Updating my CV - Week 9

I have a few people I am in contact with who act as my weather-vane for stupid. That is to say, when I am slightly worried that I may be making the wrong decision, I ask them what they think and do the opposite. These people, wrong about everything, are incredibly useful until they are either accidentally right or discover that that is how they are being used.

Over the last few months I am convinced that the world's events have become a stupidometer. Something unusual happens and the utterly wrong views and decisions get on parade. Twitter and 24/7 news have given them a platform.

If you've seen the image of a man sleeping on a plane using his face mask to cover his eyes you've seen a stupidometer at work.

If you've seen a party of people embracing in a sewage stream on a hot day during a plague you've seen a stupidometer at work.

If you've heard a Special Adviser to the Prime Minister suggest the normality of driving 30 miles to test his eyesight was good enough to drive, you've seen someone who knew how stupid his audience was.

If you've heard wealthy white people saying that white privilege is not a thing, systematic racism is not a thing and 'white lives matter' is an appropriate response to BLM then you've had front row seats in the stupid show.

Obviously we all have our favourite failings. Chris Grayling, a man who really should '...pay mill-owner for permission to come to work' (Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen) failed to get elected chair of a committee where his appointment had been fixed, and announced.

Parties of stupid burned down the very 5G masts that had provided them with the conspiracy theory that 5G masts caused Covid19. What next? No idea, our phone signal is rubbish round here now.

Presidential Adviser Kellyanne Conway poured scorn on those who had not dealt with Covid1-18 'It's not Covid1' she said. If you think she had a point you are registering on the stupidometer.

Following the toppling of slave-trader Colston's Monument in Bristol a group, described by a woman as 'proper Bristol men', stood around the cenotaph 'protecting' it for a day or two. One of these white, middle-aged guys sported a German WW2 helmet. What statue is on top of the Bristol cenotaph? Good question. There isn't one, but little details such as that don't derail the stupid train.

In Nuneaton a group protected the memorial to the birth of George Eliot. Perhaps they could articulate their reasoning but certainly the links of the writer born Mary Ann Evans to slave-trading and racism are not widely discussed as she expressed sympathy with the north in the American Civil War and was still a lass when The Reform Bill was passed.

It's not always clear what the right decision is in all circumstances. The widely operational stupidometer will certainly help you eliminate some wrong ones. Unless you're stupid. Then you won't notice.

Thought for the Day

One of the good things about doing this from home is that I can get the script online quicker. As delivered to Emma Britton on BBC Radio Bristol just now:

The book of Genesis begins with a list of things that God calls good. What, do you recall, is the first thing described as 'not good'?

There are often periods of three months in my life when I don't go to the cinema, theatre or gigs. But I do all those things.

With personal choice whittled away we can end up lamenting the loss of things we never really valued that much anyway.

In order to give football viewers the sense of atmosphere, crowd noises have to be dubbed on. My team's so bad the cardboard cut-out supporters left at half time.

All the things I've missed have involved company. Even those occasions when I was alone in a crowd. So many people use coffee shops as places to work. We don't even need inter-action. Just that feeling of communality. Not alone.

So it is good news that pubs and restaurants can re-open. Human beings are social. We organise ourselves so that we co-operate.

Whatever comes through that door, said Gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius, we're going to do better if we face it together.

We cope as a species because of shared invention, intellect and ideas. The survival of the smartest, for now. Leave me alone in a room with Covid19 and I'd lose. Give me the world's resources and advice and I'm safe.

The answer to my opening question is loneliness. It is not good for the man to be alone. 'Too right mate - I leave him on his own for a moment and it's chaos round here' shout my female listeners.

So, two cheers for drinks and meals out. Pretty soon they may actually let me come into the studio rather than sitting home alone.

Updating my CV - Week 7

Time has continued slipping, slipping, slipping into the future and my seventh update comes at about week eleven of lock-down. Has there been fun? It's slim pickings (wasn't he a county singer?) round here.

I believe I have done all the possible 40 minute walks starting and finishing at my house. I am seriously considering publishing a very niche book. Maybe if I over-indulge the humour element it might find a market beyond BS48. Long shot, I know.

Get your timing right and you can see people sitting in the street watching a film projected on the side of a house, round here. What did we used to do for entertainment before they invented invent-your-own entertainment? Chuck stones at cats I expect. Give it a try. I aim to miss but I've had a couple of failures.

And what of modifying our behaviour more generally? Possibly the best way currently to behave is to see what the government advises and do the opposite.

