Storyteller’s World

Great fun yesterday evening at the Kellogg College Gaudy, which we’re able to attend because Alison was attached to Kellogg when doing her Oxford DPhil. The lecture beforehand was by David Grylls on ‘Sex in Victorian Fiction’. This is the subject of the next book Grylls is working on. And he is a sparkling, informative and amusing lecturer. It will certainly have me going back to reading some of that literature in a new light. Sadly he informs us that the phrase ‘Unhand me, sir!’ doesn’t appear anywhere in the literature, as far as he has been able to discover. Unless you know different …

(Although after last night’s lecture, I am reluctant to end sentences with … in view of what he calls the ‘Three Dots Syndrome’. This really had the Victorians breathing heavily, I gather.)

We’ve just had a ‘Songs of Praise’ type evening service, in the series of monthly more informal services to which we try and invite some who are not regular worshippers. It was very successful in that respect, we had a good sing, and there were several of those non-regulars who came along. But I was more or less completely thrown, at the one point in the service where I tried to introduce some quiet for reflection and prayer, by the ringing of a mobile phone. Instead of an embarrassed scuffle and the phone being turned off, or the call rejected, the Phone’s Owner proceeded to answer the call and talk sotto voce throughout the prayers. Tell me I’ve lived a sheltered life, but I thought this was something new and farther beyond in the alienation of non-Christian Joe Public from any sense of awe, reverence, worship or even basic good manners.

When I was at the last NOBS Festival Gathering, a couple of years back, talk was of the new(-ish) versicle and response being brought into use at the start of the service in many American churches. (To be intoned.)

V: Please switch off your cell phones and pagers.
R: We switch them off unto the Lord.

I laughed! We’ll never need that in the UK, I thought to myself. Hmmm.

WordPress Users in the UK
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Just spent an hour going through the Marriage Service with a delightful young couple who are getting married soon. They asked what I am so often asked: Is there a point in the service where I say, You may kiss the bride?

The answer is, NO. Because,

a) It isn’t part of the liturgy.

b) Most people only think it’s part of the service because they’ve seen it on films or TV, so I think of it as an American thing.

But even worse than a) or even b):

c) Because it is so paternalistic and patronising. Here are two loving adults, standing in the presence of God and all their friends, having just pledged themselves to each other for life. And they need the permission of a middle-aged priest to kiss each other? Come off it!

Essentially I don’t say it because I think it is irredeemably offensive and tacky. What does anyone else think?

I had a dream last night that took me way, way back. I was in some kind of cinema, in which crowds of people - everyone else there, in fact - knew what was going on, and was having a great time enjoying it, and looking forward to what was coming next and to being a part of it … and I didn’t know. It’s immensely unsettling. And it reminded me of primary school, where my abiding memory is that it was like that all the time.

I feel as if I went through the whole of those years having somehow Missed The Instructions, been out of the room or not paying attention when everything was explained. I’ve sometimes wondered if this was something to do with not being able to see - it wasn’t till I was 7 that they found out how short-sighted I was and I got glasses, and was then persecuted with ‘Four-Eyes’, in the charming way that innocent children have. Example: when everyone else knew the words of hymns or songs, and I didn’t, it might have been they were written up on a board at the front, only I couldn’t see it. But no, because the general bewilderment carried on even after getting the specs.

Thus do we sustain the trivial wounds whose scars we carry with us for the rest of our lives. No wonder people who are really abused have problems.

One of the tough things about living in a Vicarage is that you’re supposed to be a Christian. So you get doorstep salesmen, peddling their expensive, unnecessary, and generally shoddy articles, and obviously thinking that you owe them something. There’s some kind of confusion here between the business talk, in which they claim to be trying to make a living by selling you something you want or need, and the moral blackmail being tried on by someone who thinks that anyone who lives in a big house in Oxford ought to hand over money to an unemployed youth from Up North.

The young man I just told - very politely and gently, I thought - that I didn’t need any of his wares today thank you, presumed to say, “I bet God never turned any of his children away.”

