Zombie Poets

I was at a meeting the other week, and people started discussing the interestingly-titled book "If you see George Herbert on the road, kill him." George Herbert died in 1633.

[Apparently it's a book about ministry and the fact that the "vicar does everything" model doesn't work any more, if it ever did. Of course, being an evangelical, I was reared far more on Baxter than Herbert in terms of writing on ministry, and we've ditched the vicar does everything model years ago. In fact, I've come across Herbert a lot as a poet (he's a very good poet), but hardly at all as a writer on ministry...]

Anyway, my initial reaction to the title of the book was to imagine a new squad of highly trained vicars being sent out to rid the world of the new menace of zombie poets. I shared this picture with other ministers in the room, but they didn't seem in the least amused. I'm not sure what this says about my suitability or otherwise for the ordained ministry!

Picture on right: George Herbert pre-zombification

Make Life Flow

As a church, we're supporting Tearfund's Make Life Flow campaign. As part of this campaign, several videos have been made, set in a village in Uganda where girls have to walk a long way to get water - the only spring is 1½ miles from the village, and down a very steep hill. The village in question is clearly in a bit of Uganda where there is plenty of water - Tearfund have helped to build a large rainwater storage tank, and there's lots of greenery around.

I don't doubt the campaign is a good one, but the videos left me unsettled because there were so many questions unanswered.

1. As far as I can tell, every single old village in the UK (before water mains) was built on a river, stream or spring. Why was this one not? Were they refugees from some conflict? I can understand villages being built away from springs in areas where there isn't much water around, but this isn't one of those areas.
2. In areas where there isn't a regular stable water supply (e.g. Israel), people have been building underground cisterns to store water in for thousands of years - at least as early as Genesis 37. Essentially, Tearfund have helped the village to do that (except with overground tanks). Why didn't they have cisterns already? Why wasn't that part of building the village in the first place?
3. In the video, there were lots of women and teenage girls, but very few men and teenage boys (except the pastor and the schoolteacher). Where were they? The obvious answer would be doing some kind of herding work, but if all the men were some distance away, why was there so much danger of the women being raped on their way to collect water? And if they weren't some distance away, why weren't they offering to protect the women collecting water?
4. Why weren't the men helping to improve the infrastructure, when it's obviously something which creates a lot of benefits and their physical strength would have been useful?

I guess it seems that there are so many background questions and issues that need tackling to really do something about poverty like this. I think I understand urban poverty far better - not that I know what to do about that either... Still, what Tearfund are doing looks like a good start.

Amazon and Odd Choice of Recommended Books....

This e-mail was sent to me today...

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated books by C. S. Lewis have also purchased Kragos and Kildor the Two-headed Demon (Beast Quest) by Adam Blade. For this reason, you might like to know that Kragos and Kildor the Two-headed Demon (Beast Quest) is now available.

Not quite what I had in mind...

Odd Happenings

My fiancee has suggested I put more of this sort of thing up...

I spent a decent chunk of today getting an old green toilet out of the loft of someone's house, because we need it for a service on Sunday. Struggling backwards down a ladder holding a dirty toilet bowl isn't always what I'd expected to be top fo the list of things to do in a curacy, but never mind!

The church has received a generous donation of a large number of fresh corns-on-the-cob (I think that's the plural) from a local farmer. Apparently a truckload or so... Now under normal circumstances, we'd donate them to the local homeless shelter, but in this case it seems they're not fit for human consumption - they're some different species that is grown for cattle feed. Not sure why they were donated, or if we asked for them, but mine not to reason why and all. So we're apparently using them to decorate the church with. It remains to be seen what result this will have.

And I'm planning a controversial Harvest family service sermon for Sunday...

The Phantom of the Opera

Here's some of the TV info blurb for the film of the Phantom of the Opera, as shown on Film4:

Joel Schumacher directs this darkly Gothic interpretation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical

Andrew Lloyd Webber's famous musical is, as the name suggests, about a phantom who lives in an opera house. The script requires a few murders and attempted murders and has several significant scenes set in a graveyard and abandoned caves under the opera house.

It contains lines like "Down once more to the dungeon of my dark despair / Down we plunge to the prison of my mind!"

And yet, somehow, the blurb suggests that it might be possible to produce an interpretation of Phantom that isn't darkly gothic!

