad notice-givers.

You could appoint a communications officer but unless that person turns out to be passionate about communicating and not put off at the first sign of people being unreceptive (which they are and have every right to be) it will fail. And in a large and growing parish that is almost a part-time job. It is probably beyond the scope of a volunteer with any other responsibilities.

You could strip down communications to a bare minimum. Rely on word-of-mouth more because everyone is talking about what we are doing. And add in new layers only when it becomes absolutely obvious that we can't do without them.

I am not a good editor. I have too few completer/finisher genes. But I can write, a bit. If asked to 'wordsmith' a piece of writing I will normally shorten sentences and take out three syllable words. I don't muck around with the sense of a piece but simply try to make its current intention more readable.

And I have tried, over the years, to capture a certain amount of precision in my spoken contributions which I restrict, if possible, to those occasions when I have something to say. It is a lifetime's learning and I may peak soon as old-age and forgetfulness start to take their cut. If you have never listened to yourself it is a good exercise to record a meeting you are involved in and then listen back to your contributions. How many words did you use before there was something people could grab onto to know what the subject was? Did you know what you wanted to say before you started speaking. Did you change the subject? Was everyone ready for that? How did the length of your contributions compare to everyone else's?

And for those who chair or co-ordinate. My bugbear. Is this the sort of meeting where you need to indicate to the chair that you want to speak? Some guidance from the front at the beginning please.

A few years back I helped interview some people for a communications job. One of the questions was 'How will you make internal communications in the organisation more effective?' The answer from one person, which surprised me but gave me a sense of the applicant's big vision for the work, was that he would make the organisation so famous around the country by telling everyone what we were up to that everyone internally would be sure to be aware. Internal comms would be solved by external. I think he scared everyone and didn't get appointed.

But I loved the vision.

So my closing question in all communication problems is this: Will you want to know what's going on so much that you will make sure you find out even if the communication is poor? Because if you do, perversely, the communication will be good.

Quote Book Index 310-320

From Derek Tidball's excellent little book 'How Does God Guide?'

320. God can and does guide through 'bolts from the blue'. But far from being a simpler or more privileged form of guidance these means are fraught with as many problems as others.

Thought for the Day - BBC Radio Bristol

Here's my 115 seconds of spiritual provocation for this morning:

Ever thought of yourself as an expert? Experts don't have to be famous.

 

I'll be at the North Somerset Show later. I go every year. There will be experts there in everything from guinea to Gloucester pigs - drizzle cakes to delicate crafts - dry-stone wall building to dead-skin-eating fish.

 

And people who put the engines off World War II fighter planes into tractors. Bit bonkers but the noise and raw power is immense.

 

Expect terrier racing, cider sampling, owl protection, pick 'n' mix confection, tree pollarding and relay races on horseback.

 

A huge variety of specialists. All fantastically skilful in their little area of expertise in their small bit of the world.

 

You may not build, bake or breed, but you are an expert in one thing. Yourself. The finest you there has ever been. There was no prototype. You know yourself better than anyone else.

 

I bet you do something better than anyone around. Nobody knows more than you about that bit of land adjoining your house. You could count its beetles or record the wind speed every day. Bingo. Expert.

 

In the Bible King David told people to be happy that they are fearfully and wonderfully made. Jesus told people to rejoice that their names are written in the book of life. St Paul told people to embrace that nothing can separate them from the love of God.

 

Exciting possibilities for any individual. Not exactly down-beat. We can all live a unique life but have a common potential destiny.

 

You are amazing. Fearfully and wonderfully made. But to avoid meeting your maker too soon, don't stand in front of the tractors.

 

Good morning.

Sermon on John 13:31-35

In case anyone local wondered what I said when preaching away last Sunday, here it is:

 

Morecambe 28/4/13

 

John 13:31-35

 

A New Commandment?

 

Did Jesus actually do anything new? Good question. Better question than you would imagine. Feeding miracles? Nah, Elijah did that. Walking on water? Joshua and Moses didn't even have to do that, they parted it, and for a reason not just to show off. Healings? Again the Old Testament prophets were there first, also with raisings from the dead. One of the reasons people thought Jesus might have been Elijah was because of the myth of him being carried off into heaven in a chariot. He hadn't actually died so he may come back. Constantly John and Jesus were confused with Elijah.

 

But Jesus did give sight to the blind, something no OT prophet ever did. And whilst the ten commandments were a sort of back stop - so it's OK to beat someone half to death as long as I don't actually kill them - the new commandment in this Sunday's Gospel from John is to love one another as Jesus loves us. And this stated at a time when the full extent of Jesus' love - what he was going to do in what we know as Holy Week - was as yet unknown although John, as he wrote, knew the outcome.

 

Jesus' standards, at the time he was said to have spoken the words, were compassion, healing, exorcism and resuscitation. He had spoken of, but not yet carried out, laying down his life for his friends.

 

They are the standards we are set when we hear of the new commandment. The highest possible. Not that you do not murder. Not that you do to others what you would want them to do to you and vice versa. Not that you love your enemies. But that you love one another the Jesus way. Unconditionally putting others first.

 

At a wedding I often explain to a couple that they are not making an agreement but a covenant. Then I explain the difference. Joining hands the groom makes his promises to the bride and then hands are loosed again. Then the rejoined hands hear the bride make her promises. This is not 'I will do this for you if you will do this for me.' It is 'I will do this for you whatever.' We, the witnesses to this imaginary wedding, hear two separate and unrelated promises going on in parallel. Nothing this other person can do will stop me keeping my promises, for my promises have no conditions attached. But if the strength of those two promises motivates both parties in a marriage and they say them with meaning and commitment, and repeat them in their hearts every day of their marriage until parted by death, then the marriage will surely last.

 

Of course we all know that the road where one party means it and the other does not is a road to abuse, violence, manipulation, doubt and mistrust. A horror package. One party might become a doormat.

 

And, of course, this is not a tale of marriage but a tale of Jesus' unconditional love. What happens when one party begins to demonstrate loving one another without waiting for it to be reciprocated. The trouble with starting to love unconditionally is that someone needs to go first.

 

And that is what Jesus did. He went first. In pursuit of love he went to his death voluntarily.

