How to Clean a Conservatory Roof

The conservatory roof was covered in moss and the window clearer wanted £100 to clean it. I speak fluent window cleaner and this translates as ‘I don’t want to do that’.

And so it came to pass that I spent a good chunk of last Saturday poking a long bamboo stick out of the bedroom window and then climbing a ladder to try from the other direction. Eventually the moss was clear but it needed washing down. From my new vantage point I met a new neighbour, whose garden backs onto ours. He offered a free and far reaching monologue on the abilities of the original owner of my house. That man apparently got a job lot of fence posts ‘off of the railway’ and then discovered there were no commercially available panels to fit the grooves but by then had concreted the posts in which is why the panels rattle in the wind. My new neighbour offered me a loan of his power washer.

As there wasn’t much cleaning to do now the moss was free I said I would take him up on his kind offer if the rain didn’t shift it. ‘That’ll be Monday’ said NN who has lived here thirty years and therefore knows about the rain’s plans.

All we needed were a couple of buckets of water to wash the debris down the roof and into the gutter. From my ladder vantage point I directed TCMT in the bathroom as to which panels needed rinsing and we had some success.

I need to digress for a moment here. TCMT and I have been married for sapphire years and together for 49. I know that she speaks mainly emotion and I speak if absolutely necessary and with some precision. I can have a spontaneous emotional discussion but I try to anticipate it and prepare. She, for her part, knows I like and use clear instructions. So what happened next is my fault. She had been pouring the water slowly, carefully and gently up to this point so my instruction, pointing to a bit we had missed, to ’Chuck some over there’ was meant to be about direction not power.

Instantly a whole bucketful of water was thoroughly chucked where I was pointing but, due to some science, that would not be the end of its journey. I was up a ladder directing operations and in a microsecond calculated that:

• I was about to be soaked
• I could avoid this by moving but that could only be down and fast and I might break a bit

I did what any sensible person would have done in the circumstances and shut my mouth. Two microseconds later my mouth was the only bit of me that did not contain water.

I repeat that this was entirely my own fault for being a cute systematising male. Oh, ‘acute’ is it? Sorry.

What is unforgivable is that the bucket wielder then began to laugh. Somewhat sympathetically and apologetically but uncontrollably nevertheless. The roof looks lovely. It is Monday and not currently raining.

Thought for the Day

One of my store-cupboard (recorded well in advance and generic) TFTDs was used today to cover for someone who had pulled out late. Here is the script played on BBC Radio Bristol this morning at 8.43 a.m. by James Hanson:

Wonder how you feel about grammar pedants? Those who correct even the slightest mistake in text, tweet or email? Apostrophe bandits seeking the unwary.

Thing is, it can be important how we say things. I'm very aware that on radio, people only have my words to latch on to. Mannerisms, hand gestures or other clues are missing without a studio cam.

So there is a big difference between 'James walked on his head in the air', suggesting a contortionist and 'James walked on comma, his head in the air' which tells of a proud morning radio presenter.

The M5 service station which offers 'coffee available inside 24 hours' is probably not trying to say it takes almost a day to deliver the drinks. We need to read the context.

And if I had English as a second language and didn't understand the name we give to the reflectors in the centre of our roads what would I make of the apparently heartless Somerset village I drove through the other evening, proudly announcing 'Cats eyes removed.' Wraxall. What are you like?

God so loved the world he gave his only son. God so loved the world he gave his only son? Sounds different as a question than if it is a statement. What do you think it is?

Thinking Foreign

Students of languages will tell you that there comes a moment when you know you have 'got it' because you did not translate what you heard back into your mother tongue before replying. You were actually thinking in <insert name of language>.

Adapting to change is similar. Those of us old enough to recall the day our currency went decimal will also remember the few months/years after when we still had to calculate the price in 'old money' before we knew if it was expensive. Sample conversation:

Me: Mum, It's only 25p

Mum: That's five shillings. It's a lot of money.

