Christmas 1993

Now published here. Alex the labrador approaches the end of his life. CPAS starts the process of stealing Steve's life and Liz tries another shop for three weeks but life is dull without customers.

Know Ideas 5

Lots of shops give you a paper bag for your goods at Christmas and in the sales, especially clothes shops. These bags often have string, cloth or ribbon handles. There will be two, identical pieces of material if you pull them off the bag. Do so and save them.

Every now and again you will need to break a large group of people into pairs and you will want them to work with a relative stranger rather than a best friend.

Have a container full of pairs of former bag-handles. Shuffle them and shake them. Ask everyone to draw one out, blind. Then ask everyone to find their partner; the person with the matching handle.

New for the Noughties 8

Someone, somewhere had the idea that the English culture had changed. 'I know' said that someone. 'Forget the idea of not talking to strangers. Abandon the thought that the English hate being distracted from the task in hand when they are out and about. Perish the truth that the English dislike cold-selling more than almost anything in the world. Let's get some charismatic, young, articulate people to stand in the street and persuade, through sheer force of personality alone, folks to sign up to support a new charity.'

'Good idea,' said someone who couldn't have possibly known if it was going to work but felt there were insufficient clipboard-brandishers and Big Issue sellers on the streets already. And it was so.

Is it possible this can be deemed a one decade experiment? Some of the young people are quite pleasant and interesting. I'd like to meet them socially and buy them a drink. I do not take out direct debits to charities on a whim.

TV Repairs

Readers may recall that just before Christmas I had some amazing customer service from Virgin Media who replaced my faulty set-top box on Christmas Eve.

It didn't fix the fault.

So having eliminated a TV fault (by trying a different set), and a set-top box fault, we were left with but one conclusion - both scart leads we had tried were faulty.

Over Christmas we had a lot of guests and to make more room in the house opened the double doors in our lounge which divide it in two. So, as we were watching TV on Saturday evening, it was observed by Mrs Mustard to be strange, because we could now see the TV and the illuminated Christmas tree in the front window at the same time, that the digital interference on screen coincided with the flashing of the Christmas tree lights. Lights which had not been turned on at the time of the engineer's early visit.

Apologies Virgin. It is our circuits that need fixing, not your set-top boxes or signal. We grovel.

New for the Noughties 7

In the early days of my attempting to write fiction, about 1993 onwards, I used to book a day off work, collect together my stuff and amble down to Leamington library. I had an idea for a book set in an old house near where I lived which was, by then, just a heap of rubble but had had an interesting history. Helpful librarians dug out old reference books and maps for me.

With the onset of the internet a few methods for searching online grew up. Yahoo had a good one and 'Ask Jeeves' looked for a while as if it would become the best. Then, one day, someone said across the desks, 'Have you tried Google?' I did. Within months it had become the only search engine I ever used and it still is.

Google could now, quite easily, run my online life and, of course, their sign-in account is how I access my blog and share my calendar.

I haven't been to the library in Nailsea yet, apart from to join in 2006. Research? No need to leave your desk any more.

Do remember to get some exercise today.

Christmas 1992

The first few months of CPAS, Casa Fina, St Paul's Middle School and North Leamington Comp. following our departure from the north-east. The next instalment is here.

HP Sauce

I'm almost at the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I know I'm a bit behind the rest of you but I am trying to see all the movies so need to read all the books first (welcome to my world).

Had a conversation with my sister and her partner the other day about books that were rubbish but you had to read because everyone else reads them and we need to join in the conversation. I have made her read The Shack and she is making me read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. We all agreed to keep away from Paul Coelho and Dan Brown. In fact I was given quite a lot of abuse for having read two of Dan Brown's books as everyone else round the table had stopped at one. I only read the second because I couldn't believe anything could be worse than the Da Vinci Code but I was wrong.

But what do we recall about J.K. Rowling? The plots are lively. The final resolution in each volume is nicely set up as is the final book in the series. The writing is OK and gets you there. Some of the continuity is a bit strange and she has no idea whatsoever about how sport works. She has been fortunate enough to catch a big wave and it's taken her to shore. I have no problem with that.

I will read the final volume and be happy to.

Christmas 1991

1991's Christmas newsletter from my family is published here.

Christian Bloggers

Excellent post by Will Mancini on getting a focus for your blog. Essential reading for all who seek after truth and tend to be too self-deprecating (so of course I've read it).

Christmas 1990

The latest instalment of our family history is now published here.

Boxing Day. Or is it?

Some things we can be clear about. Today is December 26th and it is the feast of Stephen, first Christian martyr. But is it Boxing Day?