Having had it announced that a few more freedoms were being introduced from last Monday we watched in amazement as thousands of people, two days before the introduction, rather unintelligently headed for beauty spots and sat too close together. It is difficult to decide if our country's population genuinely missed the comforting touch of sunburn or whether they had all found a rather simpler way to dispose of their rubbish than queuing for the tip. Either way some of them fell off cliffs in the process and the rest had to huddle closer to make space for the air ambulance to land. You could make it up but would expect your plot to be rejected as too obvious. My worry is that the British Government seem to be the only people round here who don't realise quite how stupid the British people are, given half the chance.

Mind you, the British people seem to be the only people round here who don't realise how stupid the British government is so maybe we deserve each other.

Having announced that people who could work from home should continue to do so the Leader of the House of Commons (a West County yokel MP from round here) announced that it was not possible for 'full-blooded democracy' to function properly on Zoom and therefore MPs would no longer be allowed to contribute, or vote, remotely. Having devised a voting/queuing system that intelligent monkeys randomly pressing ideas buttons would still have rejected as unworkable, we watched as this 'system' deposited several hundred MPs at the foot of an escalator behind a locked door in an ever-increasing crush. Now they are all at home waiting for the results of a COVID19 test on the Business Secretary (anyone remember the name? thought not) who developed a sniffle and a sweaty head at the dispatch box. Never in the history of human democracy did so many people hope a colleague had hay fever.

And yet we watch the other side of the Atlantic where millions of poor African Americans have been staying at home and giving their lives for their country. 'This needs careful attention', said the Minneapolis police department 'What shall we do?' I think we know what they decided and I refer you back to the roomful of decision-making primates.

I think, in more ways than one, this series of articles has come over to the dark side.

Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Half-Blooded Democracy will be in major cinemas as soon as we can find an investor.

Thought for the Day

As delivered to the James Hanson (sitting in for Emma Britton) show on BBC Radio Bristol just now:

When Mark wrote his account of Jesus feeding 5,000 people he said they sat down on the green grass in groups of fifty and a hundred. Why did he mention the colour of the grass and the size of the groups? Doesn't do that elsewhere. One explanation might be - because he was there and remembered.

I woke up this morning and leaned over to my wife and said those three words she loves to hear first thing - 'It's Tuesday, right?'

And even though this radio format doesn't allow me your instant feedback I can hear many of you shouting 'That's. Four. Words.'

See I've noticed that when we only have very small details to pay attention to we, guess what, start spotting very small details. Grammar pedants. Or 'Wise BBC news editors' as I've learned to call them.

I've spotted people on social media telling me about the wildlife in their gardens as nature becomes more urban, the new recipe they've discovered, or the small things they can do many times over to raise sponsorship. Yes, people have climbed Everest in fir-tree units and run marathons in backyard-sized laps without leaving their own homes. DIY projects have been completed in lock-down. I've even sorted out the deanery filing-cabinet. It was dull.

If and when you come to write down your journal or diary entry for 2020 it may include stuff such as:

• Did my own dentistry.
• Grew my own veg for the first time 

Mark's Gospel is littered with little details that only an eye-witness, or someone who transcribed the story of that witness, could possibly remember. As the weather gets warmer, and green grass becomes rarer, we do well to recall that little details add credibility to a witness' story.

Updating my CV - Week 6

Good day everyone and welcome to my almost weekly dip into the shallower waters of the current tragedy. No diving or you'll bang your head on the bottom.

If you had asked us to take a wild guess about what liberal chattering Twitter would be liberally chattering about at this precise stage of human history I wonder what odds you would have got on sourdough being so high in the charts? Look at the shape of my baking eh? Incidentally, local chums, there is swb flour at Budgens. Stop. Stop. Finish reading first. Too late.

I am also enjoying investigating landscape art and cute animals therefore not cats.

I have done six hours of duty on a Church of England chaplaincy listening helpline. No-one has called. TCMT offers 'Do they know it's you on duty?' Fair point; well made.

Our family Zoom has become a regular Sunday afternoon at 3pm appointment. Junior said 'We talk to each other more than we used to.' His girlfriend wandered on to the set with an enormous strimmer. Well that beard ain't gonna trim itself. They have also bought a pond-liner and a water butt. Senior said 'Isn't that what you say when you pass a lady in the street?' We seem to be getting less woke with every passing day.

Six months ago our trips to Birmingham to visit elderly relatives were becoming so regular that it looked as if our agreed contract mileage on our car was going to be too low. One bereavement and one lock-down later and we're no longer renegotiating. April mileage (target 1,000 or less) was 68 and each was for some sort of local delivery. 'Every cloud', as David Brent put it so sensitively.