Now it is second nature. For anyone under 50 it is first nature.

Likewise thinking in centigrade and kilograms. Much easier systems but how many over 40s have to translate back before we actually know how hot or heavy it is.

I'm writing this because I have had to learn, along with many others, to think in Covid. Last night I entered a bar. I knew what to do and was getting out my track and trace app (how long would it take to explain that sentence to my pre-decimal self?) when I spied some friends. Old instinct cut in and I walked straight over to them to say hello. I was hailed from the meet and greet counter that I couldn't do that until I had signed in. Old thinking. Will it become new thinking? Permanent change? Who knows?

Back to Back

We have two fridges. One in the kitchen for regular stuff and one in the garage which contains rarely used cordials and aperitifs, some vegetables and a lot of beer. We call it the back fridge. We call it the back fridge because the other fridge has always been called the back fridge even though it is not in the back. It is, as I have told you and paragraph one is mighty early for repetition, in the garage and the garage is in the front of the house to be near the driveway.

The second fridge became a thing in our previous house when we got a new fridge before the other one died properly. We put the old one, with the freezer, in an unused downstairs room which was a bit like a cellar. It was a three story Victorian terrace and the third floor (lower ground) was not visible from the road. The lower-ground front room in that house had no natural light and we used it as storage space. Others who bought such houses in the street made an access space for natural light and made an extra living room but were plagued by damp problems unless they spent a fortune.

Did you spot the weird thing in that little section? I passed over it quickly but I said, quite clearly, that the cellar room with the fridge in was the 'lower-ground front room'.

Which means, by my calculation, that although from the kitchen the cellar room was often behind you, it was never in the back. It has always been the front fridge and has been misnamed for over 25 years. We're going to start calling it by its proper name. We'll try, anyway. I wonder how long it will take. Would you bother to change your language if it was proved to be completely inappropriate? Would you work at it?

It's a good question, and why this little piece is about far more than fridges.

Thought for the Day

As delivered to the BBC Radio Bristol Breakfast Show just now:

If you found your hotel was on fire and you hastily read the exit instructions on the door you would not like to find this:

'Here beginneth section one of the instructions appertaining to the exiting of this accommodation in the event of a situation of combustion, fire, tempest, storm, wrath, damnation and other such incidences. Thou shalt proceed with all due haste to the end of this corridor, and be ye sure that ye tarry for no man neither greeteth any man on the way, lest thou be consumed and all thy maidservants also.'

No. In case of fire I want to know how to get out. Clearly and quickly. And not in the language of the King James' Bible.

Someone once went up to Jesus and asked him what the greatest commandment was. He said thou shouldst vouchsafe to prioritise God with thy aortic rhythms, ego and id, cerebrally and muscularly. Only kidding. He said that the guy should love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength and love his neighbour as himself.

Which, because Jesus was good at that sort of thing, successfully summarises the first four commandments at a stroke and the last six even quicker.

Is the Bible's big message clear.

How about:

God created

We rebelled
God loved
Jesus died
We live

Ten words. One Gospel. We can talk about the small print later. Track and trace me if you'd like a chat.

So. For what is this a metaphor? Well. If you want to say something important. Say it clearly. Please. And now back to the voice of clarity herself.

Expressions and Sell-by Dates

There is a certain wing of the evangelical church which has only one cause for praising a speaker. Were they clear? Clarity is all. Obfuscation is frowned upon. Even metaphor is treated as suspect.

At a training day on Fresh Expressions recently (it's a church thing) we spent the first few minutes, almost inevitably, discussing what the expression Fresh Expressions expressed. Forgetting my long held view to never be part of a group that didn't know what it was doing there, I joined in.

And almost equally inevitably, somewhere along the line, we decided that it depended what words followed the expression. Fresh Expressions of what? Christianity? Ministry? Church?