The Church Book and Desk Diary tells me Boxing Day is Monday 28th. Is it correct?

Boxing Day's etymology is to do with collecting Christmas Boxes. These were originally for the ragged poor but in Victorian times came to be for 'lesser' employees. Consequently in those times Boxing Day had to be a working day, so it couldn't be a weekend. Since Sunday was a day of worship the Christian church would not, in those days, allow a secular festival, to fall on a Sunday.

However these days most people call 26th December Boxing Day, Christmas tips are collected before Christmas and we simply move the Bank Holiday, which has become linked to it, to a Monday if December 26th falls on a Saturday.

I keep by me a copy of Chambers Etymological English Dictionary from 1964. It is a good place for research into the changing meaning of words. Even 40 years ago the simple definition of Boxing Day was, 'in England the day after Christmas, when boxes or presents are given.' But The Little Oxford Dictionary 1981 says, 'the first weekday after Christmas Day.'

Although it takes a while to change a custom or tradition we are living in the period when culture is changing. Today isn't, technically, Boxing Day, but the constant use of the term is beginning to determine that it is, or soon will be.

Christmas 1989

Now published on the Christmas newsletter blog. We reach word-processing time. Spelling mistakes begin to disappear although a few creep through over the years. Typing errors are corrected and, to some extent, grammar checkers come to our aid. I'm enjoying this even if you aren't.

Christmas 1988

The news letter from 1988, our first year in Co Durham, is published here. Now into two sides. Sorry. It begins (imho) to demonstrate better writing competence but the computer, an Amstrad PC1052 I recall, doesn't arrive for another year.

Happy Christmas

A brief moment after the end of midnight Communion. The house is quiet but my head a bit too buzzy to sleep immediately. So MSS takes the opportunity to wish you a Happy Christmas Day. Enjoy, but please share the best bits with your virtual friends. Blogs, tweets and Facebook status updates full of recipes, jokes and theology please. Goodnight, oops, I mean morning.

New for the Noughties 6

'Very superstitious' said Steve Wonder. 'Writing's on the wall.' And forgetting for the moment that it is wrong to write on walls and that is a problem to be solved by education not mumbo-jumbo, how do superstitions begin?

The song goes on, 'Ladder's 'bout to fall.' Which may be a good reason not to walk under it or an alarming lack of health and safety awareness by the wall-writer. Whatever. Presumably, once upon a time, someone had a stroke of good fortune whilst pulling a rabbit's foot from out of a sweep's black cat and the rest is mystery.

Today I found three Royal Mail elastic bands on the floor and had the good luck not to fall on a treacherous journey to the shops and back. It is only relatively recently that Royal Mail operatives have taken to saving us all the necessity ever to purchase a rubber band again which is what is new for the noughties by the way; tentative link I agree. I feel that I should honour this with a new superstition. Since we never see magpies any more then a Magpie-like (it was a short-lived TV programme rivalling Blue Peter) rhyme based on red bands is apposite:

One for enthusiasm
Two for pluck
Three for passion and
Four for good luck
Five for sarcasm
Six for cant
Seven for having a bit of a rant
Eight's for courtesy
Nine is rude
Ten is bingo oh don't be a prude

E la la lastic band
E la la lastic band

Let me know if it works.

Fine Line

Well it's going to be a good day. But how close to not.

I woke still feeling grim but realised after a few minutes that I had a slot with the TV engineer from 8 -12 so better be up. I had a shower and ran the water for a shave. As I popped back into the bedroom to get something or other I noticed the engineer's van parked up outside.

They'd promised to text when they were on their way. Was he writing out a 'missed you' card? No, he was sitting in his van waiting for 8.00 a.m. I dressed hastily and at 7.56 a.m. the bell rang. He fixed the problem with a new set-top box and headed off for his five remaining Christmas Eve calls (let's hear it for repair people today).

As he left I did a bit of a body check (two of everything down the side one of everything down the middle as Steve Wright used to joke) and discovered I felt a bit better.

Going back upstairs to turn off lights and put towels away I heard running water. Oh no. The shaving water.

Which had in fact been running at the precise flow to allow the overflow to cope for 25 minutes. Hot water all drained out but no damp patches on ceilings. Hooray.

Thanks Virgin. Good word for today. I'm now going to finish my midnight communion sermon.

Christmas 1987

The third instalment of the newsletter archive is published here.