Old joke tells of the soldier who wrote to his girlfriend every day for two years whilst he was overseas without leave. When he got back he found she'd married the postman. We seem to have struck up a relationship with a paperboy and various delivery drivers. Few of the parcels are for me. I guess you'd describe this body as low maintenance. Something needs to happen to the hair soon but I am interested as to whether it still has the slight curl that I found so annoying in the 1970s and fixed with a Keeganesque bodyperm in the 1980s and short hair from 92 onwards.

Some gentle easing of the lock-down took place on Sunday but as it was described in three different ways over a twenty four hour period (leaks to press, PM broadcast, PM statement to the House of Commons) the government will be able to claim 'it worked' or 'you didn't listen to us' with equal gusto. The House of Commons are planning to start meeting properly soon to 'set a good example' (Jacob Rees-Mogg). Since a fundamental principle of all this is of people working from home if they possibly can I suspect they are setting a good example of being as confused as we are supposed to be. The headline slogan is 'Stay alert'. To understand this government's announcements you need to be more alert than I am capable of. You need the alert dial up to 11.

I'm planning to be mainly at home and dozing. That should do it. Until next week.

Updating my CV - Week 4

One of the questions I have taken with me through my career in ministry is this, 'What would happen if we did nothing?' So many issues are presented to the clergy as needing an urgent decision. It is good if you have the ability to spot those cases where doing nothing is an option. I call it specific and strategic indecision. Not laziness. Oh no. A very specific choice of the 'no action required' option. We all like to feel that problems come to us because we are recognised as someone who can solve them. It is humility, not hand-washing, that chooses not to choose. Not everything gets worse if you leave it alone. You'd be amazed how many things fix themselves.

There is a classic story in this genre here. It's the Mystery of the Great Ayton Dinner Plates.

I have one pastoral issue which I have been leaving alone for nearly two years now and, to quote a former colleague, 'While there's death there's hope.' There is a real possibility that this problem will go away. People of Trendlewood Church reading this - it's not any of you.

Now why did I start with that? Because I feel the whole of the current state of ministry in lock-down is grappling with 'What should I do today?' And I am tempted to answer 'What would happen if I did nothing?' It would be interesting, although I have currently stopped short of this, to do nothing and see what ends up being demanded of me.

We spend a lot of our lives answering the question 'Who are you?' It is tempting to reply with a description of what we do. Knee-jerk activism. I went through a period of answering with 'carbon-based life-form living on the third planet from a sun'. Mainly it pissed people off.

Friend of mine took a sabbatical. Told me he was going to concentrate on being rather then doing. Then he listed all the things he was going to do in order to be a better being.

I quite like being. I have a things-to-do list because I have a job and a mind that is usually occupied on some much deeper project than that which I am supposed to be doing. And, as a great administrator I once worked with said 'What's the point of having to remember something if you've got a things-to-do list'? Quite. But these last few weeks have seen me being more of a human being than a human doing and I like a lot of that.

So, how we all being? As I look around the neighbourhood, cars are cleaner, lawns are tidier, streets are quieter, the skies are empty. We've done loads. Meanwhile death and disaster may or may not have an appointment.

There is an old zen story. It goes like this:

A man was being chased towards the edge of a cliff by a wild animal. He fell and grabbed a vine which took his weight. As he dangled two mice, one white and one black, came out of holes in the rock and began to nibble the vine through. Reaching over he saw a wild strawberry plant, in fruit. He picked one and ate. How sweet it tasted.

So my friends. How are the strawberries?

Thought for the Day

As delivered to the BBC Radio Bristol Breakfast with Emma show just now, live from my conservatory:

There was a film on social media recently of two stags fighting. Locked antlers and a clear focus on outmuscling each other. Doe-eyed only.

What we could see, which the two stags could not, was the rapidly approaching predator - a big cat. Too late the stags separated and ran. Too late for one of them. Survival of the fittest at its reddest and bloodiest.

With notable exceptions around the world nations have put aside their differences for a while to concentrate on a common enemy. As the film Gladiator so memorably put it, 'Whatever comes through that door, we're going to do better if we face it together.'

So, in a spirit of facing it together, we hear of the fine community mindedness of people offering their time and business skills for medical equipment manufacture. We hear of volunteers, of neighbourliness, of a willingness to embrace the new arrangements of social distancing. And an outbreak of online creativity to keep us distracted the while.