Don't get me wrong, I think Phantom is ALW's best musical. It's probably my second favourite musical (after Les Mis). It's clever, and has some real feel-good moments. But it is dark, and it is gothic. Oh, and I enjoyed the stage version more than the film.

Nerdishness

I haven't done one of these in a while...

Church Noticeboard

This morning, I wandered past a rural church near here. When I looked at the noticeboard, I thought they'd just left it totally blank. After staring at it for a while, I realised there was a nicely done list of services for the term. It was well word-processed and clearly laid out. The service this morning was apparently an all-age service. But the nicely done term card was behind an elderly piece of plastic which was so old and dirty it was almost completely opaque.

What are the dirty pieces of plastic hindering our well put together witness?

Flat Pack Furniture

Sorry about the lack of posting for the last week or so. I've been spending a lot of my time buying and assembling flat-pack furniture. And I don't have enough to do a scientific survey, but during my brief stint in the social sciences, they tried to persuade me that a sample size of 1 was significant. So here is a "social scientific" survey of three different places to buy flat-pack. Please not this is not scientific and not based on exhaustive research. I didn't buy multiple copies of every single piece of flat pack furniture in the UK - that would have been silly... But I did buy pieces of comparable difficulty from John Lewis, Argos and IKEA.

Range

Argos probably have the biggest range of the three. IKEA do a smaller range, but have far more options for each model. For example, Argos might sell 30 types of desk. IKEA will sell 8 or so, but a couple of them will come with 50 different options of size, height and so on, but all of roughly the same sort of quality. John Lewis have a dramatic range of quality, from desks that cost under £100 to ones that cost nearer £500 but they'll probably only do a dozen or so in total.

Ratings (out of 5): 3½ each

Quality

This quite surprised me. Yes, IKEA basically do chipboard with MDF coating and a veneer of wood. But it's pretty solid and takes weight, especially when I modify the instructions by judicious application of an adjustable wrench. If I didn't know what I was doing, IKEA stuff would have been wobbly though. Argos is often similar quality, but because the assembly methods tend to me more involved, they end up more stable. John Lewis will of course sell you furniture hand carved by a not-quite poor person living in some fashionable country (like India or Egypt) if you want, but their cheapest furniture is probably worse than you'd get for the same price at Argos.

Ratings (out of 5): IKEA 3, Argos 4, JL 4

Price

IKEA is very good for price, but Argos is not far behind. John Lewis have a policy of being "never knowingly undersold", but that doesn't mean much when everything is sold as own brand, even when they're actually being produced by random small companies across Europe.

Ratings (out of 5): IKEA 5, Argos 4, JL 3

Instructions and Assembly

Once again, a surprise. IKEA instructions hardly had any words on - obviously aimed at an international and polyglot audience, but were actually very clear, and the product was easy to assemble. Admittedly, the table I made was then wobbly, but it was easy enough to modify so that it wasn't... Argos instructions were more complex, but pretty clear apart from the titles for each section, which seemed to have nothing to do with what was actually being done. John Lewis instructions seemed to have been translated from Danish by the person who came bottom of their class in English. Would you know which part of a chair the "flute" was? These were also the only instructions that I made a mistake in following...

Ratings (out of 5): IKEA 4, Argos 3½, JL 3

Tryability

For some items, this doesn't matter (like bookcases). For others it does (like sofas). It's also Argos's biggest weakness. They've got a few shops where you can try out sofas and so on, but not many. IKEA have a few big shops where you can try pretty much everything. John Lewis have more shops where you can try a lot of things.

Ratings: IKEA 4, Argos 2, JL 4½

Access and Delivery

Argos let you pick most stuff up from almost any of their many shops, or will deliver any number of items for less than £6 in total within 2 days. John Lewis don't let you take so much home, but offer free delivery on a lot of their stuff, but in my case it was slow (about a week) and by Parcelforce. IKEA charge a minimum of £35 for delivery, though of course you can pick most of their stuff (but not sofas) up from stores if you can fit them in your car!

Ratings: IKEA 2, Argos 5, JL 3½

Overall

Just adding all the numbers up, which assumes those areas are all equal, which they aren't, you get these completely unscientific ratings out of 30...

IKEA 21½, Argos 22, JL 21½

So Argos is the winner by a whisker!