New for the Noughties 5

Forgive me a personal one. In 1999 I began to develop a serious back condition following a football injury. A double annular tear - or two slipped discs in old money - was the diagnosis. Whatever the pronouncement from doctors, orthopaedic surgeons, physio-terrorists and chiropractors the symptoms were the same. I had extreme sciatic pain and couldn't stand for more than 15 minutes or so. It deteriorated and by 2000 I was ready to accept that I would need a disabled sticker on my car. I preached sitting on a stool.

I think that low was the turning point. I met a neurosurgeon who felt convinced that my pain was chronic not acute and exercise, although painful, would cause me no further injury. I embarked on a course of intensive exercise therapy and, in agony most of the time, started moving, running and twisting again. It was a battle in my head. Did I really believe this pain was causing me no harm and was not a warning sign?

After two years of this, with the spasms getting further and further apart, I had a relapse on a leg press and was back to square one. I spent a day walking slowly round shops, again in extreme pain, buying my wife some birthday presents.

Recovering from that injury I got better, and better and better. The 'relapse' had been something moving that hadn't moved for a long, long time. Within six months I was pain free and fighting fit. Since that day I have exercised regularly at a gym, tried to walk a mile a day when I am being more sedentary than usual in my work, avoided overwork and have rejoiced, minute by minute at the sheer joy of standing up, standing still and having no pain. It is good to be alive. Sometimes you have to have a period of 'bad to be alive' to realise how good.

It was the decade where I got well and learned to appreciate a lot of things that others might take for granted. To those who helped, prayed and encouraged I offer heartfelt thanks. Age 54 I am probably fitter than I was 20 year ago. Today's cold is a nuisance, but my back still works.

Christmas 1986

The story continues. Next instalment published here today.

New for the Noughties 4

Well I had to get to it eventually. New social media, that's what. In 2000 I was only eleven years into owning a computer at all and had had a mobile phone and email for, say, five years max. Who would have thought in 2010 I could stay in constant touch with what my friends are up to, moment by moment at the click of a mouse.

The question being discussed amongst social-media-savvie clergy right now is whether someone is going to tweet from their Christmas service live. What would you have made of that sentence in 1999?

An interesting portion of Christmas spending this year is on downloads of gimmicky applications for iPhones. Have some virtual bubble wrap to virtually pop. Have a pint to virtually drink. Go on, it tips if you tip your phone. Facebook has virtual gifts for birthdays and anniversaries. I love you so much I sent you nothing real.

I don't mean to sound critical. I'm in this, although not into farming, Scrabble or Bejewelled in the way some of my friends seem to be. But relationally it is fascinating. On one level all this is a new land which people are colonising. On another all the rules, customs and cultural habits are up for grabs and observing the development of the Charter is exciting. It's a cross between a gold rush and a missionary journey.

And we're all (those of us who are getting into this) learning to speak in a new language of mini-ads to draw attention to longer posts, or simply trying to say it in 140 characters or fewer. New decade; new skills.

Fantastic privilege to have lived through this precise fifty-four years, but this last ten especially.

Christmas 1985

Old Christmas newsletters going on the other blog to complete the archive. 1985's published here today.

Great Goals

Grateful to the Guardian for this link to 20 of the finest weird goals in the history of football. It really does build from a selection of minor, classic own-goals and in-offs and that San Marino goal in 8 seconds (hail Stuart Pearce) to a fantastic finale of a goal scored direct from the kick-off whilst a goalie is celebrating having scored, a defender who belts the ball into his own head and into the goal and finally a saved penalty but the defender following in to absolutely bury the rebound. And was that Micky Evans having a laugh by taking a free-kick quickly? I rather think it was, as Danny Baker might say. Pumping death-metal soundtrack best left mute.

Jesus on Wheels

Finally he got to the game. Pity about the result. His custodians did well not to throw him on the pitch after waiting 24 hours on the continent for a delayed kick-off and then losing. The wheeled-Messiah obviously prefers to bestow his luck on the round-ball followers. Those santa hats look a bit sad.

Jesus on Wheels

The rugby game was postponed for a day so off he went to Brussels (as you do).

Rich Gospel Investigates

To use this in a service, dress as a private eye (dark glasses, hat, raincoat with collar pulled up)

Props – screwed up paper and an old pizza box

On the word intriguing – stroke your chin before speaking it
On the word suspicious - look round from side to side before speaking it

In place of Elizabeth use the name of any person in the congregation you want to impress

Rich Gospel Investigates

Rich Gospel was gazing into the distance. To the casual onlooker it might have appeared he was day-dreaming but he was working on a problem. The hours ticked slowly by, which was strange. They usually stayed on the clock.