I've enjoyed people showing off their new skills from tik-tok to topiary, binging on box-sets, genning up on general knowledge.

Have we forgotten our petty disputes and little local difficulties (beat) for ever?

Probably not. I'm a realist. St Peter wrote about trials as things that test us for a little while. He didn't trust God to get him out of them. He trusted God to bring the community through them, stronger and more together.

My hardship? To stay in.

What did you do during the war daddy? I did my pilates class on the landing son. Now, where did I put that jigsaw?

As St Peter put it, grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Updating my CV - Week 3

So, week three of the lock-down and we begin to see things as they really are. Most people are nice. Some are not. Some are hypocrites and, as Marina Hyde so wisely put it in The Guardian, all of this is the fault of elite footballers. A thousand people a day dying is not because of government incompetence but because Raheem Sterling earns too much. You knew that.

The key thing to remember through all this is that it is not wrong to be a hyprocrite. It is wrong to get caught. Nobody apologises for telling us not to visit our second homes in any circumstances and then visiting their own second home. No-one apologises for visiting their mother on Mothering Sunday even if they've just told the whole country not to do that and then done it themselves. And no-one phones the BBC and says 'I had a couple of sex workers round last night please forgive me' during a lock down. They apologise after they have been outed. The hypocrisy is not being sorry until you're caught.

Since my own loved ones and I are not currently ill my main sacrifice is to stay at home in a nice house. I'm reading more. I'm playing my piano more. I'm curating, rather than leading, worship. It is the week I left the Tim Vine Joke Appreciation Group on Facebook because so few of the members had the first clue how a Tim Vine joke works. Or they posted unoriginal ones without credit.

A few years ago I had a column in a church newspaper. It was meant to be vaguely amusing and the Editor praised my light touch until he sacked me and gave the gig to Catherine Fox. Whilst I was writing it someone I worked with came up to me and told me the 'joke' about Bill Stickers being prosecuted. He genuinely thought I should write about it. It helped me realise how the humourless worked. Many of them are Tim Vine fans. They think it's easy. (Once saw Milton Jones demolish a heckler with 'It's not as easy as it looks is it?') The same sort of people write 'poems' for family funerals. Ones that don't rhyme, scan or use English as I understand it. Reading them out appropriately is one of the hardest things I ever have to do. I only ever got the giggles once at a funeral, when I pushed the button to cremate Grace Burns, but eulogistic poetry has led to some close calls.

Life. Not as easy as it looks. Death also.

The while this week, TCMT is volunteering at the food-bank. You guessed it. There was a store-room in town that needed procedures and merchandising and she won't rest until the whole world is done. Really. If you ever shop with her you may experience her tidying up someone's else till area whilst waiting to be served. If you do it with confidence nobody questions you. It does get her out of the house three mornings a week which just about provides me with sanity space, and there is a fringe benefit. Things are dropped in to the food-bank that have use-by dates or are not wanted. We have picked up two huge tins of choppd toms (2.5k each) and a decent supply of duck eggs.  I know. Nailsea eh?

Yesterday morning's exercise walk took longer than usual because of the number of distance-respecting pastoral conversations we got involved in. During the week I use headphones, get up a bit of pace and keep my head down. If I was allowed two walks a day I'd do a pastoral one and a hamstring-stretching one. Just before lock-down I was on a therapy programme at the gym for a tweaked hammy. Never done one before so I have no experience at recuperation. After a week's holiday with plenty of walking I went back to the gym and set the treadmill to my usual warm-up jog. In my week away the machine had been recalibrated to MPH not KPH and I started off far too fast. Twang.

So it's gentle ambling with an occasional jog again. But no stopping. Back at home the landing has become the place for exercise. TCMT does her yoga and pilates classes online there and I'm joining up with some online gym stuff this week too.

What did you do during the war Dad?

I stretched on the landing son; government orders.

I've been compiling a list of people who are having a good lock-down. The two members of the family involved in music production and distribution are working hard from home, sales up. I have to wait ten days for my new jigsaw orders (there's no end to my personal hardship) - sales are up. And my friend who has a medical supplies business, despite being generous to all, has seen 20% year-on-year growth. It's pretty clear that the technology businesses behind Zoom!, Houseparty and the like are doing OK. Why did my fellow Area Deans and I ever drive 45 minutes each way to meet at Saltford? In fact why did face-to-face meetings ever happen? Sometimes you need to see someone's expression clearly when you ask them a question, I guess. Sometimes.

