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These are only my current entries. For earlier scribblings, visit the archive. If you want to submit any comments, email me, and I'll think about it.
Tinkering with the style-sheet, trying to make this look prettier. Well, I think it's better than the old one.
A frustrating day. Geoff our churchwarden had ordered a clavinova for the church hall, which was to be delivered this morning. Since he's away in York, the plan was I was going to wait in for the carrier, to open the church hall. When it came to midday I phoned the company to find out what was going on. Girl phoned back with the message: 'I'm sorry, our carrier can't guarantee a particular time of day,' ( - even though we had been promised morning - ), 'but it will definitely be before 6 p.m.' Came 4 o'clock, I was feeling more than a little peeved (who ever heard of a delivery driver working later than 4 anyway?) and thought to phone Geoff's house. Oh yes, it had been delivered there around 11, when only Chris was at home and didn't know anything about the plan, so the driver left it in the garage. Net result: my day's work has been severely hampered by having to wait in for nothing; Geoff has to find some way of getting a clavinova to the church hall. And presumably someone expects to be paid for this? Including delivery charge? I don't think so.
Name them and shame them! The sellers are Keyboards Direct, and the carriers Securicor Omega Express. Think twice before you use these. (And no hypertext links to them either. What, you think I'm going to link to their websites?)
The only positive outcome is, that I got around to dealing with my Tax Return, or rather, the questionnaire for Mintaplan who deal with this stuff for me. But it didn't take all day, and wouldn't have taken all day if I hadn't been stuck here.
Media full of D-Day commemoration stuff, and rightly so, for that day of drama and sacrifice was the beginning (or the next big step? - let's not forget those who, like my dad, had invaded Sicily and Italy the previous year) of the final blow against Hitler's tyranny. Do we value enough the freedom we enjoy, as a result of that liberation of Europe? How can we claim to be for freedom, when we countenance the oppression of Palestinians, the occupation of Iraq, the recurrent genocides in Africa and even in the Balkans?
When I was born, D-Day had happened little more than 5 years previously. It was part of the recent history, then, of my childhood world. And now they are wondering how many more years it will be commemorated like this, when most of the veterans will not be with us for many more years. What was recent history, becomes the living memory only of the very few, the very elderly. All flesh is grass.
Good article today by John Naughton, who is always one of the first people I turn to in the Observer each Sunday. (Sadly, he doesn't seem to have an article every week.) Writing today about Open Source Software: a phenomenon which should not rightfully exist, according to the capitalists and economists. Ain't that one of the main reasons I love it so?
And then there's their ridiculous statistics page called The OM index which includes the following:
So? Maybe the guy just moved away from Utah some time during that year. Wouldn't that account for it?
So I had a telephone message from a young man whose banns I read recently, who lives in this parish, but is getting married at St VeryBig's Church, not a million miles from here. He says, "I was speaking to the office manager in the office at St VeryBig's, and she says she hasn't yet received the banns certificate. She says would you post it direct to her at the office, or if it's easier to post it to me, that's OK too."
Generally, I tell people to collect the certificate from me, to give to the vicar who's marrying them. But I thought it was a bit mean to phone this young man and insist on that. After all, he's paid £27, so I shouldn't begrudge him a 28p stamp. But I wasn't going to send it to an Office, forsooth (if I had an office, my office might communicate with theirs) so I posted it to him at his home address. But to show I was not happy I didn't enclose a compliments slip. (Gosh, I hope that wasn't too pointed!)
This creeping office-isation of the Church of England is a pain in the butt, frankly. Like the time a few months back when the 'Social Justice Co-ordinator' (or some such) of St EvenBigger's sent a circular letter to all the local clergy to something like the following effect:
We are compiling a directory of all the Community Work being undertaken by churches in Oxford. Please fill in this form with full details of all the community activities your church is involved in, and return it to this office by SomedateOrOther, so that we can include it in the directory.
So because I'm actually trying to do the work, and we don't have a parish office with manager, or administrator - still less a Social Justice Co-ordinator - I had no alternative but to prioritise it into the bin. Now, of course, the directory has come out with no mention of this parish, giving the impression that we don't do anything in the community. The fact is, our members are probably just as active in community work as those of St EvenBigger's, if not more so.