It was a busy time of year. At the offices of Glad, Tidings, Comfort and Joy – the theological detective agency – the phone had hardly stopped ringing. Every time he answered it, it was the phone.

The waste-paper basket in the corner of Rich's cramped office was surrounded by screwed up paper. An idea abandoned (throw paper); a thought not pursued (throw paper), a dead end (throw paper), a pizza box (throw box). He wished he had a normal detective job where he could say, 'Follow that car' to a taxi driver. Metaphysical problems could only be solved by thinking.

It had all started with a badly-worded piece of publicity literature. 'Paranormal, supernatural and doctrinal investigations,' they'd put on the business cards. And, to be honest, he'd given very few away. Most vicars didn't want help; didn't like to admit there was any funny business going on. But then he started to get the calls and correspondence. From children. Or, more specifically, from their parents.

You see at this time of year many parents are troubled by deep, faith-related questions.

Mummy what's a manger?
Daddy what's a crib?
Mummy can I have a Wii?
Daddy, where does Santa come from?

Wise Mums and Dads know that the answer to question three is not what you think and the answer to all questions about where people come from should be referred to the other parent.

But this letter had Rich in turmoil. As he drove back from turmoil to his office he ran the question through in his mind:

Dear Sir/Madam,

If Jesus' birth was an event so important that even the calendar was changed, why don't Matthew, Mark or Paul mention it?

Yours faithfully

Chloe Johnson (aged 9)

There was a brief P.S. from Chloe's Mum saying she was a bright child.

Well, thought Rich, scratching his head, if she was a bright child she deserved a proper answer. But how to do that? As he placed a plaster on his scratched head he pondered. Then he wondered. Maybe he should get a badly-behaved dog. Then he'd have a lead to follow.

Rich knew that there were four stories about Jesus' life and death in the Bible – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And their books had the same name as his surname. Gospel. Which means 'good news.' He also knew that Paul wrote lots of the other books towards the end of the Bible – letters to places with strange names. Very (stroke imaginary beard) intriguing.

So why did only Matthew and Luke mention Jesus' birth? Was this true? Good question. This one needed research. Preparing for this involved a technique honed over many years of lonely enquiry. In the staff kitchen he put the kettle on and and some toast under the grill.

He realised the kitchen equipment was getting a little old as he slurped his toast and crunched on his tea. He took a Bible down from the shelf of the substantial agency library and blew the dust off. He turned to Matthew's Gospel. How did it start? He was amazed. It began with a long list of names. Not Mary and Joseph but Abraham. It said he was Jesus' great, great, great, great (and thirty eight more 'greats') grand-father. What came next? No census. No manger. No shepherds. Just a baby boy and some rich, wise guys passing by with pressies. Very (stroke imaginary beard) intriguing.

He turned to the next book, the half-eaten toast having lost its minimal attraction and the tea cold in his mug. Mark. What would he say?

Nothing. What? Nothing. Chloe was right. Mark began with Jesus as a grown-up. No baby stories at all. 'The beginning of the Gospel...' said Mark. Baptist then bam! Or 'splash' to get technical. Very (look round to left and right) suspicious.

Third up, Luke. 'Yuk' said Rich, taking a slurp on cold toast and eating a slice of tea. 'Make us another cuppa' he called to his secretary, Carol. There was no answer. He opened the door. The building was dark. Everyone else had gone home. As Rich read Luke, the temperature in the office rapidly falling, he found, with some excitement, where most of the Christmas stories come from – not trees, crackers and gift-wrap, but there were angels, Mary, Joseph, mangers, no room in the inn, shepherds. This was the stuff. This was the nativity he remembered from school. An inner-voice said, 'Put a tea-towel on your head, for this is holy ground.' Funny how the other two books hadn't mentioned all this. Very (look round to left and right) suspicious.

So far, three Gospels, three different beginnings. Time for John. Well. What a difference. 'In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.' What? Sounded more like Genesis than John. And what was a 1970s rock band doing writing in the Bible anyway? (Rich couldn't help doing jokes in his head like that. It was a character flaw. He blamed the person who had created him.) First few verses of John's Gospel were about light, dark and glory. Glory. Hmm? Didn't that shine around for the shepherds? Hadn't a star led the wise to Jesus? Hadn't Mark said Jesus had been shining gloriously on a mountain. The ideas were getting joined up. Very (stroke imaginary beard) intriguing.

And so for hours and hours, long into the night, Rich read the four Gospels from beginning to end. He did eventually make some fresh toast and hot tea. He even phoned for pizza but sadly he was out. He also read all Paul's letters. Even the ones that experts said Paul might not have written. Paul never said anything about Jesus' birth. Not a sausage, although, he observed, sausages got little mention either. Very (look round to left and right) suspicious.