A few weeks prior to that I had been involved in a discussion about various old election mantras from the major parties. We got on to the 'Big Society' thing that Cameron's Conservatives invited us to be part of. One of the advantages of  an appeal to the county summarised by an apparently meaningless expression is that it generates discussion.

I probably had more conversations about Big Society around that time than I would have done if its meaning had been clear. Was that genius or luck? Probably genius. Cameron was in advertising.

A few weeks after I arrived in this diocese (Bath and Wells) I found myself in a room discussing a little soundbite of a previous bishop - thinking different. Quite a few of the clergy were up in pedantic arms because they thought it should say - thinking differently. Pleased with themselves a few smug titters moved round the room. I was trying not to say anything because I was the new kid but I cracked. 'You only want it to be an adverb' I said because you think 'thinking' is a verb.

There was tumbleweed I swear. No-one understood me so I had another go. 'It's about missing words' I said. If the missing words are 'Are you...' then you need an adverb. If the missing words are 'Is your...' then you need an adjective.

I do myself no favours by putting things in a convoluted way but, in my defence, I really enjoy doing it.

There is a place for pith. But sometimes the absence of it is more effective. A lack of clarity is not always undesirable. May I do my punchline please? Thank you. I've been taking the pith for years.

Book Reviews

Interesting, and completely accidental, juxtaposition of novels this week. The linking theme being voice, or lack of it.

Vox explores an imagined USA from the not-too-distant future where power is held by a group of white males led by a cruel and tyrannical evangelical Christian minister. Separating out those who are 'pure' the gay, ethnic minorities and women are all marginalised. For women it's not quite Stepford. No-one has yet pioneered the surgery necessary to bring that about. So women are required to wear a bracelet which delivers a short, sharp shock if they say more than 100 words a day.

It's pretty frightening, given the state of the current Christian right in the USA. The interesting premise develops into a classic thriller and the last 100 pages pass quickly.

In Pew a sleepy US town is visited by one who doesn't speak, named by the locals after the place this stranger is found spending a night. The desire to be hospitable, in this place of Christian principles, to a struggling newcomer is tested by the lack of communication. How can we know how to help you if you don't tell us your story? Is the muteness a preference? Is it post-trauma? Or something more sinister?

In Christina Dalcher and Catherine Lacey we have two novelists right on top of their game and two interesting approaches to the necessity of language.

Memory

I had a weird moment the other day. It was one of those I-didn't-know-that-I-could-do-that moments.

Many people, reading a book and looking back for a previous section, will retain a visual memory of exactly whereabouts on the page the sought-after words would be. If you can't do it I'm sorry. But it is not uncommon. I can do it.

Last week I was out walking by myself and listening to a Podcast. Half way across a field I met a friendly stranger who informed me that the next field contained a bull. He didn't recommend going across that field and asked me if I knew another way round. I did, but it was complex so I showed him and we walked together and chatted until we parted company maybe ten minutes later.

At this point I returned to my Podcast. I found that, although I had removed my earphones, I had not paused the programme.

I rewound a few minutes and listened. I recognised a piece I had already heard. I had rewound too far. Here's the weird moment. I knew exactly where I had been on my walk when I heard that bit. Precisely. It was about 300 yards before I met my new friend. I fast-forwarded a bit, but not far enough because again, I knew where I had been walking when I heard that bit. I got there in three.

Incidentally I had been listening to a Podcast about words so I note, in passing, how 'fast-forward' and 'rewind' are wedded to the days of tape recorders. I should find new words for what I do with my finger on an iphone touch-screen.

But is this phenomenon why memorising decks of cards etc works well if you imagine a journey to find them? Do any of my smarter friends have the explanation?

VE Day Postscript

On June 4th 1940 Churchill gave one of his most famous wartime speeches. And this is the central passage.

'We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.'

I always knew it was a powerful piece of rhetoric. He managed to convey strength of character as he channelled a British strength of character. The emotion flew way ahead of the words. But, although I have heard it many times before, I only worked out recently that he expected to lose.