Designer Clothes

These puzzle me. I don't understand why they are different to other clothes. Did the other clothes evolve? Were they created by having random bits of cloth thrown at an automated sewing machine? Are they timeless designs that have always been made? Were they designed by committee?

Beds

Beds puzzle me. There are loads of different widths of bed available, but they are all the same length. I was even in a hotel recently where they gave me a triple bed (I don't know what they were expecting me to do there...) But actually, I don't mind how wide the bed is - I just want to be able to stretch out without my feet going off the end of the bed.

So why don't beds come long enough so that a reasonably tall person (and I'm only 6ft!) can stretch out? Or if they do exist, why aren't they much more common?

As far as I can tell, either there isn't the demand for longer beds, or it's a conspiracy by evil dwarves. Personally, I think the latter seems more probable.

R.I.P.

It seems odd to me how in popular culture funerals have become an occasion to speak to the dead person. I'm aware that the popular mood (and quite possibly the default human position) is in many places pantheism, but I wonder how much of it is down to not learning Latin properly...

I'll explain. The traditional prayer for the departed goes something like this:

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

In Latin, the first half is requiescat in pacem, which is famously shortened to R.I.P. It isn't talking to the deceased person; it's actually a prayer to God, or conceivably if used by non-Christians, a declaration of what you hope will happen. Technically, it's a third person singular present subjunctive, meaning "may he/she/it rest in peace".

However, the practice of praying for the dead was suppressed at the Reformation, because of the abuse of the (false) doctrine of Purgatory. far as I can tell, it was a good idea to get rid of the doctrine of Purgatory, but a bad idea to suppress praying for the dead completely.

Anyway, my point is that the main way the prayer was then remembered by the general populace was via the inscription R.I.P., which then got translated as "Rest in Peace", which is a second person imperative, looking like it is talking to the dead rather than the Latin which means "May (s)he rest in peace". And so (this is the speculative bit) it seems possible that the traditional practice of praying to God for the dead turned into talking to the dead, in part because we can't speak Latin properly and in part because of the Reformation overreaction against Catholic excesses.

Yes, I'm being speculative as to the causation, and I can also understand why people would want to say goodbye to their loved ones. It does, however, seem ironic if this idea is true, that in rejecting the Catholic idea that it is possible to pray for the dead and ask the dead to pray for them, the Protestants ended up talking to the dead which the Catholics didn't.

Wikipedia and Cheating

This story, saying that Wikipedia is considering changing its editorial policy and making it more difficult for just anyone to edit is bad news for one of my random ideas.

My idea is this: How to get a high mark in an arts subject at university.

• Find out who the examiners are or are likely to be, what subjects they know a lot about, and what areas they know a lot less about.
• Find an area they don't know much about but which is on the fringes of the topics that are likely to come up.
• Learn how it fits in with the topics they do know about.
• Write an exam essay on it, making up a lot of the data that the examiners won't know.
• Just after the exam, edit Wikipedia to say the same as you said in the exam, but in slightly different words...

Like most of the best methods of cheating, this is of course only slightly less work (if at all) than actually getting the good mark honestly. My personal favourite method is designing phase-conjugated contact lenses, one of which would look normal, but when both worn at the correct angle, could make an image of some important piece of information appear in front of your eyes. Of course, someone who could design and use such a system could probably get a very good mark on a physics exam...

Swimming

Ah, the Olympics. Which raises my question about swimming...

I can understand why swimming is an Olympic sport. But a simple analogy with running demonstrates the injustice. If swimming in different styles is considered a separate discipline, why not running in different styles? If someone can get medals at swimming in backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, etc, why isn't there a medal for 100m running backwards or 100m running with hands in pockets? Given that, it's hardly surprising that there's always some swimming bloke up for winning a ridiculous number of medals.

And, for that matter, if there are different weight classes in weighlifting, so you can have a medal for the weedy guy who can lift the most, why aren't there weight classes in the shot-put or height classes in the long-jump?

It just seems unfair. It looks as if the athletics, which after all is the really headline-grabbing Olympic stuff, is being deliberately discriminated against when it comes to awarding medals.

My preference? Scrap weight classes and swimming styles and everything. Have medals for mens and womens swimming, at 100m, 200m, etc. And they can swim however they want to, same as with the running. Or with the weightlifting or fighting or whatever, they can be whatever weight they want.