 

Some people suggest that churches are emptying around the country because the Christian faith is inadequate as an expression of what life is all about. On the contrary. At its heart. At its crux (a word that means cross) is a standard so high it is not that it is inadequate but over-adequate. We ask too much. Instead of asking people to be second-milers we wonder if they wouldn't mind awfully going a few yards and then getting someone else to take their turn on the rota.

 

Church. A place where people who toil and don't seek for rest, fight and don't heed the wounds, labour and ask for no reward save that of knowing we do God''s will. Nice words. Someone should make them into a prayer.

 

You are tough. You are here. You want to identify with this man who took all the hundreds of positive and negative Old Testament laws that the scribes and teachers tried to explain and expound and boil them down to one simple, pithy saying. We'll go out from here and we'll love others as Jesus has loved us, using our weekly communion together as refreshment and recharging. Well? Will you?

 

I might try. Probably last a couple of hours before someone annoys me. After all I have to embrace the M5/M6 junction on my journey home. But I'll give it a go. Join me?

 

One day, says Revelation 21:5, the risen and ascended Jesus will make everything new. Meantime, by by this 'new' way of living says Jesus, others will notice. You bet they will.

Speaker Traits

There are many ways a speaker can put you at your unease. New one last week.

Never before has a preacher put me in mind of one of those electric fans which sweep a room with cooling air in the summer (summer is the fourth season of the year in other parts of the world, English chums). He never got precise eye contact with an individual and yet the repetitive left to right movement made me nauseous.

Left two three, right two three, left two three. A little too far above our heads for any cooling breeze of insight to waft in.

Terrible. If he has friends they should tell him. He is an experienced public speaker.

Starting Ecclesiastes

For those who'd rather read than listen here is my opening to our series of sermons on Ecclesiastes. If you want to compare delivery to script go to our church's web-site.

 

Trendlewood

21/4/13

Ecclesiastes Series

Chapter 1 Life is a bag of pants.

So when I wrote some notes on this book for a teenage Bible study series some years ago that was what we called it.

It's my favourite book of the Bible so I've been very patient not timetabling it for a sermon series for six years.

I've got three parts today. An introduction to the whole book, some comments on the content of chapter one, and four spiritual exercises you might like to pick one from.

Introduction

Feeling down? Weary? Need a helping hand? Tough. Read Ecclesiastes and you’ll discover, that the only way is down, down, deeper and down.

If you've ever listened to a song and thought, ‘That’s a great line but I’ve no idea what the song is about,' welcome to Ecclesiastesworld; a world where there are some great one-liners but the theme of the song is a little hard to grasp. Our author starts his (it was probably a ‘him’) look at life by leaving God out of the equation and looking at life through atheistic spectacles.

Still, mustn’t grumble. Sometimes it can help you when you’re down to discover that other people have been down there too and got back up again, at least a bit.

So prepare for ‘...Meaningless! Meaningless! ..Everything is meaningless.’ (1:2), ‘The more the words, the less the meaning...’ (6:11) and, ‘Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.’ (12:12).

In Ecclesiastes we look at life from the non-God point of view. The conclusion? Well it’s used pants, frankly. Life is useless, meaningless, vanity and a chasing after wind.

And it is true. Without an understanding of a creator/sustainer God, the world certainly has pants-like tendencies. Ecclesiastes is going to help us explore our world-view.

But the writer occasionally offers glimmers of hope and snatches of wisdom. Life looked at from a purely human point of view seems largely pointless. But God is in the picture and you can’t ignore him.

We will spend the next few weeks in the company of a teacher and philosopher who saw a lot of stuff going on, wondered what it all meant and ended up seeing God in the midst of the chaos.

Ecclesiastes is not a particularly clearly structured book and the chapter headings in the Bible are not especially significant.

Ecclesiastes has recurring themes rather than clear structure.

It feels like a collection of recollections (Those two words - interesting.)

So who is this ‘teacher’ (v1)? The actual Hebrew word Quoheleth is not easy to translate. ‘Teacher’ is one attempt, but it could just as easily be ‘philosopher’. Probably not ‘preacher’. This person had a school of followers not a pulpit for the public.

Vv12-18 tell us that this book has been placed on the lips of a great king with a reputation for wisdom. That can only mean Solomon, a man who enjoyed many of the great things the writer of the book seems to attain but finds useless.

But a word of caution. In the world of the Old Testament it would be a tribute to ascribe a book of wisdom to the school of Solomon. It does not mean he wrote it all.

Content

So here are today’s philosophy starters, and remember you’re not allowed to answer as if God exists. Not today, anyway. (I know that’s rude to God but bear with me; it’s just a training exercise):

• Why bother to work? (v3)

• Why doesn’t the sea fill up? (v7)

• Is there anything new? (v10)

• Will anybody remember you when you’re dead? (v11)

• Is life pointless? (whole passage)

Try and think of the different world-views (ways that other people make sense of the world). Christians, hopefully, have a biblical world-view. What other world views are there?

(Talk to neighbour then shout some out)

The second half of our chapter has some explanation (not necessarily answers). Vv12-18. Unless wisdom starts with God it will not get us anywhere.

We are also privileged in a way that the philosopher of Ecclesiastes wasn't.

We read Ecclesiastes from the other side of Jesus.

Application

1. We asked the question, ‘Is anything new?’ Ponder on. There are all sorts of inventions and loads of creative people, but is anything really ‘new’ rather than simply advancement. What about the creation of a piece of music? Is that creation out of nothing?

2. The passage seems to suggest not that we are uncreative but that each generation faces the same type of problems. They just come round again. We don’t learn from experience. Resolve to learn from every mistake you make. The most trainable people in the world are those for whom even a negative experience is a learning experience. Review and learn.

3. We often give a copy of one of the Gospels to friends interested in exploring Christianity. Why not give them a Bible and suggest they start with Ecclesiastes? Its absence of easy answers and its relevance to the human condition might make it the perfect starting point for the unconventional explorer. You’ll need to be around to answer questions but you might have a better conversation if you give them a copy of Ecclesiastes.

