Murder - A Very Bad Sign Indeed...

...terrible news comes today. One's heart goes out to the stricken family.

A friend of E, whom she met at a festival two years ago, has been murdered on a trip to London. We have few details other than that there was an incident in a pub and he was beaten or stabbed to death. A young man of twenty or so.

There is nothing spoofed about this post. I wish it were so, but it is not.

Signs and Portents...

...Religious enthusiasm is another difficulty [see previous] little known in The Wolds.

True enough that local history does relate the occasional outburst of massed outdoor prayer gatherings, led in the main by hairy and itinerant preachers of - it would ultimately transpire - dubious personal morals as well as hygiene; hundreds or more erstwhile sensible farming folk who, losing all control in the whipped-up artificial fervour of the thing, would crowd around a tree to bark at it - quite literally - their unquenchable love of the Lord.

Difficult one assumes for the incumbent of the times to maintain due order at Evensong with so much hysteria in the air, but a rapidly passing fever these matters mainly, some mid-summer madness soon recovered.

There is too the odd - one uses the word advisedly - young curate heaven-bent on inflaming local passion for all good things. One has little trouble here either, indeed it can be quite restorative to be dosed in the same juvenile desire for salvation and its ways one once felt beat so fiercely within.

A bit of a pep all round that can be, though tearful ends there often are for these fellows tend to rouse quite other passions in impressionable young maids, more desirous of the messenger than the message. A folk-Mass guitar in the wrong hands can be indeed much more the aphrodisiac than the strummer thereof either knows or intends.

Or, as one occasionally darkly muses, precisely what is knowingly intended. Curate R, for example, one recalls with a certain lack of charitableness. Perfectly aware that one the impact of a pale face, dark soulful eyes and some plangent chords! All too relieved to learn he soon dropped all pretence of probity and went off to lead some nu-church commune with overtly impure aims and objectives.

It is not though this up-tempo sort of enthusiasm that one now fears, but rather the far more gloomy and deep set mood that can and does give rise to outbursts of apocalyptic, end-is-at-hand rants. Slow burners these in the main.

General and perfectly rational expressions of concern about the hardness of times can sit heavy in a sensitive heart. That sensitive heart then begins to muse on 'whither the world' in quite a mournful manner. Nothing so much of harm necessarily in that, no more perhaps than a handy re-calibration of the individual moral compass away from the material towards the spiritual.

Worse news though then piles in on bad. World economic meltdown is a bit of a teeth-sucker by itself, but when laid on top of growing terrorism of many kinds - the Taliban we hear perfectly poised to take Pakistan - and now, of a sudden, the potent threat of a global pandemic promising death to many in all lands in a trice; all that and who can escape feeling queasy about it all?

One does indeed find oneself wondering whether St. John the Divine might not really have had a point after all about his Four Horsemen a-riding to herald universal chaos and destruction.

I'll not yet be chalking-up 'The End Is Nigh' or the 'Repent For Thy Doom Cometh' sandwich-boards to be wearing about the place. But I might yet. One more sign or portent and you could find me reaching for the paint pot.

Pros And Cons...

...an ever-fragrant correspondent of mine has recently sternly informed me that she is 'pro-gay.' The putting of it into the pipe and the smoking of it was not specifically invoked, but one sensed the note of that tone in the remark as made.

We do not, on the whole, tend to do religious controversy here in The Wolds. Our tastes are mostly for the quieter life, very much on a live-and-let-alone basis.

The occasional hint, maybe, to one that whilst Jesus may very much want her for a sunbeam, her eternal 'Nearer the Godhead than thou' smile is profoundly irksome. Or tipping the wink to another that tambourines may be all very well at a Romany hoe-down, but daring to bring one into my Church and wave it around during Choral Evensong is absolutely not the thing to do in these parts unless said waver has an undue fondness for hospital catering.

Reining-in Farmer Arthur's fervour for direct action against sinners - his pile 'em high and burn 'em all philosophy - is also necessary from time to time. All for a bit of fire and brimstone myself to put, literally, the fear of God in folk as needed. But when justice trumps mercy at every turn, as it will when Arthur plays a hand, it is not to be tolerated entire.