Looks like the only solution is to set up a church office and employ an administrator. Then other churches' offices will be making work not for me, but for our office. Sounds kind of circular, no? We justify employing people by getting them to create work for other people so that they in turn have to employ people. And where, you ask, is this serving the Kingdom of God? Good question, I reply.
(This should really feature on the Rants page.)
Trying really hard to make peace in the Supermarket Wars. That's the name I give to all the hassle of supermarket shopping, especially at Kidlington Sainsbury's. But I'm getting too old for all this stuff, and in any case it's only me that is ever a casualty, like last summer when I did my back in for weeks after wrestling unsuccessfully with a trolley. Joe Sainsbury never suffers as a result of friendly or unfriendly fire: he always gets off scot-free. So here is the new policy:
Yes, I know: it's a tall order. But it did seem to help make today's shopping less traumatic than it has sometimes (often) been.
Had one of those 'Friends Reunited' experiences today - though without the actual intervention of Friends Reunited - when I met up with someone I haven't seen for over 30 years. Back then we were both team members of a CSSM doing a children's beach mission at Uphill, near Weston-super-Mare. Now he is the minister of a neighbouring Baptist church; but such is the way the ecumenical partnerships in this city work, that even though he's been there for a number of years, we haven't met up before now. It was good to catch up and share stories of our faith and calling, also to send my love to his sister who I had a bit of a crush on at the time. As time went on, some of our theological differences began to show through. Why do I always feel guilty when I seem to be less Evangelical than the person I'm talking to? What am I ashamed of? I happen to believe the Lord is more honoured by an authentic Anglican approach to scripture and authority, than by the shibboleths of where I used to stand.
Evening: with Daniel and Rosie to a wine tasting at Kellogg College. Theme: Italian wines. Excellent entertainment; didn't get any of them right; but resolved to learn more about Italian wines. Not enough food at the do, so we went on to ASK for a pizza afterwards.
In the mean time the Church's Year has moved on, the seasons of Easter and Pentecost are past, and we are in Ordinary Time again. Blessed Ordinary Time! It's my absolute favourite. None of this fussy stuff you get in the seasons, and endless repetition of the same psalms on the same day of each week. Though come to think of it, the Common Worship provision for Daily Prayer even in Ordinary Time isn't quite as plain as I could wish. Those of us with long memories remember that part of the rationale for the Book of Common Prayer was that worship had become so complicated, needing so many different books, directories, page-turnings and bookmarks, that there was a desperate need to make it simple. Now the pendulum has swung even further the other way again. Anyone who has tried to plan and lead a Common Worship service will surely feel a certain tough nostalgia for the simplicity and straightforwardness of the BCP.
Praying at Elsfield this morning, I was joined by a visitor from Montreal who was delighted by all she was able to see and take part in. Yes, a blessing that those of us who live in it take all too much for granted, and many of those who live nearby and never experience, just don't care about at all.
Rain in the night, and a grey start to the day: top of Ragleth shrouded in cloud. A good excuse not to don our boots and tramp off to the heights, and in any case Alison needed to get back to Oxford early to teach this afternoon. I waited on - in fact the weather brightened up a lot and a walk would have been possible - and spent some quiet quality time reading Jane Austen. I've got as far as Mansfield Park, which annoyed me tremendously at the beginning with this wretched Fanny Price being so put upon by the ghastly family. Somehow the whole class element, and the awfulness of it, seems worse in this book. But it grows better: either you become somehow hardened to it, or you realise that actually that's how it must have been for a poor 'gentlewoman', and there really wasn't any way for her to strike out and make her own way in the world, she really was wholly dependent on men and marriage. Given those circumstances, Fanny doesn't do too badly. There's also some good stuff about the clergy: again, totally compromised by having sold out to the social and class structures of the age. And pity the poor curates who did the work for so little of the pay. If they weren't eaten up and destroyed by envy and bitterness about the System, they must have been the real saints who kept the Church of England anywhere near the way of holiness.
Looking for May 3 on Beating the Bounds?
Living To Tell The Tale > The Online Diary