4. Some Christians find Ecclesiastes a very difficult book. They ask questions such as, ‘What’s it doing in the Bible?’ Others love it and consider it their favourite book. You might like to think about why it has managed to be so divisive?

Broadchurch

Enjoyed Broadchurch wrapping up last night, a TV series that has been grown-up, has not ducked the awkward questions and did not have a comfortable Hollywood ending. There were a few slightly odd continuity moments and the accents were not always bang on but the scripting was good, as was the pace and the plot. It dealt with the harsh reality of a family who had had a child murdered and how that interrupted all the sinful mess of the affected lives.

What does it do to the quality of your affair if one of you loses a child? How do you comfort someone you have been cheating on? A murder in town means that lots of innocent people's dirty washing will soon be on view.

The acting was very good I thought. Immediate grief is not too hard to do but to keep the underlying theme going while getting back to 'normal'. That is tough. Well done to the ensemble cast.

And we don't all live lives of gentle conformity. Some choose to be loners. Some choose to move to a place to try again when they have had a previous calamity and don't want that raked-up if they are coping well. Getting questioned about a murder you didn't do when you have something to hide feels as unfair as being done for drink-driving after you have been rear-ended by a bad, sober driver.

I am sure some of the police procedures were not kept to - visiting people on remand, confronting relatives and witnesses in police stations, allowing someone to work on when they are medically unfit, visiting a crucial suspect alone. But it did try to redeem all the people who were not guilty whose happenstance made it look as if they might be. It showed us a town where a murder suddenly has everyone viewed with suspicion. Good stuff and a chance to ponder deep themes of human nature.

And of course the added benefit (especially in the early episodes) of us locals all enjoying views of the Clevedon we know well. Even if it did pretend to be in Dorset. St Andrew's living is being advertised in the Church Times right now - as seen on TV? No, you won't have a vicar as bad as that to follow.

I hope the second series, which they deserve, will be cleverly constructed. If it's still called Broadchurch then there's a danger it will become Midsomer. Maybe they could learn from The Wire and change more than you might expect between series. I think I trust these people to get it right.

Brief Communication Workshop

I was talking to a guy last Sunday who was feeding a child. As our conversation continued he concentrated on me, ignoring the open mouth in front of him awaiting another shovelful. As his wife took over she offered this as a further piece of evidence that men can't multi-task. She may well be right (about some men some of the time, not all men all of the time). There are certain points at which those of us, who find inter-action draining, have to really concentrate. If we don't, we find we have agreed to things we didn't want to do, or to things we won't be able to remember a day, (OK ten minutes) later.

I had a good conversation with another man yesterday about not paying attention in meetings, the person expressing gratitude that I was able to tune back in pretty quickly when I looked absent-minded. I have had this all my life and can hear various teachers from the past saying 'You haven't listened to a word I said.'

Strangely, in one such incident, in a Latin lesson in about 1970, I can still remember precisely the thing I was accused of not attending to. 'Cum takes the subjunctive in the imperfect tense.' I told him. Thing is, I have no idea what it means. Never have had and, since I don't care, never will. I floored that teacher and he had to apologise. He should have apologised that his subject wasn't taught with a grip or enthusiasm that caught his pupils up and fascinated them.

Why is it then that if I zone out in a long meeting (or at least let my visual interface drop) it is my fault? I find meetings draining.

Here's a tip. No speeches in meetings, for the benefit of those of us who might be more gripped by inter-activity than lectures. Short sentences, agreed outcomes, specific subjects to discuss and please, please, please, spare us the five minute contribution that covers such a range of issues that the concluding question 'What do you think?' is not capable of a short answer. (In such cases someone responding often picks a small detail and explains their opinion about that. Then a whole broad discussion about a massive programme can become a discussion about plug sockets in one room.)

A meeting is a way of saving time - we get more done by getting together than we could do alone. A member of my family drove hundreds of miles to a meeting yesterday which was delayed by an accident, had the venue moved without consultation and the subject matter of which was communicated differently to three of the five attendees none of whom can give a clear summary of what has been agreed. How this business has survived the downturn is beyond me sometimes and I reckon yesterday cost the company four figures (my calculation based on probable salaries and cost per mile).

I think this is a memo to the chair-people. We need to know what we're supposed to be talking about. We need to know why you need us to care. And on the drive back we need to feel it wasn't a waste of that precious resource - petrol.

If we are not stuck in it might be because you aren't gripping. Still; will try harder in future.

Quote Book Index 301-310

Robertson Davies' book 'Murther and Walking Spirits' was not one I enjoyed but it had some good lines:

303. Has anybody ... ever been brought up on a strict diet of the Best That Has Been Thought and Said? We all need to take aboard a certain amount of rubbish to keep us human.

Quote Book Index 290-300

Paul Theroux in 'The Kingdom by the Sea' on England:

295. ...upright and antique and church-going, with all the colour schemes wrong.

Tales from Tacklake - 2. John's dog.

It's been a quiet week in Tacklake. The single set of traffic lights continued to change without requiring maintenance or repair. The River Tack maintained its course to the sea, barely stopping to notice that it had widened imperceptibly and that locals had called that place a lake. Nominative determinism sees to it that this small town (big village?) has a name that works.

Here John, local pub owner, is walking his dog, mid-morning.

The three historic Tacklake families, the ones who have lived here since it was no more than a village unfamiliar with the County Development Plan, do not have appropriate names.

There are the Butchers. Whilst there is still a lean to building behind their shop which was once the end of a short journey for animals about to become meat, they were put out of business by the two supermarkets some years ago. Their sideline of meat pastry products remained popular however and so Butchers are now bakers. Fred Butcher walks to work well before dawn.

Then there are the Trowts. They ought, all things being equal, to run the small trout farm on the opposite side of town to the lake. They don't. Trowt is a family name and the family is descended from the ninth Earl of Pembroke, an adulterous man who left Wales when the ninth Lady Pembroke discovered him in a rarely used loft room with an often-abused domestic assistant. The Trowts are, as they say, big in the city, although as the city is not London they are not that big. But they still live in large enough houses to employ domestics, albeit ones who no longer live on their nerves.