One thing was clear. These people had their Old Testament prophets and they reckoned Jesus was the one spoken about by Isaiah and Micah. Depressed that more work was needed he resigned himself to reading the first half of the Bible, now he had read most of the second. And to annoy his mathematical colleagues, it looked like a bigger half. People must have changed the calendar not because of the beginning of Jesus' life but because of the end of it. They were not concerned where Jesus came from. They wanted to know what his life meant.

Rich had the beginning of his reply but he needed rest. So as the sun rose again he dragged his scruffy, dirty body home for a shower and some sleep, his tie loosened round his neck. Walking down the steps of the office he met the paper girl Elizabeth. She was very efficient and invariably polite. He made a mental note to think if he had ever met anyone unpleasant called Elizabeth. He noticed, for the first time, that she wore a small badge in the shape of a fish.

'What's that?' he asked.

'It's an ichthus badge' she said. 'It reminds us of Jesus.'

'And who was Jesus?' asked Rich.

She looked him in the eyes.

'What do you mean, 'Was?''

Jesus on Wheels

I was a little worried about my little plastic mate going on rugby tour to France with a bunch of Irish fanatics. What I didn't quite anticipate was that I should have packed his thermals.

All this after a surreal moment on a Belfast door-mat when he arrived at the same time as a fantastic fast-food brochure.

'Cod and chips Jesus?'

'It's OK son, I can make my own.'

It's been a good year for the beardy wheely one - Japan, Gozo, Australia, St Lucia, Africa. I want his air miles.

New for the Noughties 3

Many younger readers will find it hard to imagine a large, open-plan office in which many people smoked. That was the world of work I inhabited in the 1970s. By mid-morning you needed to use thermal imaging equipment to find your colleagues on distant desks.

In the noughties we finally got wise to that. Smoking disappeared; first from the work-place, then all public places. On return from the pub I no longer have to consign all my clothes to the washing basket.

The new, iconic scene for the noughties is of employees huddled around the exit doors of shops and offices (I won't enter a shop where the single assistant is smoking outside the front door) having a quick fag.

The beneficiaries of all this were the manufacturers of awnings and gazebos who suddenly found the term 'smoking-pavilion' would quadruple the sales of their pre-existent products. And of course that well know Irish soul singer Patty O' Heater got more gigs.

New for the Noughties 2

New for the Noughties. A series of posts on seminal moments from the last decade as it creeps to a close.

Good morning. Yesterday on New for the Noughties we looked at recycling. We will be covering several other key matters over the next few weeks - celebrity, audience elimination programmes, texting to name but three. Find out what today's item is after this short break.

Welcome Back. New for the Noughties will be summarising the last decade in a selection of verbal instants describing those moments we didn't used to have before the turn of the millennium. When we're not standing in our garage looking at cardboard, or PEP symbols on plastic, what else are we faced with that was no challenge to previous generations?

Yes, it's the power of repetition. Here's a short-film with a celebrity monologue about the problem.

ENG
Charlie Brooker walks down the street lamenting the need to produce all our material for the ADD generation.

Repetition. We can't get enough of it. We introduce the news with soundbite previews, we read the news, then we go through it item by item with more detail, summarising it on the half hour. We watch a programme called The 100 Worst Moments of the Noughties, counting down from 100 to 1. Every time we hit a number ending in nought we remind you of the previous ten. We think your short-term memory is so poor you will have forgotten the earlier details of a programme you're still watching. Your newspaper or magazine article will have pulled out the best sentence, or the teasiest, and placed it in a box alongside the piece. And, as Peter Preston wrote in the Guardian last Monday, our X-Factor, Pop Idol, Sports Personality programmes all use back story and repetition to massive lengthening effect. A good one hour show now lasts for ever.

Coming up next. After recycling and repetition we look at celebrity, audience elimination programmes and texting. See you tomorrow. To close here's 2 little 2 late, a funny little moment reminding you of the bits of the post you might have missed.

Writer - St
Starring - St
Inspired by - Peter Preston's article in Monday's Guardian
Researcher - Don't be silly

(Over the credits we show small sections of tomorrow's post)

Christmas 2009

If you click here it will take you to the Tilleys' Christmas newsletter, 'cept it has no news in it and is mainly a look back at the year through the hole made by tongue pushing right through cheek. You'll never know unless you try.