Other than that and the occasional outburst of ontological nonsense about 'being church' that wafts our way as it must, we are little disturbed in our ways and our faith.

One does though slightly tremble at this edict that being 'pro-gay' is quite the thing, not the least as it implies any contrary stance to be 'anti-gay', which in these troubled times would seem as near unlawful as makes little difference. The 'If you're not with me then you're nicked' note is not cheering.

That then objection the first, as one might in Thomist mood opine. The other, perhaps more a matter of nuance though nonetheless significant, is that it as much imputes that one is not just for it but up for it even. As dear Fr. 'Pepper' Potts would say of his hierarchical people "Everything's forbidden until the day it becomes compulsory."

Am I thus to go about the place demanding of folk to know whether they be 'pro-gay'? Poor lambs, I can hear their bleating cries now: "Pro-gay Rector? Must I really? With my piles!"

Fat Tax - A Vindication...

Avid and intelligent readers of this place (qualities not incompatible I aver) will recall that some while hence H and I both asserted how sensible it would be if commercial enterprises would begin to lay an imposition on fat people for the cost to their businesses.

This was on the back of a silly suggestion that people who were obese should be paid to lose weight. Cash in hand no less for resisting the urge to stuff their faces with yet more meat pies etc.

We rebelled, did H and I, at such nonsense, proposing rather the more assertive notion that if being wilfully fat added to the burden of society - as it must - then due recompense should be exacted.

Hurrah now to discover that precisely this is to occur. At least two airlines - one American, one European - are to charge the fatties more for travelling on their aeroplanes. Quite right too. More space taken, more inconvenience to fellow passengers, more fuel consumed. Why not then a bob or two on the price?

Could indeed this be poor Alistair Darling's way out of our economic mess and misery? Forget a 50% tax on high earners, instead a body-weight tax on the fatties. If we're to talk 'green investment' as it seems doomed we are so to do, then let us begin.

Strikes me, mind you, that our Gordo has been looking a mite more podgy of late. Should we not start as we mean to go on?

"Let Them Eat Fibre..."

...how very handy. The NHS in Bristol has taken their time and our money to print leaflets advising the recently unemployed not to become despondent, but to eat plenty of fruit and veg and get a good night's sleep.

Alcoholic abstinence is urged, whilst brisk walks are advised - though not presumably to the pub - to stimulate the endorphins and 'make you feel energised and positive.'

"Taking care of yourself," we are wisely informed, "will help you to stay in good shape so you are able to cope well with life's difficulties. It will also prepare you for your return back to work when a job opportunity comes up."

Perfectly sound advice of course, bleeding obvious naturally. Play well with people about to lose their homes, whose lives are in meltdown? Possibly not.

Let them eat fibre indeed!

Operation Glencoe - A Bloody Death

Now we learn that Ian Tomlinson did not die from a heart attack, but from abdominal bleeding. The news is that the police officer who was videoed hurling him to the ground has been interviewed under caution and is likely to face a charge of manslaughter.

Thus, it seems, justice is prevailing.

The Met has troubled itself to inform me that the name 'Operation Glencoe' was chosen at random from a number of available names. I have told the Met to pull the other one. I doubt they will bother, but one waits and sees.

Did you note the similarity between the baton blow to the legs of Ian Tomlinson and that to a young lady the next day that has latterly emerged on video? The same swing of the baton, the same area of the body targeted.

Coincidence, you might say. Well, I'm not having yet another one pulled. Where, when and how do the police learn such techniques? That shall be my next question to the Met.

One Wednesday In Sheffield...

...it was, of course, a Saturday on which the Hillsborough slaughter occurred. Its twentieth anniversary falls, now, on a Wednesday. Sheffield Wednesday it is today.

If I were to say how well that day is remembered in this house it might seem almost crass, for who knowing it then could forget it now? I take it though for a strong personal as well as a public memory, for it was the only occasion on which I believe I was struck with a psychic knowing and a terrible foreboding.