This makes me really cross. And I don’t know if it’s because I feel guilty and think I should give them money, or because I feel upset that I am not wealthy enough to scatter largesse to passing strangers, or because I am rightly and righteously angry at the whole scheme. Because somewhere behind it there must be something cynical and exploitative: someone either getting a fat rake-off from these unfortunate young men, or conning them into parting with money up front to join a scheme which is supposed to be a can’t fail money-earner for them.

How do other folk deal with this? I’ve tried just about every response I can think of, and none of them makes me feel good.

I can’t believe I’ve only just found WordPress Codex, in spite of using WordPress for this blog since December 10. (Wow! Over a month!) This probably means that WordPress in use is intuitive enough for me to get along mostly pretty well without guidance. Or that I’m better at hacking it and working out solutions for myself than I thought. Or that mostly I haven’t had problems, until these b****y spam comments started becoming more and more of a nuisance.

I can’t believe there’s no way of combating this nuisance by making it illegal - even in the United States of Anarchy. We know who the people being advertised are - go after them, for God’s sake. Even the state laws that make email spamming legal provided the spam includes an ‘opt-out’ clause (which is sheer nonsense) would cover blog spam comments, since they don’t even offer this get out.

Meanwhile, anyone who’s curious about WordPress, have a browse of WordPress Codex.

Christian Aid News

Well done, Kathryn and others (and that naughty vicar of Dibley too) for taking part in this.

Perhaps everyone else knows about this already, but just in case: You can get FREE at your local Post Office

The Rough Guide to A Better World: an essential guide to how the world can be a better place for its poorest inhabitants. The guide covers the Issues, the Challenges, Five ways to change the world, and the Information.

You can also read it online, or download it as an ebook, at the website.

Some excellent advice from Brian Bailey on Building a Better Blog.

Thanks, Brian!

Now listen well, children, and I’ll tell you another story that the Church of England doesn’t want you to hear.

There was a girl called Tamar, who was given in marriage to the oldest son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the leader of God’s people and successor to the promises to Abraham. The boy’s name was Er. For some reason the old tellers don’t relate, Er died soon after they were married. There’s a suggestion of dark deeds, wickedness, for which God slew him. At any rate, Tamar was left a young widow.

It was the custom of those days for widows to marry their late husband’s brother; so Tamar was passed on to Judah’s second son, Onan. It was his responsibility to sleep with her and give her a child, who would be reckoned as Er’s. Onan didn’t fancy this idea, so whenever he had sex with Tamar he withdrew just before coming. Yes, my dears, onanism isn’t masturbation, whatever you may have been told, but coitus interruptus. And the reason this was so wrong, was that Onan was betraying his dead older brother, by not carrying on his line and his name, and was also violating Tamar by having his sexual pleasure with her, but not giving her the child who would be her security in old age, and her status-giver in days when being a childless woman was like being a pariah. God was offended by Onan’s selfish meanness, and slew him too.

Now Judah had a third son, Shelah, who was still too young to marry. In any case, Judah was beginning to think Tamar was bad luck, some kind of accursed witch, a black widow, so he made excuses and kept forgetting his responsibility of caring for his daughter-in-law in the way he should.

So Tamar was faced with a future of loneliness, shame and poverty. She came up with a plan. At sheep-shearing time, when Judah and the other men got away from their womenfolk for a while and did the kind of things men do at such times, she disguised herself as a whore and sat by the roadside. Judah noticed her in a pedestrian kerb-crawling kind of way, and offered her a young goat in return for sex.

- OK, said Tamar, but what will you give me as a pledge, till you send the kid?

So Judah gave her his seal, his bracelets, and his staff; and she gave him a good time. And then she disappeared.

When Judah sent the kid in payment, the whore was nowhere to be found. He thought it was his lucky day: a cheap lay, and no one the wiser.

Some time later, they found out Tamar was pregnant. When Judah heard about it - for she was still considered his property, his responsibility - he commanded that she be brought out and burnt for playing the whore. As she was being brought to the place of execution, she sent a message to her father-in-law.

- Look, the man whose child I’m carrying is the owner of this seal, these bracelets, this staff. Look familiar to you?

Judah recognised the tokens. And realised that, where he had been unfaithful to Tamar, she had been more righteous than he. Although he never slept with her again, he acknowledged her children, and provided for her and them.