Mark Forsyth shows us this in his book 'The Elements of Eloquence'. In the chapter on anaphora (starting each phrase or sentence with the same word or words) he quotes this speech. And he shows us that all people remember are the big verbs - fight, defend, never surrender.

And so it is constantly quoted to encourage us to win at things.

Apparently, and my Wikipedia source is not completely certain, he spoke in the lobby after the speech of fighting with the broken ends of beer bottles if necessary. Let's add in a few things the audience were not encouraged to think during the speech:

'We shall go on to the end (our end).

We shall fight in France... (and then when we are driven out of France)

... we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches,... (when they invade)

...we shall fight on the landing grounds,... (when they try to land)

...we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,... (when they win on the beaches and landing grounds)

...we shall fight in the hills;... (when driven out of our streets and fields)

...we shall never surrender.' (we will become a resistance movement)

A following passage exhorted the new world to get organised and come to the rescue of the old world, eventually.

He expected us to lose yet spoke with the energy of a winner. That's the genius of it. It took me a while to see it.

Where do all our words come from?

Every now and again the lovely Guardian Review on a Saturday has a gem of an article. Last weekend James Meek had this superb little reminder. Click on the link for his article or read on for my summary first/instead.

The three languages of medieval Britain were French, Latin and English (but not as we know it). The Black Death forced the decreased population to accommodate each other and one language began to emerge.

Previously we had had:

• Francophone aristos
• Latinist clerics
• Anglophone peasantry

Meek's point is that it is interesting how we still in fact use:

• Latin or Latin-derivations for intellectual analysis
• French for power, military and finance
• Anglo-Saxon (plus Norse) for everyday

He added that the 'new clerics' include, lawyers, writers, some artists, scientists, journalists, some comedians, politicians, some entrepreneurs and actual clerics.

To use a word from each set he concluded:

Rise up, rebel, revolt

Hocus Pocus - Article 24/39

XXIV. OF SPEAKING IN THE CONGREGATION IN SUCH A TONGUE AS THE PEOPLE UNDERSTANDETH

IT is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the Primitive Church, to have publick Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understanded of the people.

The very language of Article 24 is not easily understanded of the people. But this is not about reducing clerical input to kids' talk; it is about doing it in English. That is its precision.

Latin had been the language of the church. And almost nobody understanded it. When the celebrant stood with his back to the congregation and said 'hoc est corpus meum' all the people at the nave end, separated by sanctuary rail, chancel/choir and rood screen heard (in the days before PA) was 'hocus pocus'. Which is as good a story of the origin of that expression that I have heard.

We still have many discussions in the church about the nature of religious language. From time to time I try to explain short words that have specific theological meanings – sin, the Word, saving. And any foreign words that we still use – hosanna, hallelujah, maranatha. Should we keep it simple? Or should we make sure we explain? Or should we ask people to make an effort to understand? That is its problem.

Church services should feel special, carefully crafted and understandable by ordinary people. That is its principle.

Stupid Man

I hope you can see how I've tried to join up my lingusitic thinking here, whilst keeping it all brief and tight. The first few paragraphs are four separate examples.

In the 1990s I saw Chelsea play Liverpool at the Bridge. The bloke behind me called every member of the Liverpool team a bastard whenever they had the ball. Saunders was a Welsh bastard. Molby a fat bastard. Fowler a Scouse bastard. You get the picture. When John Barnes got the ball TBBM stopped himself. He was going to say it. But there was a pause and he said f***ing instead. I was so impressed at this evidence of evolution in South London I wrote to When Saturday Comes.

In my early days in the Communications Group here in Bath and Wells we discussed a slogan being used. It was 'Thinking Different'. Some people went ape. It should say 'differently' they almost shouted. After several rounds of verbal dexterity I emerged from my silent pondering (which I do in meetings, it makes me poor at them but I find thinking doesn't happen when I am speaking) and asked what the missing words were. It took a while for people to realise I was asking a genuine question which they didn't understand so I repeated it slowly.