H and I had chosen the day for a jaunt to Jodrell Bank. You know it of course the site, among others, of the great radio telescope that in the words of the place itself 'probes the depths of space, a symbol of our wish to understand the universe in which we live.'

A longish stone's throw across the Pennines is Jodrell Bank from Sheffield, but what is that to a device that measures distance in time not space? What quite H and I were doing there is not recalled. Did either of us significantly take such an interest in astrophysics? Not as such would both say then and now.

It was, from the outset, a 'black dog' day. One uses that Churchillian short-hand not to indicate personal despondency, but rather a deep sense of worldly gloom. Something was not right, one just knew it.

Jodrell Bank offers many attractions to its visitors, not the least of which is a small yet fulsome planetarium with regular shows for the viewing public. H and I attended one such show twenty years ago this day. The time was 3.00 o'clock in the afternoon.

As the lights dimmed into the blackness of a re-created primordial universe my sense of gloom became that of utter and unfathomable horror. A stern effort, indeed, was needed not to run screaming from the place.

At that same moment there were real screams being heard at Hillsborough from people who could not run because they were trapped, and ninety-six people for whom there would be no more screaming, or running, or cheering, or loving, or life itself.

We drove home, H and I, after the show. That is I drove, and I should not have for I could barely control myself let alone the car. The horror did not subside as I assumed it must but ever grew in intensity. The world was wrong, I absolutely knew it to be so.

We arrived to the house by early evening and at once on went the television to catch the football scores. Desperate faces to be seen in the studio and on the, by now almost deserted, terraces at Hillsborough. What could that be one at first only casually wondered?

The following hours there was nothing to do other than to absorb the unfolding news of the terrible events of that deadly day.

Only later did I begin to reflect on the precise timing of the thing. The Ninth Hour, the hour of Calvary. Was their moment of dying a cause of my own horror? Did their last screams penetrate my heart and soul? It matters not to anyone but myself, but I believed it to be so then and twenty years on I believe it still.

Easter Fasting...

...no, that is not a typo for 'feasting', and indeed one shall be mounting serious and traditional charge upon the household larder as a proper aspect of Paschal celebrations. (As dear Dom. Bertie would say: "The only reason I can stand forty days of Lenten fasting is the promise of fifty days of Easter feasting.")

Lenten self-denial is a worthy cause, a small thing for a much greater purpose of course. But then what can and does happen? Dear Fr. Pat quits the sauce for Lent, good fellow, but is then paralytic by Low Sunday in essence - and in his own words - making up for lost time.

I opt for minding my tongue and not being so wretchedly snappy with all and sundry. A humane endeavour, possibly also a holy one of a sorts. But what am I to do now that Lent is done, begin once more the biting-off of heads? Hardly seems the point and indeed isn't the point at all.

So if I now ask of self 'What is it I am foregoing for Easter?', caught up in the very joy of the thing, should I begin with the beer and the baccy? A new beginning, a resurgent Rector in tribute to a risen Lord? One is not so proud, or rather one is only too keenly aware of the lessons of personal history to be so bold.

There is though the dusty and long-neglected exercise bicycle in need of a polish through usage. Should one, perhaps, also not necessarily be driving the three-hundred yards to Ma Martha's newspaper emporium of a morning, as has been one's wont? And might one even astonish the Palladian tribe at supper by opining "No wine for me at this juncture thank you H., I'll just be taking a glass of that refreshing looking cranberry juice"?

No nonsense of course that physical fitness is a precursor to moral virtue. Can't quite recall which heresy that one is, but it is one of the more beastly be assured. I have never, indeed, taken dear St. Bernard at this word that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, for is not also the road to Heaven so paved with much sign of human frailty? Cleanliness closest to godliness? My arse, as Yorkshire Dom Tom would say. "Where's there's muck there's Jesus." He had a point.

