Category: Religion

There were few disturbances on this day

On this day in 1960 there was a very British protest march against The Bomb. And the Beeb’s low-key report reflects the rather stately, controlled atmosphere that was quite prevalent at the time. Famous people like Bertrand Russell and the up-and-coming, uncharismatic academic politician, Michael Foot made speeches – and a clergyman praised the government! I wasn’t there but I knew a girl who was!

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was of course a lost cause. Witness the proliferation of weapons across the world. But the mood at the time was founded on fear that the arms race between the USA and the USSR would run out of control – with JFK leading the West’s efforts to find a peaceful way.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/18/newsid_2909000/2909881.stm

Happy Easter!

…to us Easterners. Still not the same without mageiritsa, but the midnight service had a particularly cozy feeling.

The outdoor bit was finger-numbingly chilly, however, so I wondered how much booze was running in the veins of the clubbing girls we saw while walking back, the kind in dishtowel-sized dresses and skyscraper-high heels.

Here’s to successful negotiations, later in the month, about taking over St Martin’s church permanently. It’s a listed building, so it’s not going to fall to ruin, but it would be much better put back to its original use.

Only four days left

That is, if you fancy your chances of winning the Chariot’s exciting Easter pome competition (or if you just like messing with words).

There are plenty of targets at which to aim your vitriol, I’m sure – or on which to lavish your praises too. From the Tideway Twerp to Shivnarine Chanderpaul, from Assad to Bubba, from Balotelli to Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger. The very stuff of the classic cinquain.

Backside

Alter ego

Never looks back

Can’t avoid his gaze

Pest

Heathen holidays

In days of yore, my dad didn’t work on Good Friday or Easter Monday or Tuesday! And now everybody in Britain does, I suppose. But over here, where Viking bums on pews are as common as hens’ teeth, people are officially off work on three days, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday. That’s as many days off as at Juletide. Although that’s child’s-play compared with Cyprus where if you’re crafty you can celebrate two Xmases and two Easters. I fully expect LW to report that the New World doesn’t have any days off at Easter at all – but what of the rest of you charioteers? Do tell.

Panaceas and placebos are not PC

British patriots among us will recall that Lady Sarah Ferguson boasted of using royal jelly (by mouth) to facilitate conception, while even today a North Korean mother of triplets sings the praises of honey potions prescribed for her by the late, lamented Kim Jong-Il – akshully very ill by all acccounts.

But unmoved by these historically reliable accounts of the power of patent medicines, canny Chinese bosses plan to ban all such products from being promoted as ‘miraculous’. In fact China’s State Food and Drug Administration will outlaw words it classes as “vulgar or linked with superstition, such as: sex, God, immortal,” from the names of health products”.

Which strikes me as a bit harsh. I mean the Chinese seem to believe in the power of feng shui, tai chi and i ching, not to mention the application of needles in unmentionable places – so what’s so dangerous about ginseng, horny goat weed and a few enchanted pills from the local quack?

Remember, Confucius he say, “A little bit of what you fancy always does you good, innit?”

Too many foreigners

Nicolulla, pictured here with a recent squeeze, is the son of a Hungarian immigrant and a French mother of Greek-Jewish origin, was baptised a Roman Catholic and grew up in Paris, and is now married to an Italo-Brazilian. Glass houses and stones came to mind when he identified an excess of foreigners as the root of France’s woes. Continue reading “Too many foreigners”

Brave old world?

Euthanasia is a favourite essay topic for students. Some probably think it’s the name of an exotic flower they’ve trodden on some time. Others will simply argue it is a good thing, given their own youth and the ‘remote’ prospect of terminal illness. Its relevance expands with age, I’ve found, and these days I’m not so sure it’s wrong (ethically, I mean). Whether it is practical socially is quite another isssue. Continue reading “Brave old world?”

The Journal: February Short Story Competition

It was a grey morning in November when my brother decided that enough was enough. Of course this wasn’t an instant decision; it had been creeping up on him for some years. Slowly, of course, but nevertheless it had been on his mind.

My journey of exploration through his life on reading the journals he kept, though painful, revealed such a miasma of tragic occurrences that I could not believe how the Church had kept a lid on all this.

On the whole, he had not been outwardly unhappy; one could almost have described him as contented. Good old Philip with the worthy job, the perfect wife and a couple of well-behaved children. The two girls had inherited their mother’s looks according to my brother, whose relationship with his daughters seemed tolerant but slightly distant.

Looking back, his parishioners did begin to see the changes, although being abroad at the time, I only discovered this at the funeral. He grew his hair, appeared unkempt and frequently relied on his Rector to conduct services at short notice. He grew more unreliable at time went on, and this inevitably was brought to the attention of the Dean.

Continue reading “The Journal: February Short Story Competition”

The Jeans of Slave Traders

Some of you may remember a post I wrote a couple of years ago about my disillusionment with Richard Dawkins. A copy of that post is here. Yesterday I was reading one of our local papers and I came across this rather dodgy article here, which took me to the original, but equally dodgy article in the Daily Telegraph here. Continue reading “The Jeans of Slave Traders”