What are the missing words? 'Thinking' can be a noun and a verb. So if the missing words are 'Are you...' then indeed we should make different into an adverb and add ly.

Are you thinking differently?

Exactly, said the grammar police. Our point. Move on.

I did not move on but continued. I do that.

... if the missing words are 'Is your...' then all is well.

Is your thinking different?

Basically it gave another small group of people a reason to hate me for daring to talk about missing subject clauses without any qualifications save a 1971 English O Level grade 3. I dangled my modifier deliberately there.

When TCMT is being grateful to me she sometimes calls me a lovely man. Don't ask. I don't believe she is saying I am lovely because I am a man. I am a man and I have my moments.

We have occasionally sat in front of a programme such as Question Time and called a male of the species a 'stupid man'. We do not believe we are saying he is stupid because he is a man. We are saying he is a man and he is stupid. An exemplar of male stupidity which is neither ubiquitous nor missing.

I have thought long and hard before posting this and I do so as a question only. I am a sexist but not the worst example and I try to repent and change.

So, when Mr Corbyn called Mrs May (if he did) a 'stupid woman' was that so bad? Was it sexist? Maybe? Mayhem? Dismay?

God, Boris and the Truth

It is a while since that New York Mayor, Mario Cuomo, quoted by Leo McGarry in The West Wing, said 'We campaign in poetry; we govern in prose.' 1985 in fact. And I guess we were all fine with that as long as we understood that it meant that big picture vision statements were the stuff of rallies and nitty-gritty detail the stuff of day-to-day running of a city or country. We got that.

But I don't think that's how it's interpreted anymore. We accelerated very rapidly through 'We campaign in hyperbole...' and are delivered to where we are today, campaigning in lies. Whopping great porkies painted on buses, printed on leaflets and photo-shopped on social media.

I was at an interesting panel discussion on fake news recently when the American grass-roots Republican position was summarised as 'Trump's a liar; but he's our liar'.

Hold that idea; here's another one. It's to do with our brains. I am not a neurologist.

When someone puts you in danger or stress the amygdala sends a signal to the hypothalamus that leads to a flight or fight response. We can have a false response when stressed at work because constant low-level irritation of the system overworks it and leads to other health problems. Find the medical stuff explained here.

It has recently been discovered that the same signals are triggered when someone opposes your long-held views. It takes experience and training not to shout at, or even punch, someone if they suggest you have voted wrong all your life or been a racist without realising.

This places us in difficulty. If you can't counter a lie with the truth without starting a fight, and can't disabuse someone of a falsehood  because they assume everyone is dealing in falsehood, where do you turn?

Well let's turn to Boris Johnson for a while since I put him in the title. As I write he has not apologised for his reported observation that a burka-wearing woman reminded him of a bank robber, or a letter box. If you are in doubt about the precise difference between a hijab and a burka then BBC Newsround have a useful guide. But the cat's out of the bag. Any apology will be for political effect. I doubt he will mean it or have seen the error of his ways. It was the sort of joke/comment that I would have heard at my parents' dinner parties in the 1960s and 1970s. I imagine BoJo's parents had more dinner parties than my family so a wider selection of racist friends were available. Those of us who enjoyed a liberal education learnt soon after that such 'jokes' were inappropriate and in the 1980s political correctness, for all its negative press, was a  desire to make sure a minority group had not been overlooked or accidentally oppressed. As the late Miles Kington wisely pointed out once, the over-reaction was when people treated the disadvantaged as if the disadvantage itself conferred dignity. It is perfectly possible to be a wheelchair user and an arseshole. And US wheelchair users can be assholes.