Finally the Smiths. All Smiths are probably descended from smiths. The days when the rural idyll of England required horses to be shod regularly are long gone. There are more Smiths in Tacklake than the law of averages would have allocated but none of them have anything to do with horses. Even Harvey, oldest son of George and Ruth Smith and named after their favourite show-jumper, remains gloriously undetermined by his moniker. He did once steal a tractor and drive it round the lake. It was as close to rural as he ever got. Sobering up the next day he drove it back to the farm where he had found it and apologised. Arthur Field (yes, at least one name fits), who lost a teenage son in the army, was forgiving. He wondered if this is the sort of thing his Billy would have done if it hadn't been for an - he can't bring himself to call it an improvised explosive device. A bomb left his Billy in bits.

The Butchers are bakers, the Trowts are bankers and the Smiths are what-have-you-got?

The lake is a popular place with dog walkers, most of whom diligently clear up after their pets and carry small black bags of shit on their walks. Today John carries two, his collie too excited to do all his business in one go.

By mid morning, especially at weekends, the campaign led by one particularly militant mobility scooter user leaves walkers in danger of being run down by the differently able. The same percentage of the can't-walk is dangerous at buggy driving as we find with the can-walk and cars.

There is a yelp as a border collie is struck by a sticking-out crutch. Its back is cut. There is blood everywhere. The mobility scooter doesn't stop. It is a hit and run. John could chase it. It is not going as fast as a runner could. But his dog is in pain and he weighs up how much he really wants to be shouting at a disabled woman about being more careful in future. It wouldn't end well. It could cost him business and times are hard enough. He has a towel in the car and wipes the dog down. Petsafe Insurance is about to save him some cash.

It's been a quiet day in Tacklake. No one died; no one was born. On his late evening walk a black and white border collie wears the lampshade of shame. Other dogs pass by and John can feel the owners' disdain at his bloody, stitched up pet. 'Why couldn't he care for it?'

He wants a banner to proclaim. 'Run over by crazy cripple.'

But around Tacklake people will be talking. He knows it. 'That John...' he imagines them saying, '...he should look after his dog more carefully.' Then they discuss how unwise it is to keep a lively dog cooped up in a pub yard all day.

But the dog is happy. He has a routine and the cut will heal. He's in no hurry. He won't have to wait for the traffic lights to change when Tacklake's rush fifteen minutes begins tomorrow.

BBC Slogan

BBC Radio 4 self-promoting advert this morning:

We've been bringing you the future since 1922. Makes you wonder. Where next?

OK BBC; I've wondered for whole second and have come to a conclusion. How stupid do you think I am?

Quote Book Index 281-290

A famous one this; most will have heard of it but it bears repetition. From 18th C political philosopher Edmund Burke:

290. Nobody made a greater mistake, than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.

Tales from Tacklake - 1. Enid's Funeral.

It's been a quiet week in Tacklake. A few people died, some were born and matters of great concern were few.

Pastor Peters cleans the mud off his best black shoes, the victims of a clarty graveyard after the drought broke. It wasn't the most difficult funeral he had ever done, although the bearers carrying Donny Davies' mortal remains to his final resting place possibly wished the deceased had followed more assiduous dietary advice. They got a sweat on; not common round here in March. Mind you, if he had followed dietary advice Donny probably wouldn't have been troubling the undertakers yet.

The worst funeral I ever did? Pastor Peters ponders. The questioner, in the Three Tuns after the burial, doesn't really want to know about the babies, the accident victims and the suicides. He wants one of Pastor Peters' stories. And he's told the ones about the grave full of water, the stuck hearse door and the order of service misprint many times.

'Let me see' says the Pastor, a sign that he does have a tale to tell. Glasses are recharged and a small crowd gathers.

The Pastor recalls his first funeral here, some years ago. He hadn't really got to grips with the local habits or sensitivities. Robed and ready he walked through the churchyard to greet the mourners and coffin. His first Tacklake funeral. Enid Bale - deceased.

He whispers a few words to Arthur, the Undertaker - a greying man, sombre, elegant and masonic. Then he greets Jim, recent widower, who went to the Maldives with a wife and came back with a corpse. Elderly, but none the less tragic. Holidays shouldn't be like that. Then he turns to the bearers to offer the ubiquitous, 'Thank you gentlemen' - the sign that they should remove the coffin from the hearse.

A man dressed in faded jeans and white T-shirt is walking a dog along the road. He doesn't stop out of respect. Few do these days. Behind him another man walks determinedly over to the funeral party. He walks between Arthur and Jim and comes right up to Pastor Peters. He speaks from too close in, the way only the rudely unaware do.

'How long's this going to go on for?' He spits the question at Pastor Peters whose glasses become blurred by saliva.

Pastor Peters is an experienced priest. But he's never had to cope with this before.

The good pastor thinks quickly. How long's what? The funeral? About 30 minutes and then to the graveside. He can't mean that. This is a generic question. The man is angry about something more than funeral length. But what? Pastor Peters is aware that the bearers now have the coffin half in and half out of the hearse, although Enid does not present anything like the challenge Donny will in a few years time. He looks at his accuser in a way that only good pastors can, inviting him to elaborate without saying so.

The spitter gestures around at the black Daimlers and hearse which are temporarily blocking the quiet lane. 'Emergency vehicles couldn't get through.'

So, here is the problem. Not this funeral but a local resident angry at the church's occasional - Spitter would say 'constant' - disruption. A Tudor church is disrupting the traffic its builders never imagined.

Pastor Peters runs through all the things it would be inappropriate to say. 'The church was here before the car.' Probably not helpful. 'Well if someone dies we have an undertaker handy' is speedily dismissed. Followed by, 'If you keep interrupting this funeral you'll be the one who needs the emergency services.' No. That might start a fight too. 'You insensitive bastard' is also quickly eliminated from enquiries. The insensitive are rarely calmed by being reminded of their affliction.

He breathes and pauses. 'I'm not sure this is an appropriate moment to have this conversation' he says. 'Why not pop round to the Church office and leave your name and address. I'll come and talk to you later. I don't think it's fair to keep this family waiting.'