Today is Easter Bank Holiday Monday. Normally the post-Easter day for going wibble. Ain't no wibbling happening here though. Just gentle waiting.

Hope you're all well.

Updating my CV - Week 2

How's the mood in the house?

Welcome to Week Two of the lighter side of Destruction, Death, Pestilence and Famine although I suspect we have so far only seen the four understudies - Irritation, Anxiety, Allergy and Foodbank. The lead roles are waiting for the West End Run. Coincidentally West End Run is the name of a new and popular local jogging route.

So how has it been for you? A few years ago a charity CEO I know of had forgotten his documentation to get into a particular country to talk about offering humanitarian aid. He was miffed and angry that his journey had been a waste of time but his junior colleague told him he should  simply fly home and get it. On hearing the complaint that this would take two five hour flights the junior delivered the knock down line, 'You'd let these people starve because you couldn't be bothered to watch six movies.' Great line. It worked.

I thought of this again as I realised that my sacrifice for helping with the current outbreak of coronavirus was to have a quieter Sunday, do a few jigsaws and spend more evenings with TCMT. Tough gig.

That said it is likely that some relationships will be under more strain than ours at the moment and I sympathise. Although quick tip - men, be less selfish. No charge; it's OK.

TCMT is a fine woman and sitting next to her in bed this morning drinking another coffee and reading the papers from yesterday (told you life was tough) I noticed her things to do list for today, a quiet day with no volunteering, had  nineteen points. I think she'd crossed, like, the first five off because she writes things down she's done already for the psychological lift. Men, imagine what it would be like to finish today's things to do list. I know, some of you can't get as far as that. Bear with me. Now imagine the level of enthusiasm required to start on tomorrow's. I have a great imagination and can't leap that chasm.

During this love-in (kids, not that, don't panic, you may read on) she was quoting to me the while from the Saturday Times Magazine. She bought it, that's who. She claims it was in the Guardian pile but I'm not allowing her to cross 'Buy paper' off Saturday's things to do list, ever. She reached this sentence. Pay attention men because allowing your female partners to do improving reading should be discouraged and you may get questions such as this:

'In a relationship, this article says, men want '...the four B's ... beauty, brains, body and balance.' Is this (wait for it) WHAT YOU WANTED?'

Now in a relationship women want far more than a mnemonic. They need you to be on duty all the time, like a slip-fielder who takes a match-winning catch off the last ball of the day.

A few years ago I found a model answer when a friend's wife, noticing I'd done all the work for a dinner-party, asked 'Why didn't you marry me, Steve Tilley?' I replied, leaping to the left to pluck the speeding red bullet out of the sky, that 'I didn't fancy you (beat) then'. Forget for a moment that I didn't know her then and dwell on the fact that she walked away enjoying the word 'then' and the positivity it generated.

Remember also that if your nearest and dearest ask such loaded questions as 'Do you like this dress?' you must be truthful if you care what she looks like. I commend 'You can do better than that' which blames the clothes and is slightly better than any answer suggesting it is the body's fault.

'Does my bum look big in this?'

Go straight for, 'Your bum looks big in everything - I love your bum.'

You'll have to go clothes shopping for the rest of your life so disinterest may help you in the long term. I like clothes shopping. What a catch I am.

So, and it's taken a while but we're there now, my answer to the question about the four B's:

No (beat) they were a fringe benefit.

Time for breakfast. I wonder if that was on her list. It wasn't on mine.

Further marital guidance may be offered if I live.

(Not written entirely as catharsis - that's a fringe benefit.)

Updating my CV

In a fevered social media exchange last week (no, not literally) a friend suggested it would raise the morale of some people (approximately five I reckon) if I shared a Christmas-style family update every week. I apologise that it was a red rag to a load of bull so settle down for instalment one.

Should I die during the course of this current outbreak of plague then this may be awkward but awkward never stopped me before. Should someone you love die then this will probably seem a little insensitive but insensitive never, you know. Should you die then maybe it will be a relief to ponder, as you exit this current mortality, that I have failed to entertain you for the last time.

I take as my inspiration P.J.O'Rourke, the only US Republican who ever makes me laugh. His book All the Trouble in the World - the lighter side of famine, destruction, pestilence and death remains a benchmark of black humour. That said Donald Trump was a joke too far for him and he voted, with a peg on his nose, for Hilary Clinton. Read this book to appreciate what that involved.

The last week has been a little strange. Frankly if God had a bet on Manchester City for the Premiership then he's a bad loser. Also, if he's the know-all some of us think he is, then it's disappointing he forgot to tell us to buy Andrex shares.