Tamar gave birth to twins and named them Perez and Zerah. Perez was the distant ancestor of King David, and so, also, of Jesus of Nazareth.

Listen to Tamar’s story. The story of a wronged, exploited, brave, feisty woman who survived and prospered in a world run by men. The story of her story is remarkable, too: it got into the holy books even though it was men who decided what got in and what didn’t. It survived in the holy books, even though it’s men who have decided what gets read and what doesn’t.

Remember Tamar’s story, children. And tell it to others. And ask your vicars and priests and pastors: Who was Tamar, Father? What’s her story? And ask the lectionary compilers who devised the Common Worship daily lectionary: Why don’t you want us to read about Tamar? (Omitted from the course of Evening Service readings, in the week after Epiphany 1.) Aren’t there any women on the lectionary committee?

We have a right to know. Tamar, may her name be held in honour, has a right for us to know.

You can read the story of Tamar in Genesis chapter 38. And see also Jonathan Kirsch’s The Harlot by the Side of the Road.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Hooked on junk
“There’s excitement as clients see a section of floor appearing.” I wish.

The new Mac Mini.

Now no one needs to use a PC any more! This is what the world has been waiting for!

The spammers were very busy last night and this morning. In my In box were three e-mails inviting me to visit their web site, where I could become legally ordained within 48 hours! Why should I want that? Well, because:

As a minister, you will be authorized to perform the rites and ceremonies of the church!

Perform Weddings, Funerals, and Perform Baptisms Forgiveness of Sins and Visit Correctional Facilities

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Can’t help feeling it sheds a new light on my daily life and calling. The thought that anywhere I go in the world - particularly, I suppose, the USA where these probably emanate from? - I can Visit Correctional Facilities! Without even having to knock off the proverbial policeman’s helmet!

I’m sure I can remember a time when we could go out on a Tuesday evening for a day-off type meal á deux, and have our choice of restaurants almost empty, staff waiting to welcome us in, etc. Not nowadays, where Oxford has become Night City, and you’re lucky to find somewhere to eat without a reservation, even on a Tuesday. And yes, we had booked a table at the first place, but when we arrived it wasn’t ready, and after waiting some time we were shown upstairs - with a number of other people - to a cold room it looked as if they had just decided to open up. So we left, and went instead to the Chiang Mai Thai restaurant off the High. More expensive, but very nice.

Must have been a bit at a loss for something to do today (it’s my day off, so not really!) and started browsing through some of the blogs featured in that article in the Independent that I mentioned a few days ago. I can do without the celebrity blogs, like I said then, which are no use at all to anyone but a fan of the celeb in question, and to my mind more likely to stop you being a fan even if you were before. I mean, how besotted would you need to be to want to know that Gillian Anderson had dirty fingernails on July 6, 2004?

But some of the ‘ordinary people’ blogs actually look worth reading in that they really are by real people. Except, of course, that by some strange and infuriating alchemy they got their blogs noticed and mentioned in a national daily! Check out Melinkie, an Oxfordshire mother and depressive, Hazy (the online diary of a 26 year old living with an as yet undiagnosed chronic illness), and Alex Marshall, 17 years old and living in Whitley Bay.

According to the Global Rich List I’m in the top 5.86% of richest people in the world. Most people in the UK wouldn’t consider a vicar to be among the wealthy (except the thicker sort of burglar who breaks into vicarages because he thinks big house = lots of expensive possessions). But in world terms, we certainly are.

(Though this is probably not the time or the place for thinking about how much richer than me the top 1% of richest people are …)

The other story that caught my eye yesterday was the Observer’s report on how Lord Lucan toyed with supporting a right-wing coup to overthrow Harold Wilson’s Labour Government. Apparently he had extreme right-wing views and thought the country had gone to the dogs.

Well, I agree about it having gone to the dogs. Any country that supports idle layabout wasters who run up gambling debts of £350,000 and don’t do a thing to earn their keep, definitely needs a shake-up.

According to yesterday’s Observer (New prescription for mental health: read a good book), GPs are planning to prescribe self-help books on the NHS to help patients with minor depressions.