That notwithstanding, a little list of 'Things one is giving up for Easter' seems to point the right direction. I shall begin to inscribe just as soon as this rather good pipe of Shervington's finest black is done!

Operation Glencoe - Ian Tomlinson...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/video-g20-police-assault

...This I feared. Let justice be done.

Operation Glencoe - Without Feud or Favour...

E said she might but didn't. Papa, in fear for her safety, sternly rebuked her for the very thought of it, though admitted being tempted himself. H, sensible as ever, said that neither would so what did it matter anyway?

The, at times, lively debate chez Rectory Nostrum was over who fancied beaning up to Town in order to make one's presence felt at the G20 beanfest just passed.

To call E an 'eco-warrior' would be to fly in the face of the evidence of the endless shopping for flim-flam - as I alone would see it - not to mention all-round consumerist frenzy. To call though me an old-school protester would be entirely accurate, with perhaps reasonable emphasis on ancient rather than recent history.

Indeed, the last time one can recall actually taking to the streets to raise a voice in protest would have been the early Eighties, when we to host Cruise missiles on our shores. Didn't much care for the notion then and no more for it now. Not that it made a ha'peth of difference to the outcome, nor indeed did one presume it would. There was though a stand to be taken, so one was. And Felicity Kendal was there, which made the entire day-trip thoroughly pleasurable of course.

One, in this, quite discounts turning out in the necessary attempt to remind Blair, T. that he was really quite nuts in wishing to invade Iraq. Not a 'protest' as such, for to protest one really has to be in a minority. This was more by a way of reminding him that we, the electorate, had a view he best not ignore.

We were - we fondly imagined - just politely tipping him the nod, for he seemed to have missed it somehow, that: 'It is a bad thing to do. It won't do any good. We will hate you for doing it.' No more really than pointing out to a fellow that his flies are undone. Awkward moment but soon resolved. "Gosh yes, thank you for telling me." That sort of thing.

But by then, sadly, he was way beyond our ken, only listening to 'inner voices' and 'the verdict of history', neither of which should be taken as compelling signs of sanity in a political leader. "I only know what I believe," we were told. Oh dear. Quite, quite barking.

From thence on one has largely confined any protesting to the occasional threatened walk-out from some interminable and desperately dull ecumenical gatherings, more in hope of terminating the session than in expectation of anyone making any sense. "What do we want?" "Our tea!" "When do we want it?" "Now!" Bishops can quail at such onslaughts.

But to Town for the G20, it was indeed a temptation. Not that 'eating a banker' would be E's thing at all, she being a vegetarian of pretty strict observance. Nor indeed would I have particularly desired to do battle with Bobbies for the sake of shouting at a closed door or two.

It was though those very Bobbies who nearly made me go, for on checking details of who was intending to do what, when and how, it came strongly to one's notice that the Police were calling their side of things 'Operation Glencoe'!

If you are not entirely versed in late seventeenth century Scottish affairs, you are not perhaps to be blamed. But you must know of the infamous Glencoe Massacre of 1692, certainly in the top three of all-time brutal acts of treachery and savagery by this country's Government against its own people.

The battle order of the day gives something of the flavour of the thing:

"You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the McDonalds of Glenco, and put all to the sword under seventy. You are to have a special care that the old Fox and his sons doe upon no account escape your hands, you are to secure all the avenues that no man escape...This is by the Kings speciall command, for the good & safty of the Country, that these miscreants be cutt off root and branch. See that this be putt in execution without feud or favour..."

We did indeed hear that the Met were 'up for it and up to it', not a boast one particularly wishes one's police 'service' saying in advance of the exercise of an essential civil liberty in this land. To call, then, the whole thing in honour of the foul stench of executed death that lives to this day in the very stones of Glencoe was at best crass in the extreme.

H, as ever, was right. One did not in the end go to find out first-hand how Glencoe would be re-enacted. It could have been a lot worse on either side it seems.

One though is still waiting for an answer from the Met. A question has been asked of it and it is apparently - though one had not presumed it to be - a 'Freedom of Information request.' Does that mean one will or one won't be told?