Remarkably, Spitter notices what he's just done. He doesn't apologise to anyone but he harrumphs and turns to leave. The funeral commences with Pastor Peters intoning 'I am the resurrection and I am the life' in the middle of an adrenaline rush. It is not until Enid is resting in peace that his heart-rate is doing the same.

Popping into the parish office he discovers that Spitter is well known to the local church team but he has never done anything like that before. 'Glad it wasn't one of the curates that happened to' says the wise office administrator.

Indeed. Except you only get to be an experienced pastor by things like that happening to you. That's the punchline.

The gathered look at the Pastor who taps his glass affectionately. A pint appears and a toast to Donny is offered. Bar manager Paul joins in with a false smile, aware that this death has seriously dented his profit margin.

Quote Book Index 270-280

277. The C of E is '...an institution uniquely designed to frustrate the aims for which it is created.'
(Anon quoted by the late Bp Hugh Montefiore in the Church Times 8/2/91).

Yes folks; we've only reached 1991.

Wet Wellies

After a few days of dry weather I had been dog-walking in old trainers but my wellies remained right outside the front door. Today it had been very wet over-night and was a definite welly day. As I placed the first one on I had that unmistakable sense of deja vu for the days when I used to go caving occasionally. A slightly leaky downpipe had filled my wellies with water.

Now once upon a day my reaction would have been to tip the water out. In fact I was taught that would be an an error. If cavers are unlucky they get very wet. Normally all cavers are unlucky. (That joke © a caving instructor in about 1980something and I doubt he wrote it).

If you tip the water out and then go into a cave where your wellies are constantly being refilled, you end up with freezing water around your toes all the time. And be sure, cave water is very cold at all times of year.

So if you find your wellies are full of water, put them on. Within about 30 seconds you will have warm water around your toes. When you get home tip any remaining water out, put your socks in the wash and rejoice at your warm toes. Trust me; it works.

That will be 20 guineas. Good morning.

RIP Lady Thatcher

It is interesting hearing and reading the assessment of the Thatcher legacy. My young adulthood corresponded with Thatcher. I grew up in a Conservative voting family and married a girl from the same. 1979 was the first election where I had a chance to register a vote about which I had thought. I was 18 in 1973 and so had a couple of early elections where I voted for Ted Heath. He was, I think, my sort of conservative - arts patronage, euro-friendly and willing to take on the Trades Unions. Tweaked stuff but didn't try to redesign everything. He was seen as pompous (because he was a sailor and an orchestral conductor) and lost a second election to Harold Wilson. But I voted for him because my family did and we hosted Conservative Association fund-raisers. MP Harold Gurden was a family friend in the late 60s early 70s.

There then followed five years, 1974-79 where a Labour Government tried to stand up to Trades Union power and lost. Their restriction on public-sector wage rises led to massive strikes, a three day week, the potential of petrol rationing (coupons were issued but not used), power cuts, uncollected refuse and dead bodies not being buried. It was impossible to imagine that this could be turned round without a change of government. Callaghan succeeded Wilson.

If you want to know what it really felt like to live in the 1970s political world read Andy Beckett's excellent When the Lights Went Out (What Really Happened to Britain in the Seventies). And to grasp the 1980s which followed I suggest Jonathan Coe's novel What a Carve Up.

Thatcher only got a majority of forty-three in 1979. Some were obviously prepared to continue the war of attrition against the power of the unions. But she offered no beer and sandwiches at 10 Downing Street. She blamed Trades Unions for all Britian's problems.

Her 1979 Saatchi slogan Labour isn't Working was genius but sadly the unemployment figures never came back down below the one million mark she had mocked, throughout her entire spell in charge. (The unemployment rate had five out of eighteen years when it was marginally lower than pre-1979). After three years when it almost doubled 1979-1981 inflation came down to nearer to the levels we experience today, but unemployment was part of the price. The other was interest rates which were kept high at around 10 or 11% the whole of her Premiership. Good news for savers; bad for borrowers.

I think that any change would have made a difference and what happened next owes more to luck and tipping points than anything else. Anyone who has seen the film 'Being There' in which Peter Sellers' character Chauncey Gardiner (who is a gardener and speaks in gardening metaphors) is mistaken for a wise political philosopher and promoted to high office will feel they know Mrs T's story too. Thatcher was at the right place in the right time.

She was single-minded. She took on the unions and saw the battle through. Not by allowing a fight to the death but by making their activity (such as secondary picketing) illegal and closing the 'closed shop' in which one could not work in a particular industry without belonging to a union. This allowed an employer to bring others in to do work when the workforce was on strike and thus removed a load of the union power at a stroke.

Me in late 1970s

The idea of ridiculous wage claims (the merchant seamen, I recall, put in for 90% to the Heath Government) disappeared at a stroke.

Now this was divisive and unpopular. Slowly removing state backing and subsidy from many industries, when our international competitors were not, devastated many communities, especially in Scotland and the north of England. She was heading for the out-door.
There were riots in 1981 on a scale not previously seen.

In order to be re-elected she needed another lucky break and got it with a just-about winnable war. Not many politicians would have had the arrogance to go for the Falklands and the advice from around the world was that she should not. She ignored the lot and 1982's victory saw her popularity get a short-term surge.

Max Hastings says she could only have done what she did at that particular moment in history (meaning 1979ff). So maybe if it hadn't been her it would have been someone else like her. The next PM would have been the most memorable of the 20th century because things couldn't go on as they were. That was agreed.

With deregulation of the banks a load of people who had previously been small-timers and market stall holders grasped the idea of working in the pit at the stock exchange, on which they made massive amounts of money. On the back of that they did up their houses and the wages of such as plasterers went up, on which Harry Enfield based his Loadsamoney character. What is often forgotten is that he also had a Geordie character called Boogerallmoney.

Lucky break three was not being killed by the IRA in 1984 in Brighton during the Party Conference season. If she had been in bed rather than accepting persuasion to look at one more set of papers at about 2 a.m. she would probably have died. Sadly she lost some friends and colleagues that day but her survival enabled her to go to Conference the next day on time as if nothing had happened.

Add this to the tipping point that enough people had now gained. A selfish democracy, house-owning and small business booming, voted for their own gain not for the whole country to gain, and elected her once more in 1987.