Good idea, say I. Out of the books they mention, I found Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky helpful. But not as helpful as the treatment that went with it: having a nice young psychologist listening to me talk to her about myself for an hour at a time. As a professional listener to others, I think all clergy need to have people who will listen to us, too.

And another book I’d recommend is Manage your Mind by Gillian Butler and Tony Hope. The strength of this is that it’s not just about helping with depression, but developing better mental health generally. So it also has chapters on relationships, time management, problem solving, self-esteem and relaxation, how to deal with anxiety, and how to think.

With Lent only four and a half weeks away (aargh! I keep having to re-check, it’s so unbelievable) it’s time to start thinking about Lenten reading. The last two years or so, I’ve tried to be a good little Anglican and read the ‘Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book’, i.e. the one he recommends, rather than wrote. But frankly, I’ve always enjoyed Lenten reading more when it’s been something I’ve chosen - sometimes a re-read of a classic, or some other old friend - rather than a ‘promoted’ book that thousands of others (am I kidding myself?) are reading.

This year I would recommend Rowan Williams’ own little book, Silence and Honey Cakes, (Lion, 2003, £6.99) on the wisdom of the desert. One of the most charming and helpful sections is the Question and Answer section at the back, when we see a bit more of Rowan’s humanity and sanctity. Like in his treatment of remedies for akedia, or answering the question, How do we discern the will of God?

Someone once asked the great Anglican monastic theologian Herbert Kelly this question: ‘How do we know what the will of God is?’ He famously answered, ‘We don’t. That’s the joke.’ Tempting to leave it like that, really.

Kelly is right: we never know absolutely precisely, incontrovertibly, what the will of God is in specific complicated circumstances. I can recall wrestling with a particularly serious pastoral problem in the diocese, not knowing at all what to do, and saying to God at the end of Evening Prayer one day, ‘Just for once, couldn’t you consider telling me…?’ But I know it doesn’t work like that, though it’s what we all think we want.

P.S. I’m quite sure honey cakes are not a bit like mince pies.

I’m feeling quite bloated this afternoon, after our parish lunch; and all because of my miserable weakness, and not being able to say ‘No’ to the ladies serving the desserts. ‘Go on, you must have a mince pie,’ one of them urged me, and against my better judgement, I succumbed and accepted one - in addition to the portion of cheesecake and the stollen with custard. And now I must accept the consequences, in feeling two sizes too large for my waistband.

I have long been of the opinion that the mince pie is a highly overrated confection. And in spite of this I have probably not been able to keep my consumption of the wretched things below about six this year. I am fully determined that next Christmas I shall pull rank as vicar, and ban mince pies from all church functions. I reckon this will attract even more worshippers, desperate to find a mince pie-free zone somewhere on the planet.

Who’s up for joining me in Vicars Against Mince Pies (V.A.M.P.)? If other clergy, or even lay Christians, wanted to join the movement, we could even be C.A.M.P.

Time was, when I knew every book I possessed, and could more or less lay my hand on any one in seconds, for I also knew where they were. Nowadays we own just too many books, and I’ve even had the embarrassing experience of buying a book I’ve forgotten I owned, or was sure I had lost, lent or otherwise got rid of. Some of the few books I’m absolutely sure of at present are the ones I keep at my bedside. These are a special category of literature which I rank as important, worth having close at hand, but not vital enough to be actually reading; or which are second only to Holy Scripture.

Present volumes in this little elite library are:

• A Joseph Campbell Companion, edited by Diane Osbon
• The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell (with Bill Moyers)
• Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman
• British Folk-Tales and Legends, by Katharine Briggs
• The Odyssey, by Homer
• The Anatomy of Melancholy, by Robert Burton
• Casting the Runes, and other ghost stories, by M.R.James
• The Norton Anthology of Poetry

Should I offer my own analysis and explanation of this list, or leave it to readers to guess which category each is in, and why? And what’s in your bedside or otherwise elite library?

I didn’t blog about my New Year’s Resolutions or projects: I’m just too nervous about putting anything as tenuous as that into print in a medium which is, ah well, as permanent as writing on the sand. But if I had done, one of them would have been to read more spiritual books this year.