Seven days ago I was worried that TCMT was travelling to Bath on the train every day. That said it is even more worrying that her work place has now closed and she is at home all day because:

1. My working day involves many periods during which, to the untrained eye, it looks if I am not working.

2. She talks to herself a lot and me sometimes but I tend to ignore it all.

TCMT: You'll miss me when I'm gone
Mr Sensitive: Nah, I'll turn on the radio in the other room and ignore that

3. Most frighteningly, she has a clear and strategic plan for how to spend the time well. I expect to be remerchandised shortly.

But, to the crux, We have all now been required to be socially isolated and physically distant. Welcome to my perfect world. I have always been terribly clumsy at physical greetings, precious about my personal space and happiest alone. Join me. Oh, you can't. So sad.

It has been interesting watching the clergy who were so dismissive of social media when I tried to introduce them to it now live-streaming themselves on Facebook. That said I have also gone up the techno learning curve fast enough to need to rope up first and the sentence 'We had a great Mothering Sunday family Zoom' would have made no sense in February.

People are watching this stuff with one eye on retweeting the cock-ups. Bear in mind, my friends, that the most-viewed video sermon from last weekend was the guy who set himself on fire with a candle. Exactly. Gospel 0 Conflagration 1.

We're not necessarily all going to die but it will be a close call and, based on my minimal knowledge of mathematics, the USA is completely stuffed. Why do the Germans have fewer fatalities from coronavirus than other countries with similar infection rates? Well my wild guess is that they read the instructions.

If you want me I'll be at home. Go away.

Change Management

As a student of change I must confess that one of my early thoughts when Covid 19 coronavirus began to spread was 'Well this will be interesting'. Altering long-established behavioural patterns is hard for people. You always go to the pub on a Friday night. You always visit your Mum on Mothering Sunday. You always hug and kiss people when you welcome them. And so on.

My first observation, personally, was how aware I have become at the regularity with which I touch my face. There's an itch; scratch it. There's a moment's awkwardness; wipe your mouth / stroke your chin / a million other tells. It is hard to stop. But I am, at least, more aware of how often I do it.

There is a certain wisdom in crowds. We can organise our progress through a busy concourse in opposite directions without there being many instances of collision. There is a certain stupidity as well. A failure to realise that we are a crowd whether we like it or not. On being given a day off work and an encouragement to be out in the fresh air but socially distanced, thousands of people drove to the seaside yesterday. Snowdon attendance broke records.

The first person to stand up at an all-seater stadium gets a better view. But pretty soon everyone has to stand to get the same view and no-one is enjoying their seat. So public open spaces are now being closed because too many people used them selfishly.

We are a strange species, socially. We have organised a terrifically complex social structure within which people have vast freedoms. It is assumed that most will use their skills for the greater good of the whole, although the use of money makes the relationship one-step removed.

What is changing? We are using technology. There has never been a better time to be connected in a plague. We are ordering food without leaving home. There has never been a better time to be fed in a health scare. We are a society that has become used to things that previous pest-houses would have seen as unimaginable luxury. Who knew that a generation who cannot go out without an iPhone would value the company of real people so much? We don't like not meeting. It is too hard a change. How do you mass-change the psychology of society? Probably only with guns. Watch this space.

Thought for the Day

As delivered on BBC Radio Bristol just now, conveniently without having to travel to the studio due to social distancing:

If cancelling things was an Olympic Sport I'd be on the podium. Unless that gets cancelled.

Twice since I started doing these thoughts have I failed to be in the studio. The other time saw me stuck on the A370 behind an accident. I spoke from a lay-by on the Long Ashton bypass then drove home wondering if it wouldn't have been better to do the thought from my front room.

Today my dream came true, but not in a way that gives me any pleasure. I miss the friendly faces of the studio team. Although, Joe. That shirt's terrible. I can't see it. It's just a wild guess.

As part of my job I work to support the clergy of a number of churches. They are having to do heart-breaking things such as severely restricting the numbers at funerals and weddings.

'Now listen', says the letter of James, bluntly, '...you who say 'today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money'. Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes...'

Well, that's us told. Every now and then a staggering reminder of our fragility comes along.

Some people have elbowed everyone aside in order to get at the food. But far more have said they want to help.

On Sunday evening Christians around the country are encouraged at 7pm to light a candle and put it in their window to symbolise that they are praying for their neighbours. It's apt that there is an ancient Chinese proverb - it's better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness. Amen to that.