I think she was a determined, arrogant house-wife who could get things done. Some of the things were good, some were bad, some had long-term consequences of which no-one dreamt (who considered building council houses to replace the sold-off ones? who thought that market de-regulation would give us a porn industry to dominate the internet?) and some made a shift-change in the world.

And on that global stage no-one knew how to deal with her and so internationally she was able to intervene in the Cold War with a determination that, coming from a woman, was somehow not threatening. She wooed them all and got Reagan and Gorbachov to get on.

I grew to hate her political ideology. Doing something about our inner-cities for her seemed to involve architecture not community. In fact she thought there was no such thing as society and in a stroke promoted selfishness. The successful climbed over the bodies of those who had lost everything. She didn't seem to notice or care.

Fourth piece of happen-stance. In 1983 and 1987 there was no electable opposition. Michael Foot's Labour Party couldn't get the attention of the masses. The formation of the SDP in 1981 until its merger with the Liberals in 1988 divided the left. A few thousand votes leaking from Labour to the SDP in my constituency of Nottingham North in 1987 got the sitting Tory back in by a 300 majority. This was repeated around the country. Her majority became three figures for the next two victories, although never up to the levels of new Labour's landslides of 1997 and 2002.

Her theology sucked. She spoke the prayer of St Francis on arrival and didn't bring harmony out of discord. She refused to forgive those who had dumped her on her eventual departure in 1990. She floored an interviewer by saying the essence of Christianity is choice (it isn't; it's Jesus). She may as well have said the essence is selfishness for all the influence it had upon her. Her compassion was non-existent. She didn't care about collateral damage. She genuinely thought whole northern communities should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps once their pit closed. Norman Tebbit summarised her thinking at the time by telling the unemployed to get on their bikes and look for work like his Dad had.

She said no-one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he hadn't had any money; a bit like saying no-one would have remembered Alice in Wonderland if she hadn't fallen down a rabbit hole. And missing the point about those who should have shown compassion passing the poor and destitute by on the other side of the road.

So as we listen to the discussion about her legacy we find the country as divided as it was when she led it. For every winner there was a loser. For every success a failure. It is an irregular verb:

I am determined
You are single minded
She is stubborn

Asked about Cameron's coalition government in 2010 she commented, in a rare moment of recent lucidity, 'I'm not in coalition with the Liberals.' Max Hastings comment proves correct.

Significant? Yes. Successful? Yes and no? Great? I can't agree. I'd settle for unique.

Big Blogger

St: Hi BB. You been there long?

BB: You don't seem yourself at the moment?

St: Say more.

(Beat)

Sorry. Silly of me. Well to tell the truth I am a bit drained.

BB: Don't you normally tell the truth?

St: It's just an expression.

BB: Unlike you to waste words.

St: True. I've not been myself recently. Damn.

BB: Damn?

St: Yeah. You're always convincing me you're not going to pull the football away and then you do.

BB: Sorry Charlie.

St: Think that reference will be lost on most of my readers?

BB: I think it will be lost on both of them.

St: Good put down.

BB: So, you let me make you own up. Like you always do. What's the problem?

St: I'm not really sure. Good things are happening but more of them will happen if I do more. But I am struggling to do more because if I do more I leave myself drained by too much inter-action.

BB: So don't do more.

St: You make it sound so easy. Don't you have a conscience?

(Beat)

I know. I know.

BB: You need to eat a slug.

St: That is the best advice you've ever given me. I do. Tomorrow I will dice 'more' up very thinly and eat a small slice of it. Thanks.

BB: Usual fee?

St: How much do I owe you?

BB: Everything.

Big Blogger is a figment of St's imagination who turns up and gives him a helpful grilling every now and again.

BB: Who are you calling a figment?

Quote Book Index 261-270

262. ...the task of the church is not to ask what Jones will swallow but to decare to Jones what there is to eat. (William Temple)

Quote Book Index 250-260

I've used this quote from Spurgeon quite a lot. Never pinned it down to a source but have heard others use it too. Challenged by someone with, 'Mr Spurgeon I don't like your method of evangelism', he replied:

260. I don't care much for it myself, but I like the way I'm doing it better than the way you're not.

Quote Book Index 240-250

I note that the figures for those reading my posts are right down when it is a new quote of the day compared to the stuff I write about everything else. You are, however, helping me, to do a long-put-off job of indexing my quote books. If I do it at the rate of ten a day I will have finished by 2016 maximum. Other wise it would have taken ages. Michael Cole again:

243. Today, sadly, many (of us) are living subnormal lives, so that we have come to accept the subnormal as normal.

Quote Book Index 231-240

More from Michael Cole:

235. Most of us do not have problems with the theory of acknowledging the lordship of Jesus and the right of the elected leaders to lead. It is only when specific situations affect us personally that our obedience both to the Lord and to the leaders is tested.

Easter Tuesday

We take a break from getting back to work - I say take a break; I mean avoid - to bring you some news. The three causes of choice at Waitrose, into one of which I deposit my little green plastic token to select a charity, are renewed monthly. This adds a frisson of small-town excitement to food shopping at the start of each month.

Popping into town just now to get mother-in-law's Daily Tel****ph and some of the lovely Colin's fresh bread ('Haven't seen you for a few weeks sir, how are you? Can't train that can you?), I had a green token to deposit.

Now I give my vote in this general order:

1. People/poverty needs
2. People/entertainment needs
3. Animals

So the Parkinson's Disease support group got the vote today.

But I was distracted by this one first:

The Alchemy Trampoline and DMT Club

I now find it is a genuine local gymnastic association. You can find out about it here if you want.

But for a while I wondered if bouncing had been discovered to be the key to the creation of gold or whether, given the renowned properties of tryptamines, it was just that someone had entertained the idea whilst high. A little general knowledge, a slightly misspent youth and a lively imagination is a dangerous thing.

Good morning.

Quote Book Index 221-230

I find I noted a few quotes in a row from Michael Cole's excellent book 'He Is Lord'. Appropriate for a church which has resolved to be Christ-centred in all it does, don't you think?

In worship, he says:

228. ...we shall need to distinguish between what we do from principle and what we do as a result of our cultural heritage and conditioning.