So far I am enjoying Silence and Honey Cakes by Rowan Williams, a study of the wisdom of the desert fathers and mothers, originally given as the 2001 John Main Seminar. Its appeal is that it’s a book by Rowan Williams that I can understand (quite a lot of), and it has a lot of important stuff to say from the desert tradition, that relates to life in the 21st century church. Like this (p. 34):

A healthy church is one in which we seek to stay connected with God by seeking to connect others with God; one in which we ‘win God’ by converting one another, and we convert one another by our truthful awareness of frailty. And a church that is living in such a way is the only church that will have anything different to say to the world; how deeply depressing if all the church offered were new and better ways to succeed at the expense of others, reinstating the scapegoat mechanisms that the cross of Christ should have exploded once and for all.

That’s what I dream our little fellowship could be like.

Christmas and New Year weeks are obviously fallow periods for blogging, but there are signs of a thaw as some people are getting back into their stride.

Worth reading today are Daydreams on Heterosexual Sex (and the Hollywood dream factory)

Jessamyn, on dreaming dreams about a different way the world could be.

Tom (Big Bulky Anglican) on the furore around the BBC showing of Jerry Springer: The Opera.

I think there is something to be enormously proud of, that the Christian faith is mature enough to be able to withstand this kind of satire, without people rioting outside Broadcasting House (I hope!) It means the general Christian consensus is that anything which makes people think is good and positive. On which subject Dave had something insightful and amusing to say, a day or two ago.

No, listen, Net Nanny: these are serious discussions.

Why are the people starving?
Because their rulers eat up their substance in taxes.
That’s why they’re starving.

Why are the people difficult to govern?
Because their rulers are addicted to power.
That’s why they’re difficult to govern.

Why are the people not afraid of dying?
Because their rulers take from them every bit of their lives.
That’s why the people aren’t afraid of dying.

The truth is
only someone who doesn’t clutch at life
can really know the value of life.

(Chapter 75 of Tao Te Ching)

Comments are always welcome: it’s nice to know who has dropped in. But this is just to warn you that if you leave a comment, it may not appear instantly. For some reason, the way I tried to configure the system so as to filter out spam comments (I had never even heard of these when I was with Blogger, so there’s one advantage of the old days) has resulted in all comments having to wait for my approval before they appear. As far as I can see, I’ve cancelled this instruction and am only applying the filter based on certain typical ’spam’ words; but it isn’t taking any notice. If there are any other WordPress users out there who can tell me what I’m doing wrong, I’d be pleased to hear from you.

Users of the Church of England’s daily lectionary will have noticed that it’s up to its old dotty tricks again. After giving us John’s account of the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11) to read at Evening Prayer on the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6), it gives us the same reading at Morning Prayer on January 7.

Is this lectionary dottiness? Or is it the compilers’ way of making us stop and think: If Jesus really turned 180 gallons of water into best vintage wine, it would take more than an evening and night for the wedding guests to get through enjoying it, even if it was a big wedding. It might even leave some of the more bibulous among them, with a small hangover the next morning. Is it, then - I hardly dare whisper it, for fear the precious bubble may burst - the nearest thing we may ever find in the lectionary to a joke?

channel4.com - Believe it or not - Who Wrote the Bible?

After an initial scare that Tui and friend might have taken the cassette out of the VCR when it was programmed to record this programme on its repeat showing the week after Christmas, it transpired that all was well after all. So I’ve been watching, in instalments, Robert Beckford’s shock-horror revelations that the Pentateuch wasn’t actually written by Moses, etc. And wrestling with the question whether I’m more annoyed by the whole exercise, or feeling that it is quite important.

No doubt it was a nice little job for Robert Beckford: all expenses paid trip to Sinai, Israel, Turkey, Rome and Brixton. And all to make a programme which, in theological and religious terms, was entirely old hat. There was nothing at all there that isn’t part of first year Biblical Studies, if not earlier. And it felt pretty dishonest of Beckford to pretend that he was only just discovering this stuff - I mean, where did he go to college? It was pretty annoying, too, to have it constantly asserted that the Church has been teaching people for centuries that the ‘books of Moses’ were written by Moses, and similar crassnesses.