New for the Noughties

At a very pleasant party last night (thanks everybody) we got to talking about things in the way only post-dinner, middle class dinner party people do. The subject of recycling came up. Today is recycling day. I have proudly placed on my drive two boxes of cans and bottles, a box of printed card, a box of paper and a bag of old textiles along with half a black bin-liner of actual rubbish. Our local Authority, on the basis of this sample of one, are right to go to a fortnightly rubbish collection and a weekly recycling and food waste call.

But I reckon one of the new moments of the Noughties for me is to be standing in my garage at 7.00 a.m. every other Thursday scratching my head. The garages here have long since ceased to be containers for vehicles. Here you will find washing machines, freezers, tools, decorating materials and a small recycling centre.

So I am staring at a piece of cardboard, now folded flat, trying to decide if it is corrugated or printed. If it is corrugated it goes in the green waste next week but will be rejected if it is too heavily printed. If it is printed card it goes in today's recycling but will be rejected if it is corrugated.

Was this what the writers of the Genesis story of our creation had in mind when they asked humans to be stewards of the earth? Probably it was.

The Noughties

Edward Stourton's programme on Radio 4 this morning, the first in a series looking back at the last decade, was very interesting. Today he focused on the internet. Catch it on listen again or iplayer if you can.

One contributor offered the wonderful thought that many people, who had previously found it takes ages to get into journalism using the submission and rejection method, had now had their incompetence fast-tracked, through blogging. They blog; no-one cares. QED. Of course the opposite is true. Some new writers have emerged through this medium. Fewer though.

If you ever thought that writing every day was easy then start a blog. It is amazing how many people I have encountered online who have posted regularly for a few weeks or months and then disappeared.

It is also notable how many people who can't write particularly well, have valuable things to share. Their insights are better than their grammar but the blogosphere doesn't really mind. We want to learn from everyone.

Blogs. A great thing about the noughties.

Advent 3 Thought

What is the best moment of all? The Bishop of Reading refers us to the excellent answer from Winnie the Pooh. Whilst eating honey is by far and away the best experience ever there is a moment just before the moment when you know the moment is going to happen. That moment is the best of all. The anticipation of the taste of honey. The moment you know the ball is going in the net. The moment you know the meal you made is going to taste great. The moment you know that the next chord you play will finish the tune. The promise of her shoes. That sort of thing.

Whilst every fibre of my being wants to wait, hope, rest and enjoy the moment of Advent, and I don't really mind the interruptions that are about planning Christmas, the thing that spoils the moment for me more than anything else is having to think about next year's programme. I don't want to do it now. I certainly won't want to be doing it between Christmas and New Year.

As a writer I often used to write Christmas resources at Easter. My sister, a designer and photographer, once had tons of industrial snow delivered to her cottage in July.

But today, really, I want to live in the advent moment of looking forward to that which has already happened and remembering the future. How Paula Gooder's sentence is following me round.

So I will walk around today with a year's social programme to delegate, a new set of children's leaders to recruit and an Easter event to plan. Or else they won't happen. I am not rushed but my head is busy. Have a happy Advent 3 Sunday.

Food Thought

Whether you are religious or not, the Christmas meal is something pretty sacred. It is a time when we are looking to feed our better selves. The food we choose to eat needs to spread love, warmth, goodwill, forgiveness and optimism around a large table of people who, though bonded together by varying levels of shared genes and shared history, might not otherwise choose to sit down and eat together. It needs to weave a spell of magic that suspends any disbelief in the meaning of family, and indeed in the meaning of Christmas. And although normal, sceptical service is likely to resume with the Boxing Day hangover, something of the spirit of that meal should linger deep in the consciousness, helping to keep us sane and sanguine for the next twelve months.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
A River Cottage Year
Hodder and Stoughton 2003

Christmas Shopping for Women's Clothes

I'm not one of them but there are a lot of them around. Men, that is, in women's clothing shops, looking very lost right now. Wrong place; wrong time. Like chickens at a fox wedding.

They don't want help - that would send them scuttling to the door - but they have no clue either. They have no idea if she is a 34d or a 36c, can't remember if she is 12 or 14 (then buy a 12, dummy) and have no idea about leg length or shoe size whatsoever. Men buying clothes for women is a complex business. It can't be done in a vacuum. You have to pay attention the whole year, notice what items are being touched and admired. A whole year? Why yes son. You have to go shopping with her.

You can give an honest answer to the question 'Does this look good?' You can. But only if you are prepared, when it doesn't, to invest the necessary hours in helping find the thing that does. By the way, the question, 'Does my bum look big in this?' It doesn't happen. Most women know that either:

a) Their bum looks big in everything.
b) It doesn't.