Quote Book Index 211-220

A second visit to Mark Ashton's 'Christian Youth Work', which is full of wise words:

213. If the early church had been perfect, some sort of ideal, then most of the rest of the New Testament would not have needed to have been written. Paul never wrote against his secular persecutors, but against certain people within the local congregations.

Coffee shop

I always found the sort of people who sat in the corner of coffee shops writing, to be very interesting. I am normally in coffee shops in conversation with other people but today I am alone and waiting for my company.

But when with company I'd wonder what the writers were up to. Freelance journalists? Authors developing characters by watching people pass by? Crazy scientists putting the world to rights? Who knows?

And in fact wondering what others are up to is what gets me going. Who are all these people? Why are they here (beyond coffee)? And why, given the small size of my town, have I never seen any of them before?

Actually, just as I typed that, someone came up to me and said hello so I do know at least one.

I'm also aware that I greeted someone on the way in who is no longer here but I chose not to sit by as I was meeting someone. But could have because the someone was late. Coffee shop etiquette. How complex it is.

Anyway not very interesting but I passed the time. Feel free to heckle.

Quote Book Index 200-210

From the late Mark Ashton's Christian Youth Work, a seminal work from the mid-eighties with principles that will never change (although the context of examples is dated). Worth reading for the prophetic nature of some of his writing, and quotes such as this one:

207. Our civilisation is '...creating adults who don't know what to do with delay, discomfort, discouragement and disillusionment.' (Quoting Ronald Hutchcraft)

Progress

I probably follow too much the devices and desires of my own heart but this post is the first one on a desired device. Yes dear readers, Mrs T and I have joined the world of hand-held, portable device owners. I think, for me, I am not an early adopter but neither am I last in. The thing what flipped me from want to need was the amount of paper I needed to print off and take to the Church Council meeting last Monday. We had one discussion which required us to be armed with a thirty-five page booklet of diocesan guidelines. Whilst I am usually pretty content to leave details to others who are more interested in chasing down intricacies, on this occasion I felt left out. So when Mrs T announced that her company was going to take four weeks to purchase her a new laptop and set it up in order for her to be able to do her job she said she was going to get an iPad. It seems a bit daft to have to spend almost your entire week's wages on a machine to enable you to do your job but I am an interested observer of her working life and don't get involved at that level or I'd go madder. So anyway, to cut a long story by a very small amount, I told her to get two. So here we are. Fun aren't they?

Enjoying the battle between Apple and Google spell-checkers on how to spell iPad. I can either have it underlined in red or highlighted in yellow, until I press 'ignore' twice.

Also finding it hard to label posts. Something glitchy going on there.

Hayes and Cahill

Not sure how long ago, must be over ten years, that I heard Hayes and Cahill guest on Later with Jools Holland. Their haunting fiddle lament built into a jig, then a reel (not that I am sure I could define the difference between those two) with Dennis Hayes' acoustic guitar, often simply staying on one chord and providing more rhythm than tune, accompanying Martin Hayes virtuoso playing.
I went out and bought their album, The Lonesome Touch next day.

Holy Trinity Church Nailsea, re-ordered without clutter or anything that might soak up sound, provided the perfect setting for their music last night. As the audience settled down, that solitary fiddle sound, single string at a time, perfectly clean, cut through the ancient atmosphere and left us all spellbound.

The Hayes and Cahill methodology is to mash-up at least five or six different traditional Irish folk tunes, segueing seamlessly into each other and building in speed, rhythmic power and imagination. The second half of their set was built around just two substantial pieces of such music, the second launching off into a giant piece of improvisation, and their single encore was achieved by taking requests and linking them together.

But the moods are not all upbeat. I doubt if this ancient church has ever heard a more lovely piece than Lament for Limerick (I played it on Good Friday a few years back) and I felt an urge to specify it as my funeral music. There won't be a dry eye in the house, not because of my loss (it will stop the laughter and glee) but because of the tune.

In between these extended pieces of music Martin Hayes lists the songs, the composers, a bit of biography and, in a lovely dry way, amuses his audience whilst, presumably, recovering some energy to play again. That neither of them appear to break sweat in an immensely physical performance carried out sitting on chairs, is remarkable.

Absolutely brilliant night out and a real coup for David Francis of the Nailsea Folk club to have achieved it. He's got Martin Joseph coming in June. For the town that gave the world The Wurzels the quality is being stepped up.

Quote Book Index 191-200

This is taking me longer than I thought and will go on for months if I don't try daily rather than trying weekly or trying weakly. Maybe I ought to compromise at tri-weekly. Anyway, here is the best of the last ten:

197: Our task is not to explain the world but to convert it. (William Temple quoted in Mark Ashton's 'Christian Youth Work')

Pressure, Stress and That

Last Thursday I risked saying to a bunch of clergy colleagues that I didn't feel particularly stressed or pressured. I asked if they felt it was a compulsory part of the job. Cue the suggestions which varied:

1. You do but you simply are not admitting it.
2. You've told me about occasions in your life when things were particularly difficult.
3. I can remember some times when we worked together when you were working outside your comfort zone.
4. Christians are called to carry crosses. It's discipleship.

The last three are true but I guess when things are hard I simply see them as a problem to be solved and not a reason to get stressed. I have, in the past, had a panic attack (more like an adrenaline rush) and a doctor told me to sort my life out so I did. It was good advice. So, I am not stressed now does not mean I have never been. Also, being stressed ought to make you less likely to be so in the future unless you never learn from mistakes.

For four years, 2002-2006, post-panic attacks and with a long-term back problem to deal with, I dropped out of the system, was employed privately by one church to do some specific jobs, and made up my salary by writing freelance two days a week. I had no car and walked everywhere. I got better.

But is the first response correct? To some extent it is and it isn't. It might be semantics. I could change my language tomorrow to that of stress, pressure and over-work. Nothing about the actuality on the ground would alter but I would appear more normal to my colleagues. Appearing normal to my colleagues has never been a thought I entertained for longer than a micro... no it's gone.