We turn to free speech. This is one of the great values of liberal democracy. People are allowed to say stupid things. People are allowed to be rude. They can make bad jokes. If they write lies then the civil courts offer the chance of an action for libel (although few of us could afford that route). We try to put as few limits as possible on the right of free speech. But in the UK we decided that incitement to racial or religious hatred should be a crime and this was enshrined in law in 2006. And, of course, employers will want to police the language of their employees. If your position at work makes you 'known' then you forfeit some of the rights to private views if they contradict those of your employer.

The question we may never know the answer to, this side of eternity, is whether Boris is a devious and manipulative tester of the rights of free speech - or an arsehole. Does he actually realise that some horrid people will take his words and see them as authoritative on a nastier scale? Does Boris' position require of him a higher standard than that required of others? Does his stepping back from one of the great offices of state have a bearing on this?

His recent Telegraph article, which I have read in full, has had a bit ripped out of context. He was chastising the usually-liberal Danes for banning the niqab and burka. He did include a small observation that he thought such face covering looked daft and, yes, he did say it reminded him of a post box. The bank robber comment was slightly more ambiguous:

'If a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured, I should feel fully entitled – like Jack Straw – to ask her to remove it so that I could talk to her properly. If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then ditto: those in authority should be allowed to converse openly with those that they are being asked to instruct.'

You may recall the expression, 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' (S.G.Tallentyre 1906)

Boris disapproves of the burka but supports the right of people to wear it. We ought to support the right of Boris to say what he thinks even though we disapprove, unless, unless, unless...

Unless it is incitement. Unless it is part of a state of the art divide and rule policy. Boris has form when it comes to allying himself with the 51%. And unless it is not the position of the governing party to which he belongs - then he should rightly be disciplined.

I also brought God into the title. This is awkward for readers who now have to disagree with everything I've said so far because I belong to the faith community and they don't. That said, the Bible has very much higher standards for the use of language than incitement legislation or the libel laws.

Ephesians 4:29 'Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.'

James 1:19 'My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.'

The presence of these two correctives to the behaviour of mainly Christian hearers or readers tells us that the early church was far from perfect. People were becoming followers of Jesus before realising that it had some implications for their behaviour.

Which may be why John, writing his Gospel later than many of the New Testament letters, put the words 'I am the truth' on Jesus' lips. It is easier to have a person to follow and trust than a manual to try and understand.

Turning to Christ is more of an answer than turning to legislation. If you do, you will want to try to be people of the truth, seeking forgiveness in genuine humility when you fail.

This has been a long-winded way of saying 'play nicely'. And I'm still not much further forward in understanding how to debate with people who have a trigger-happy amygdala. But I'm going to hang in there, slow to anger, and look for the good, even in Boris.

Thought for the Day

As delivered this morning (I was an emergency replacement) at BBC Radio Bristol's Breakfast with Emma Britton:

For a few years in a previous life I made a decent living re-writing organisations' publicity material into plain English. It struck me as amazing how few people ever asked someone from outside to do this. More than one person told me that there was no way I could ever understand their organisation because I was an outsider. After a while I smiled sweetly (I can do that with a run up) and asked 'So what chance have your customers got then?' Well it got me some work (beat) plus a few new enemies.

Yesterday, tapping into my previous life-skills, I drew a time-line on the wall of our church meeting room using a long strip of lining paper. And in five minutes I did the whole 2000 year back story of Jesus from Abraham to Bethlehem.

More than a few people told me they had understood something for the first time. Why? Because it was simple and visual.

Fact is everyone, and the church may be one of the worst offenders, ends up with a bit of insider language to use as a short cut - radio studios, the medical profession, TV shows, even auction houses and clock decorators. We all use fancy language which only insiders understand.

Yet when a problem comes along like an unpaid debt our language gets very simple - pay me what you owe. Kids get this. Number one child complaint in the whole world (all together now) 'It's not fair.'

So pay what you owe, figure out Jesus and try to be fair. Pretty basic thought for the day. Also (as someone once said):

Don't use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily accomplish the contemporary necessity.