English Pronounciation

Here is a wonderful poem. It's out of copyright by now. It's designed, I think, for non-native English speakers...

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
Thames, examining, combining
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.
From "desire": desirable--admirable from "admire."
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,
Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with "darky."
Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,
Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it."
But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime with hammer.
Pussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.
Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,
Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.
Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess--it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,
Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,
Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation--think of psyche--!
Is a paling, stout and spikey,
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing "groats" and saying "grits"?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rimes with "enough"
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of "cup."
My advice is--give it up!

The Chaos,
by G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946

source

Brazil 13 - Days of the Week

A really really random one this, but something I like about Brazil.

Many years ago, I had a brief qualm of conscience about the days of the week, because in English they are mostly named after pagan gods (e.g. Thor's Day = Thursday). I much prefer the Brazillian way - the days are as follows:

• Sunday = Domingo - the Lord's Day
• Monday = segunda-feira
• Tuesday = terca-feira
• ...
• Saturday = Sabado - Sabbath

On the other hand, "feira" is also apparently Portuguese for holiday, and it's with reference to week-long Catholic feasts.

Brazillian work patterns seem to be split into two basic types - the lazy and the complete workaholic. Among the middle classes, it isn't at all uncommon to find people who only sleep 4 or 5 hours a night and who work over 70 hours a week. Days off are almost unheard-of among the workaholics. I really wasn't expecting that, but I find it sad all the same - it seems to be tied into the whole cultural all-out capitalism thing.

Computers

One at least one level, I really don't get computers.

• Why should taking my laptop apart, removing a small amount of dust, then putting it back together again solve not just the suspected hardware problem, but also a long-running problem with software consuming all the system resources?
• Why, when I was very careful to keep all the screws and to use long screws only when needed when putting it back together, do I have three missing?
• And why do I have four smaller screws left over, when they won't work in the holes for the longer screws and vice versa?

Taking Risks

Near where I live, there is a big roundabout. It's often regarded as a very dangerous roundabout for cyclists. Coming out of Oxford, most cars go left at the roundabout. Most bikes go right, which causes problems.

The road coming into the roundabout splits into two lanes - the left lane for left (with the cars), the right lane for right. This all makes sense.

For the cyclist who always wants to take the safest course of action, it seems that the correct thing to do is to stay at the left of the traffic. But the problem is that staying at the left then leads to them having to cut very dangerously across the traffic when it is accelerating out of the roundabout. I have narrowly missed hitting a cyclist who was trying just that.

The safe way to cycle round the roundabout is by taking what initially looks like the more risky route - to weave into and through the stream of traffic as it is braking to arrive at the roundabout so that they are in the correct lane for turning right. It feels riskier, but it's much easier to see and to account for for cars, and far fewer people are hit doing that.

This is a parable. Often in life, and in faith, playing it safe is actually the high-risk, low-gain strategy.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Random stuff here...

One of the ways I like to look at where it'd be nice to visit on a holiday is by looking for UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Now I haven't been to that many of them, but all the ones I've been to have been really good and worth visiting.

Full List.

Things that Seem Obvious - Car Parks

In Britain, a large number of smaller shops have been shutting for many years now. The most frequently blamed culprits are big supermarkets. I, however, think the blame largely lies elsewhere.

It seems obvious that if faced with three options:
1) walk half a mile to the local shops, then half a mile back with heavy bags
2) drive half a mile to the local shops, pay £2 for parking
3) drive two miles to a big supermarket, parking is free
Most people will take option 3). And yet in lots of places, the local shops continue to close, and people blame the supermarkets. There have even been utterly mad suggestions to force supermarkets to charge for parking.

The real solution seems simple. The availability of free or very cheap parking near to shops increases their attractiveness (as does good public transport). It is therefore in the shopkeepers' interests to make sure that such parking is available. And if the council want to keep the local shops open, it is in their interests as well.

Parking in towns should therefore be controlled either by federations of local shopkeepers or by the council running it at a loss (which may pay for itself indirectly via increased land values or tax paid by the shopkeepers). Subcontracting running car parks out to profit-making firms damages local shops when there is viable competition which does not charge for the use of its car parks.

This just seems obvious...

School

Now that's what I call wanting to get to school...