But then, of course, we were shown preachers who were doing precisely that, and affirming that it had to be so because the Bible is the word of God, and therefore if it says the books of Moses were written by Moses (it doesn’t, actually) they must be by Moses. And since they are by Moses as they claim to be (they don’t, actually) the Bible must really be the literal word of God. If this sounds circular, please apply direct to the Rev QED of Alabama. (Sorry, I was too gob-smacked to make a note of his real name.) Then there was also the fundamentalist Jewish Rabbi in Hebron, one of the scariest people I’ve ever seen on TV, who believes that because God promised the Land to his people, it’s their religious duty to drive out the Palestinians or anyone else they feel like. It’s literally God miraculously fulfilling his promise to bring the scattered Jews back to their Land, as Isaiah (sorry, as God) said. There was no sense that the promise might have been fulfilled already, in the Return from Exile in the sixth century B.C. Because everything, for fundamentalists, has to be ‘in these last times’. Fundamentalism definitely comes with death wish attached.

So the programme leaves me with no peace, and little for my comfort. And with serious questions about my preaching and practice. I have never told a congregation that Moses wrote the Pentateuch; but is there anything in how I do preach, that could possibly lead people to assume that I meant this? If I say, ‘Mark says X’, or ‘Paul says Y’ - meaning that the texts bearing those names say X or Y - am I being dishonest and colluding with error? I don’t want to say every time, ‘Well, most scholars are agreed that individual persons called Paul/Mark/Matthew etc. weren’t the actual author of these words, and I’m inclined to agree’, or ‘but I take issue with them’, or ‘but they do reflect the thought of someone who was very close to Paul/Mark/Matthew’ (perhaps Mrs Paul/Mark/Matthew? No, don’t go there.). I mean, you’d never get on to actual exposition. After all this time, I kind of assume some results of modern scholarship can be taken for granted and we can get on beyond those questions. Perhaps Beckford’s programme might be most fruitful if it reminds those of us who’ve had a theological education that we just can’t take that much for granted.

Deep Meaning has kindly provided some more recent quotes from the OED’s files:

1995 magazine: Fans burned up the computer lines with heavy-breathing e-mails admiring his form and speculating on whether he “dressed” to the right or left.

2002 issue of “Q”: He is..exceptionally handsome: periscope legs wrapped in trousers sufficiently tight for any prospective tailors to note that he dresses to the left.

So still no references that clearly indicate an aspect of sexual orientation. In the mean time, I realise that this whole thread has probably made this poor innocent blog entirely suspect to Net Nanny and her ilk. You read it here first: Storyteller’s World has been classified an adults only site. Whoops!

I enjoyed the first part of BBC2’s new series Cathedral, last night. It was about the murder of St Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, and the subsequent building of the new cathedral to house his tomb, and provide a pilgrimage centre for the thousands who came from all over Europe to pray at the holy place.

But I couldn’t help being struck by the historical bias with which it seemed the tale was being told. Just like I remember from history lessons at school, the king was being cast in the role of good guy, while the churchman was the former friend, now turned traitor, who preferred the subversive and suspect claims of what they persisted in calling ‘the Roman Church’, to the claims of friendship and Britishness. This in spite of the fact that back then there was only one Church (in the West, at any rate), and it was our Church - though that didn’t stop emperors and kings from trying to use it against us - and that this ‘British’ king and archbishop were actually Normans. Even when they got to the great Satan of the 16th century, who plundered the Church’s (i.e. our) possessions to enrich himself and his cronies, they seemed to suggest it was perfectly reasonable to want to stamp out devotion to the saint of Canterbury, because it might give the common people ideas about resisting the rightful will of their rightful king.

It reminds me very much of the way the Civil War was always taught in history lessons as well as literature: with Charles I and the cavaliers as the romantic good guys, and the nasty roundheads as deep-dyed villains. Being slow on the uptake, I didn’t actually query this till I became a Christian and had my eyes opened to a different way of looking at the political map. (This is one reason I find it so hard to comprehend how American Christianity is so politically conservative. Don’t they remember where they came from?)