And having made it through that much-rehearsed final sentence I raised both hands in the air (which doesn't really work on the radio) and headed to the gym.

Ian Dury, Woke up this Morning and a Bit of Bad Language

I don't know why I woke up with Ian Dury on my mind yesterday. I was searching for a lyric, I think.

For those who are too young, Ian Dury and The Blockheads had some success in the late 1970s and early 1980s with some cracking singles such as Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick, Reasons to be Cheerful Part lll (that 'Part lll' in itself a tease that you had missed parts l and ll, which you hadn't) and Wot a Waste. His lyrics had a certain nursery rhyme quality, albeit rhymes you would not want your children to learn before their teenage years. His backing band included the extremely talented Chas Jankel on keys and guitar, and the best bass player I have ever heard live (and I heard Leo Lyons, Jaco Pastorius, Tony Levin and The Ox), Norman Watt-Roy.

Behind all this was an unavailable at first (in this country) tune called Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Dury's first album only began with that track if you bought a US pressing—which I did, of course, what do your take me for? It was a classic album for not playing to the fine and upstanding members of the Christian community we regularly entertained. Randomly, one of the tunes began with 'Bollocks, arseholes, f******* c**** and pricks.' We always turned it off before answering the door.

I hope you are OK with the words I chose not  to bleep. I was talking to someone the other day who was upset at the amount of times Bishop Michael Curry blasphemed in an interview about 'that' sermon. So I expect some will be disappointed. But  this is me so don't take it too hard.

I couldn't recall the lyric I was seeking but improvised a snatch of the type of poetry it might be, my tribute if you like:

I went on quite a bender

With a barmaid name of Brenda
She turned out pretty handy
With a pint of larger shandy

Which helped me pin down the tune - Billericay Dicky. And the actual lyric:

I bought a lot of brandy

When I was courting Sandy
Took eight to make her randy
And all I had was shandy

Down with this sort of thing? In the world and not of it? Never really found the time to be offended by swearing? You?

Thanks for your time.

A Word about Warning

Warnings about Brexit recession were wrong

It behoves those of us who try to write from time to time to be very careful criticising misuse of language for we can be very sure we will be the next to be guilty. On the basis that when I err I try really hard to take it on the chin, permit me a grumble.

Here's a bit of dialogue:

Dad: If you don't look both ways before you cross the road you'll get knocked down by a car.

(three years later)

Dad: Hello son. You haven't been knocked down by a car. I see my warning was wrong.

Now. Can we all pick some holes in that please. Good. The son was not incredibly lucky. Nor was the warning wrong. More than likely a change in behaviour prevented the thing being warned about from happening.

A prediction can be proved wrong. A prophecy (if time limited) can be judged false. A warning is designed to change behaviour so as to avoid the thing that might happen. It isn't wrong if it works.

Few warnings about Brexit recession were couched in a time-frame. It is possible, maybe even likely, that important people have taken action to adjust economic behaviour in order to avoid recession.

So the warnings weren't wrong.

Thought for the Day

This is today's BBC Radio Bristol Thought for the Day. If you want to hear how well I did the accents you will need to listen again to Claire Cavanagh from today and about 2 hours 15 minutes in. It will become available around lunchtime today.

I've lived around the Midlands, County Durham and now North Somerset. But at heart I'm a Brummie. I lived in the sort of family where any hints of a regional accent were educated out of me using the parenting tool of pure sarcasm. So you get this slightly adenoidal homeless accent you hear now.

(Brummie) I can put it on if I need to, especially back home you know, oroit, triffic, bostin'.

But moving to the land of ey up me duck where Steve Tilley became Steve Tiller, to the almost Geordie land where our next door neighbour Philip could pronounce the word (Geordie) caterpillar (repeat) without the awkward bother of consonants, I picked up a bit of this and a bit of that.