If they chance to ask you they think the answer should be b). If it isn't then go for, 'You can do better than that' as an answer. It's a comment on the clothes not the bum size.

So, lost men in clothes shops. Give your partner a voucher for however much you intend to spend and offer to spend the time with her helping select the garments. During this expedition you will buy lunch somewhere of her choice. And keep your promise before February.

Or go up to an assistant and tell her that your wife is the most beautiful, dark-haired, size 14 olive-skinned woman they could possibly imagine (if she is - you know you can change some of those words right?) and she needs to select an appropriate gift. You won't do this. Hunter gatherers don't take advice. But it would work. Especially if you put the assistant's name on the gift receipt.

Next year, accompany your partner on a shopping trip as the winter collections are rolled out. That will be early September. And pay attention.

Laugh, Now

I got in trouble at college for being part of the gang who showed the film Life of Brian in the Common Room. You need to know that it was a theological college (vicar factory) and 1984 so it was, I guess, a bit edgy.

But my humour is edgy. I have to self-edit massively before blogging, tweeting and whatever ing you facebook. Honest, I do. You should see the stuff the delete key gets.

I just roared to hear Andy Zoltzman describe Jesus as a 'first century magician and raconteur'. Isn't enjoying the joke so much better than bombing his relatives?

Stewart Lee is harder work but I see what he's doing. As he said in a weekend interview, if Clarkson can call Gordon Brown a one-eyed Scottish idiot why isn't it funny when Lee hopes Clarkson's children go blind. Or wished Richard Hammond had died in agony in that car accident? It's funny. It's odd.

Do you have to have a humour chip? The ability to recognise that you can learn and laugh? Have serious fun?

I don't like Lower Sixth humour. If I did this blog would be called The Lonely Lentil or In Search of Custard or somomething, which is like something only typed wrong.

I'm writing this as the Christmas newsletter prepares to go to press. I speak as if it had a mind of its own which, to some extent, it does. It is an unstoppable force in a bland world and will be hitting the www soon (and the letter-boxes of the old and cautious) as soon as Mrs Mustard has told me what I absolutely have to ditch.

Be very ware.

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

Can't tell your anaphora from your exergasia? Think that conduplicatio and ploce are only useful in bed? Blogger spell-checker couldn't help. Mustard Grammar is here to help.

Conduplicatio (con-do-plih-CAT-eeoh): Figure of repetition in which the key word or words in one phrase, clause, or sentence is/are repeated at or very near the beginning of successive sentences.

A ploce is a figure of speech in which a word is separated or repeated by way of emphasis.

Anaphora is a rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.

Exergasia is a form of parallelism where one idea is repeated and only the way it is stated is changed.

I tell you this whilst aware that the English language graduates amongst you probably knew it already. I didn't. All four words were in my daily newspaper this week. Worth the £1 I think.

In Defence of Steves

I have mentioned before that all the work in the world is done by people called Dave, unless they are too busy in which case they have a mate called Steve who can cover it. This is Al Murray's comment to any audience member he speaks to called Dave or Steve. Beautiful British names, as he would put it.

But there is a problem. A hitch has been driven into town and abandoned at MSS's door.

You see David 'Call me Dave' Camera-on has, according to Downing Street as reported in the Guardian (left-wing, liberal bias warning) got two sorts of candidates for the forthcoming General Election. There are the ones we know about, '...privately educated and wealthy, the younger son of a marquis probably called Piers (if a man) or Petronella (on the rare occasions they are not); someone whose engagement with Europe runs no further than Courcheval (a ski resort apparently - ed) and who is happiest on a horse.

'The second is rougher, more brutal, and even richer: a non-dom self-made City millionaire little Englander - possibly called Steve - with unedifying views on the best way to deal with rapists. It sticks in the craw to imagine either Steve or Piers lecture on poverty.' (Julian Glover, The Guardian 7/12/09)

Glover goes on to explain, carefully, that this is a parody; what Downing Street would like people to believe. In fact the future MPs of the right are much changed from this stereotype. I care not. What I do care about is the suggestion that there is something essentially unpalatable about people called Steve. On behalf of Messrs Gerrard, Biko, Hawking, Jobs, Irwin, Gately, Seagall, Davis, Hendry and Fry I challenge. And that's the currently news-worthy, googleable Steves and Stephens, many of whom remain alive. What a complex, weird, wonderful and interesting bunch we are.

Let's leave it to the Steves.

Twurch

I just joined the Twurch of England. See new sidebar tool. Click. Play. No idea how useful it will be yet, nor what my blogfeed URL is to get the link to work the other way. Can anyone help?