This is definitely one from the department of ‘I wonder what normal people talk about?’

Just before Christmas we became curious about the expression dressing to the left. I had understood this as a tailoring expression, relating to the disposition of parts of the male anatomy when wearing snuggish trousers. (It obviously doesn’t apply to the way some modern young men wear their denim jeans, viz. with the crotch down around the knees.) But even this definition wasn’t mentioned in any of the dictionaries at our disposal. However, a chance thing found on the WWW suggested that it may have another usage, relating not to the way your genitals naturally hang, but to choice or preference. i.e. A man might choose to ‘dress’ to the right or the left, depending on whether he hoped to be attractive to other men or to women. If this is the case it’s obviously desirable to know which is which, in order to avoid social embarrassments.

(A Google search for ‘dressing to the left’ was not entirely helpful: it
yielded mostly first aid information along the lines of: “Thoroughly cleanse
the wound; then apply a sterile dressing to the left ear … etc.”)

My anonymous source at the OED, Deep Meaning, was able to supply the following information, from the OED s.v DRESS v.:

7. f. intr. Of a male: to allow the sexual organs to be on one side
or the other of the fork of the trousers.

1966 Guardian 18 Mar. 10/4 You..find an amusing piece by John Morgan on Carnaby Street–’We are “dressing” in the middle this year, man,’ a pop singer explains.

1967 New Statesman 31 Mar. 450/2, I detected some sag on the right-hand side of the trouser front and got the fitter to pin it back. ‘No no no!’ said Roy… ‘Mr. Silver dresses to the left.’ The fullness on the right was critical.

1969 Guardian 31 July 6/1 All those little male problems like dressing to the right or left.

But nothing, it seems, about sexual orientation or preference. Can anyone else shed light on this?

Just a few tiny tweaks to the cascading style sheet today, to make the page look a bit more readable and generous. At the cost of a few pixels of white space. So let me know if you prefer it the way it was …

Chapter 78 of Tao Te Ching

Nothing under heaven
is softer or weaker than water,
yet for attacking what is hard and unyielding,
there is nothing to compare with it.
This is because
nothing can take its place.

The weak overcomes the strong,
the soft overcomes the hard.
There is no one under heaven who doesn’t know this,
yet no one knows how to put it into practice.

Therefore the person who is whole says:
the one who can carry the nation’s guilt
is called lord of the land;
the one who takes on himself the nation’s curse
is called ruler of everything under heaven.

True words, seeming paradoxical.

I’d like to read these words to Tony and Dubya till they learn from them.

Ursula Le Guin speculates that there may be more translators of the Tao Te Ching than people who actually read it. There are certainly a lot of translations, because it’s such a difficult work to translate, and there is no such thing as the perfect translation, good for every possible use and purpose. Here’s my short guide to some of the ones I know:

D.C.Lau. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching. This is the Penguin Classics edition, first published in 1963. Lau knows his stuff, as an academic, and professor of Chinese Language and Literature. The great value of this edition is its introductory material, commentary and explanatory notes. If there’s a passage you don’t understand, chances are that it will be explained somewhere here. The translation itself is accurate and thorough, but - how shall we put it? - not perhaps as readable and exciting as we might like. This was the first edition I bought, and I have to say, I didn’t get far with TTC until I bought another one.

Feng-English. Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, a new translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. First published in Great Britain by Wildwood House in 1973. This is the most beautiful TTC I know of. Feng is Chinese-born, settled in America. His translation is crisp, direct, accessible. And it’s accompanied by Jane English’s beautiful black and white photographs. I don’t think this is still in print, but it seems to be obtainable from Amazon. And if you can get it, it’s well worth missing a meal to pay for it.

Ursula Le Guin. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way. Shambhala, 1997. Anything by Ursula Le Guin is well worth reading. She calls this a version rather than a translation, as she doesn’t know Chinese and worked from an earlier verbatim or character-for-character translation. It’s lively, one of the most exciting and readable versions I know, passionate - but is the Tao about passion? Hmmm. Still, Le Guin’s notes and explanations are always worth reading.