I think last Thursday I was trying to do two things. Firstly I was trying to help a colleague who had introduced a discussion and then got faced with a time of quiet where nobody spoke. And I imagined that someone would then say something very bland to get the conversation going so I decided that had to be me but didn't say something bland. Secondly, in admitting that I wasn't that stressed or pressured and didn't wake up every day hating my duties, I was being vulnerable. This is an odd thing to say in the 'caring' professions and nobody else wanted to agree. I don't know if that was because they wouldn't or couldn't.

I sometimes despair. It is not that people are unloving or uncaring. It is just that I, who in effect have devised an emulator to do caring because I don't really care and can't make myself, have built a better machine than the real lives used by the ones who claim they do. Caring as a problem to be solved. I wonder if people think I am a good pastor? I don't really care of course and have, after several attempts at the other way, now set up a church so that the people who do care get to do most of the caring. Brilliant, no?

So this week I had problems but not insurmountable ones. I took a bit of time off to recover from dentistry. I had no day off due to circumstances but that is OK and I will catch it up this week. I managed an evening in with nothing to do and a lunch out with Mrs T. I made some progress on things to do but didn't do everything.

The Bishop of Taunton, speaking to a bunch of clergy a couple of years ago suggested a standard of 'Do a modest day's work and then relax.' It is terribly good advice. A good solid run of not sick, not stressed, generally happy days will achieve far more than those who spend their lives sprinting into brick walls and then needing stitching up.

I am convinced by my own spin. If my clergy colleagues aren't then I wish they would either say so more vociferously or no I won't finish that sentence.

Quote Book Index 181-190

Amazing discovery today. There were no numbers 188 and 189. Jumped from 187 to 190 and even left space for two more to be written in but never did. How uninteresting is that readers?

181. '...they're so neanderthal ... the whole management, that after a while you only notice the grosser examples of prejudice.' (David Lodge; Nice Work)

By the way I have written two new ones in the gaps. People such as me couldn't not.

Writing Analysis

I use a number of writing analysis tools to help me, and others, improve their scripts. One thing I have noticed is that none of them are really adequately helpful. Take this example.

Today I wrote my morning words and submitted them to a web-site for analysis.

It tells me that I talk about the past less than average the present less than average and the future less than average. I'd like to think that this means I have found a style of writing that the analysis tools can't quite measure, which may mean I have a unique voice or possibly that I am just weird (stop sniggering).

It further tells me the answer to this question:

How big is your world? Is it all about you? Or do your thoughts also stretch out to include others? Pair this information with whether or not you have a positive or negative mindset to see if perhaps you spend too much time ranting about others, or criticising yourself.

The answer is that I speak of I, us, you and them (the four choices) all less than average and recently considerably less than average. Who on earth am I talking about?

The tools go on and I find that in almost every category I am below average except that I use slightly more numbers (+3%) than the rest of the world and a few more conjunctions.

The best tool I have ever found for a piece of published work is the sentence length plus fog-factor tool which Bryn Hughes taught a load of us on a management skills for Christian leaders course over twenty years ago. Purists hate it because it involves adding an integer to a percentage but it does give quite a reliable score of readability.

Meanwhile my writing today is divided equally between sad, affectionate and upset and I am concerned mostly about money, death and religion. Well I did write a prayer so whose fault is that?

Quote Book Index 171-180

You're helping me to index my quote books by getting me to archive ten a day. I'll help you by telling you the best of the ten. No really, it was no bother:

175. Things filled men with fear: the more things they had, the more they had to fear. Things had a way of riveting themselves on to the soul and then telling the soul what to do.
(Bruce Chatwin: The Songlines)

Quote Book Index 161-170

The best quote from the next ten. How about this to think about vision?

'I see nobody on the road,' said Alice.
'I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful tone. 'To be able to see Nobody! And at such a distance too! Why, it is as much as I can do to see real people by this light.'
(Alice in Wonderland)

Quote Book Index 151-160

Indexing my quote books ten a day and sharing a good one each time:

160. Believing is by no means a question of what I believe in, but always a question of against what I believe. For faith must always struggle against appearances. (Thielicke quoted in Derek Tidball's 'A World Without Windows')

Lincoln

Politics, it has often been remarked, is the art of the possible. Entering politics with a things-to-achieve list one has to assess realistically how much can actually be done and not allow over-reaching to jeopardise the lot. It follows that progress made in politics over the years has always been a matter of falling short of doing the full, what we now know as, good. It is often the opposition taunt at an inadequate bill. But under-reaching can even cause a whole bill to fall so it is important not to attempt too little. How do you pitch it right?

So for me the big star of Lincoln is Tommy Lee-Jones' life-scarred, limping Thaddeus Stevens. Here is a man who has spoken all his political life about equality in all things, who clearly envisions a day when those now slaves are not only free, but have a vote and can stand for office. Will he settle for less than that? Will he pitch it right?

Much of the movie is set in the House of Representatives. Discussions are lively, loud and a little uncontrolled.

Behind the scenes wheeling and dealing is taking place. To get the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution through and abolish slavery requires bribery or promise of future preferment. No Democrat will be persuaded to vote for the measure to end the Civil War if they think the war will end anyway. And the war is limping towards a conclusion. As are its participants, a wheel-barrow of body-parts making as big a point as a twenty minute battlefield scene might. We know Spielberg can do that.

Lincoln needs to work closely with his Commander-in-Chief, Ulysses S. Grant, to make sure, somehow, that the war doesn't end before the amendment vote. When Lincoln sends a note to the House of Representatives assuring them there is no peace-meeting planned in Washington it is dismissed, in a heckle, as 'a lawyer's truth'. Which is true. It is.

Lincoln is a dialogue-based movie. It is The West Wing set in 1865. The President, Jed Bartlet like, has a story for every occasion and his team grunt their disapproval when he starts on one. They've heard it before. Tables are piled with papers and packages, messages take ages to get through and morse-coded wire transmissions are cutting edge.

I don't know if Day-Lewis' character is well-drawn - my history is too poor - but I do know that the mask he wears never drops, or even droops. Awards deserved.

A bit late on the scenes for a full review of this movie so I'll stop short, the Oscars already having been distributed, but a great film.

And how strange for us liberal lefties to watch a film where the Republicans are the good guys.