Life Rules

Regular readers may recall that the above is a working title of a book I am writing for BRF. As the tweetfeed says I am looking for ideas.

If you are a Christian, did you read a book on Christianity for beginners when you started out? What did it say about lifestyle? What do you wish it had covered that it didn't?

If you are a christian and you have never read a book that dealt with questions of Christian lifestyle, what would you like such a book to cover if it existed?

Are you aware of the existence of good books which cover this material? Name them.

If you are not a Christian are there matters of Christian lifestyle which put you off? What are they and what puts you off about them?

Finally, what is Christian lifestyle? Can it be described generically or is it all down to the individual?

All advice will grateful received and suitably weighed.

Hello Tiger

I am not especially interested in Tiger Woods' private life. What happened in the early hours of the morning the other week remains, as far as I am concerned, between him, the damaged car and the fire hydrant. Delighted however to learn that the damaged hydrant is not just a Hollywood construction to make road traffic accidents more exciting for the movie goer. Those things really exist and do get hit. Was there a plume? We should be told.

What I do find worthy of comment, not that unworthiness stops me commenting, is that Woods feels he is entitled to some simple privacy. Is he?

His name is synonymous with a large number of products, not all golf-related, and I believe the sheer ubiquity of his face on billboards puts him more up-for-investigation than most. Do we not have a right to check out if the man who says Gillette is the best a man can get uses an electric from time to time. And if the overall picture is that his squeaky-clean lifestyle is what makes him a good product promoter shouldn't we be able to cry foul if the lifestyle has some unpolished bits?

His family should be off-limits but therein lies a dilemma. The family man image does include others. He can still be a good family man if others in his family err. You don't judge a man's husbanding skills by the behaviour of his wife and kids. But if he strays from his family values it does undermine any claims to take money for product promotion on the basis of those values. Doesn't it?

I am not happy with media intrusion. I watch those X-Factor contestants wanting it more than anything else and then see last years winners and losers being hounded by, and I use the term loosely, journalists. I am not happy with the way celebrity is used to endorse products. But neither is a crime. And one is a symptom of the other.

So, on balance Mr Woods, an apology is not enough. Tell us what happened. Then we will be able to decide if we believe some of the other things you say.

Most Consecutive Words 2

Two teachers were checking over English grammar homework. In particular they were testing when one should use 'had' and when 'had had' would be better. They found an example. Whilst Susan had had 'had,' Peter had had 'had had.' 'Had had' had had the teachers' approval.

Most Consecutive Words

Was musing, following the management bingo game yesterday, and recalled a couple of examples from English lessons of sentences with the same word in a row as many times as possible but still making sense. Not counting lists, of course.

There was a guy putting up a sign for a fish and chips shop. The owner complained it was too tightly spaced. The signwriter hadn't left enough room between 'fish' and 'and' and 'and' and chips.

Another one tomorrow.

Big Blogger

INTERIOR NIGHT

St is sitting at his desk with a bowl of porridge. He is breathing out frost and occasionally feeling the radiator next to him. A ghostly apparition appears

BB

Morning St. You're up early. How's it going?

St

Hey BB. I'm OK.

BB

No you're not.

St

You're right. I wanted to lay this out like a film script but blogger edit is pants for that.

BB

That's not the problem.

St

No, I guess not. I searched for myself on the Diocesan web-site and I don't exist.

BB

That's brilliant. A full-time job with pay where no-one knows you exist. Perfect.

St

Is it?

BB

Of course. Don't tell anyone. Still. That's not the problem either.

St

It isn't?

(Beat)

You're not going to speak again are you?

(Beat)

OK, I get the hang of it. It's been a while. BB I've got over 50 things on my things to do list and I don't really care about any of them.

BB

Nothing scary enough?

St

Quite.

BB

You need to go away for a few days and read, get your head put back together, take a Sunday off and get ready to do all that Christmas guff you do so well.

St

Guff?

BB

You know what I mean. By the way.

St

Yeah

BB

You exist, but only in my head.

St

Aaaagh!!

St and MSS will be back after a bit of R and R in Derbyshire. Mrs Mustard remains available at home.

Management Bingo

I criticised a colleague's written work today, specifically the first 104 words. What was wrong with the first 104 words? They were only two sentences. However I lost the bad communication game to Mrs Mustard who came up with this wonderful double set of winning lines today, from an announcement to her company staff:

strategic and transactional people initiatives

commercially focused people solutions

It is one of the highest scores she has ever achieved. If anyone has any idea what they mean the comments box is for strategic, response-focused interventions.