Only yesterday I lamented that my shoes had all clarts on them and saw that nobody else knew what I meant. It's bits of mud.

My mimicry of Bristolian is not honed yet. I've got the letter O sorted. So as long as I take (accent) - a photo of a potato - all is well. But not the rest.

Does it matter? Well of course our regional accents in this country are a source of pride. We are an unusual nation in that accents and dialect words change every twenty miles or so. When I'm supporting my team, West Brom (sorry City fans), I turn into a yam yam - which, as Nick Day said earlier, is how Black Country sounds to strangers.

But from the perspective of my faith - it doesn't matter. No accent, language, age, gender, sexuality, height or anything else in all creation should separate you from the love of God. So it shouldn't prevent you crossing the threshold of a church either.

(Brummie) See yer next week. Tarrarabit.

The spell-checker hated this one.

Thought for the Day

'It wasn't what you said it was the way you said it.' Ever been on the receiving end of that bit of pocket wisdom?

I am reading a fabulous little book by Mark Forsyth called 'The Elements of Eloquence'.

It was given to me by a friend who always sends copies of her favourite book each year to five people she thinks will enjoy it. Lovely thing to do.

In the book, sub-titled 'How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase' we are introduced to the proper names for all the different ways of speaking.

Please, please me sang the Beatles, possibly unaware they were using polyptoton.

Why do you have flip-flops and not flop-flips? Why do bells go ding-dong not dong-ding? Because English has a feel for the correct order of words. If you break it; that's called hyperbaton. Used by Yoda in Star Wars, it was.

And why say 'everybody' when you can say 'ladies and gentlemen'. That's a merism.

So, whether you are complaining about a football result, a supermarket or the weather (that was a tricolon by the way), it will make a difference how you say it.

When I was a child I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I put childish ways behind me.

St Paul had a way with words. Epistrophe, in fact. But it helped him tell his Christian audience to act more maturely. They might not have listened otherwise.

If we have an axe to grind we might make progress if we get our language sharper too. It's what you say and how you say it.

How to compare two things.

I read just now that:

'Gordon Taylor has apologised for comparing the Hillsborough tragedy to the Ched Evans rape case.' (Source - www.bbc.co.uk)

I wish he hadn't. Apologised, that is. Because that was not what he did. No such comparison was made. What he did was to give the Hillsborough case as an example of people being thought to be guilty and found innocent. Simply an example of something that does happen from time to time and that is a miscarriage of justice.

Now I am not making any pronouncement on the innocence or guilt of Ched Evans. He has been found guilty by a court; he continues to protest his innocence. We shall have to wait and see.

And of course I am bound, at this stage, in accordance with the rules of the game of language as currently played, to say that rape is rape, rape is serious, rape is a crime and the rapist is to blame. Otherwise I will be offending people who will think I am not taking it seriously enough.

Here's my problem. The world currently seems to take the view that putting two things in the same paragraph is comparing them. It isn't. And it is educated journalists, who should know better, who are making sure people who were never meant to be insulted fully understand the non-nuances of the insult that wasn't made so they feel insulted.

Strewth.

Mick's Metaphor of (possibly) the Decade

This blog has, from time to time, posted language into the car-crusher and smoked the remains. Fair enough. None of us is perfect. But this interview with Portsmouth FC's Chief Executive Mark Catlin had me reaching for the calculator to count the metaphors. He is discussing the club's early settling of its debts. See if you can continue to visualise what he is saying, and in particular which direction the club is going:

'Pompey is completely legacy debt free but that is just the start ... It is a fantastic achievement and a weight hanging over the club since coming out of administration 18 months ago has been removed. We are at ground zero now. This club was in a crater and we are out of that now with foundations built. The club has turned itself around and got itself on a level playing field. We are debt free and keep moving forward and progressing, never taking our eye off the ball. It is important we stay under the microscope and cannot allow ourselves to go to that level again.'

(As told to the Portsmouth News and reported by The Guardian, today)