Stephen Mitchell. Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu. Publ. by Frances Lincoln, 1999. This is an attractive edition, illustrated by Chinese paintings. The translation seems straightforward, easy to read, but I found it unsatisfying for some reason I didn’t entirely understand: it too often seemed too different from other translations. Le Guin says she started using it, but found it ‘not useful’. But it’s some people’s favourite.

John C.H.Wu. Tao Teh Ching by Lao Tzu. First published 1961, the edition I have is Shambhala, 2003. Chinese text on the left-hand page, English translation on the right. It’s not my favourite translation: it seems wordier, less translucent, than the ones I like best. But I have to confess, I’m a sucker for a nice volume. And this is a very handy, pocket-sized hardback. For that reason, it is the one I took with me to the top of Ragleth, and read aloud to the wild winds as I sat and looked across at the Long Mynd. (The nearest I can cite to a Taoist mountain-top experience.)

Jonathan Star. Tao Te Ching, the Definitive Edition. Tarcher/Putnam, 2001. This is the best study edition I know of: includes Star’s translation, the ‘verbatim translation’ of the original Chinese characters, their transliterations and list of English equivalents, notes and concordance. Like Le Guin, if I venture an English version it will be thanks to Star.

Internet versions of the Tao Te Ching are a mixed bag:
Zhongwen.com has the Chinese characters, but seems to be missing the English translation at present.
Then there’s the GNL Tao De Ching.

The most commonly available English translation on the WWW seems to be that of James Legge, one of the earliest translators. e.g. from Project Gutenberg. It’s free because it’s out of copyright, but also because no one would pay for it, I guess. It’s largely incomprehensible, and I wouldn’t recommend reading it unless you want to be put off TTC.

Just back from returning Tui to university Further North. I got so fed up with the driving, and felt so ill, that I stopped and had lunch at Burger King (don’t ask how this follows, I’m not sure) and came back the long way round because it included more motorway and dual carriageway, so didn’t take as long.

I think we got into the habit of taking the shortest route (in miles) even if it took longer (in minutes) back in the old days when we were even poorer than we are now, and much more environmentally sound and keen. Today I’m not so sure. OK, the slow and scenic route costs less of the earth’s resources. But it increases my stress levels when I get stuck behind a pootler or a tractor, or keep having to slow down to 30 mph. to pass through someone else’s village (this may be partly offset by increased stress of motorway driving). This may make me a more dangerous road user: not good. Then there’s the value of my time to take into account … And the fact that if the journey takes longer, I’m more likely to need to stop and eat a burger …

Why does thinking about the environment get so complicated? My head hurts.

Sometimes you want to do the audio equivalent of a long hard blink, to make sure you’ve heard something correctly. Last week I half-heard a BBC radio news report of how British Muslims were generously responding to the tsunami disaster by raising money at Friday prayers. The news reader said something like, ‘Every Muslim has a duty to attend Friday prayers …’

Did I just imagine, between the lines, the gloss, ‘How curious; how quaint; how different from us Christian westerners’? I wanted to write in and say to them, Listen, bud! Every Christian has a duty to attend Sunday worship! Where did we get this damn’ fool situation where heaven knows what proportion of the British public call themselves Christians, but 90% of them hold as their first article of faith that it doesn’t matter whether you go to church or not?

Well, I’m pretty sure I know where we got it. I blame the Reformation. It was one, highly desirable, thing, to break free from a corrupt Papacy; but doing so in order to have your assets stripped by a corrupt monarchy and its cronies, doesn’t feel like an unmitigated gain. And then there was the privatising, individualising doctrine of justification by faith …

‘What?’ says Joe Pewsitter. ‘You mean I can be saved just by believing, without having to do anything?’

‘That’s right,’ says the Reverend Reform. ‘Justification by grace through faith means just that.’

‘Wow!’ says Joe. ‘Ta very much. I’m off!’

And we still haven’t learned. Instead of the Church telling people that Yes, you do have to attend church, that is your duty of love to a God who accepts you just as you are, no questions asked; we are still colluding with the idea that it doesn’t matter whether they come or not by trying to make it interesting and attractive to them. As if it was some species of entertainment. And not often a very good one at that.

End of rant.