Rev
The new comedy series from the BBC. More real than Dibley: just about everything which took place in Episode 1 has happened in related from in my experience. Love it. Love it. Love it.
Posted on Monday, 28 June 2010 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 1 comment
A year in retrospect
2009 was not the busiest year for this blog. As you can imagine, there’s something of a story behind that which I am now sufficiently distanced from to be able to tell. It’s been a year of ups and downs and at times the downs were almost overwhelming. Looking back over the year’s posts, I’m amazed, in retrospect, that I managed to put out the number of posts that I did.
Ups
One was definitely the chance to move back into theological teaching when I took up a new job as Dean of Non-residential Training at St Michael’s College in Llandaff. I had missed being a teacher of theology over the past ten years and this is one of those things I think I’ve been put on the planet to do. So, although I now miss the rootedness of parish church life, I have the chance to teach again, which is lovely. I’m currently teaching a course in Worship at Cardiff University, which is a very different experience to teaching in a theological college. Also, directed non-residential theological studies is very enriching – people are so motivated and enthusiastic.
Another up was the satisfaction of seeing both of my children at University, with Jonathan doing joint honours Philosophy/History at Sheffield and Caroline doing Biomedical Science at Manchester. Both conveniently located for walking breaks in the Peak District.
Downs
There were two: one was my wife being ill around this time last year, which was very worrying at the time. She is well and healthy again now, but neither of us would wish to go through something like that again in a hurry. We are very thankful for vigilant doctors.
The other one, which though less intense, was more dragged-out, was the saga of our house-move. We had planned to move over the border into Wales so that we both had an equal-length drive between our respective places of work. Eventually, we decided to buy a new-build house. However, one week away from the move date in May, our solicitor called us to say that they had been unable to register the title of the property because part of it was erected on unregistered (ie. unowned) land. Further legal investigation followed, which showed that the house was therefore not worth the money agreed. So we had to pull-out. There followed five months of legal dispute between ourselves and the building firm. There was a horrible point in late May when we were facing the need to buy another house, but with our deposit still being held by the builders and the possibility of having to move out of the house we were in. We had to instigate court proceedings and eventually, the deposit came back, then, after many more months, costs – the legal part of which were nearly £12000 by the end. In the meantime, we had to unpack a house (the diocese, who owned the vicarage, were brilliant) live out of boxes for several months and buy another house. They say moving house is one of the highest stress-points in life. Well, we (almost) did it twice this year. Being one of the parties in litigation proceedings must also be right up there amongst the most soul-destroying activities on the planet.
I realised this year how cumulative stress ultimately gets to you. Add a few little other things, like empty-nest syndrome and the stress (alongside the enrichment) of starting a new job and for a good bit of the summer I was in a bad place. But, thank God, things don’t stay like that forever.
Ups again
We ended up in a lovely, lovely house, this time a victorian one in Bristol, around the corner from lots of good, old friends. The builders settled our claim out of court two days before it went before a judge in October. Although we miss our children and are looking forward to them coming home for the vacation this Christmas, Sharon and I are loving the space, flexibility and relaxation which come from being ‘just a couple’ again. Empty nests are not really empty, when you can both spread yourselves around a bit, and there’s also always a bit of space to squeeze up again when the kids come home. We had some wonderful support from our friends and family and learned to live on a tight budget, with a simple holiday spent camping.
A week or so ago, I was nearly killed on my bicycle by a bus whose driver was not looking in the direction of travel. Mercifully he heard my shout just two inches away from me. I am so grateful to be alive, enjoying the blessings of a healthy wife, a lovely home, two children I am proud of, and the prospect of working out whatever amount of life is left to me in the best and most honourable way possible. For me, 2009 was about the fragility of life and the blessings it carries. I come to the end it with a strong sense of the value of what I have, and a sense of perspective (I hope) about its permanence. The blessings of life seem very tangible at the moment, as is the fact that none of this can be taken for granted. Now back to blogging …
Posted on Saturday, 12 December 2009 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 1 comment
Banksy turns Bristol gallery into an orgy of parody
There’s been a serious coup here in Bristol: guerilla-artist Banksy has ‘sprung’ an exhibition on his old home town, in the city museum and art gallery. Partly because he’s wanted by police in at least six counties for decades of graffiti stunts (and by some angry museum curators who lack a sense of humour), Mr Banksy is understandably reticent to reveal his true identity. Yet he has managed to fill the whole museum and art gallery of his home town with his own take on the universe. Banksy was quoted as saying, “This is the first show I’ve ever done where taxpayers’ money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off.” Whatever. All I know is that I live around the corner from the said Mueseum and Art Gallery and I’ve never seen queues and queues of people going down the road for any other exhibition in over ten years of living here. It’s a sell out, but nobody knew it was going to happen until a few days ago – true to Banksy’s way of doing things. As he comments: “This show is my vision of the future, to which many people will say: ‘You should have gone to Specsavers’” Even museum officials were kept out of the loop to protect the artist’s anonymity. So if you want to come and see it, then you can come over to my place for a cuppa (or a bed for the night) after you’ve laughed yourself stupid at the exhibo. (For overseas viewers who haven’t seen any of Banksy’s works, check out his website here.)
Posted on Saturday, 13 June 2009 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 1 comment
Google has it in for Wales
Google maps, not content with renaming Wales as “Little Britain”, has now moved the border as far west as Port Talbot.
Is there any right of appeal????
When are Google maps going to stop persecuting the poor country?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7980807.stm
Posted on Friday, 3 April 2009 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 1 comment
Now that’s what I call a woman!
Whilst away on a residential course last weekend, I read this amazing obituary of Concita Cintrón. She was a champion bullfighter from Mexico who moved to Spain after World War II. Her life would make an amazing film, especially if they could persuade Penélope Cruz to play the lead. I think I nearly fell in love with her just reading the obituary – which is a rather scary thought. (And if you’re reading this, my love of 25 years, it’s the similarities between the two of you that have me by the heartstrings!)
Posted on Friday, 27 February 2009 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 1 comment
London to Glasgow by train … in 5 minutes
… OK with some help of a time-lapse camera. This little gem was on the BBC website today.
Posted on Monday, 15 December 2008 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 3 comments
The Royal Society and Creationism – did Reiss jump or was he pushed?
An interesting story currently featuring on the BBC website concerns the ‘decision’ by Professor Michael Reiss to stand down as the director of education of the Royal Society. This follows a minor controversy following his comments that creationism should be discussed in science lessons if a pupil raises the matter. The difficult is that I cannot understand why Prof. Reiss has done anything wrong. He did not, as some newspapers reported, advocate that creationism should be ‘taught’, merely that it should be ‘discussed’ if pupils raised the matter. This seems an identical proposal to that which is mentioned in the press statement from the Society, which states that creationism has no scientific basis and should not be part of the science curriculum …
However, if a young person raises creationism in a science class, teachers should be in a position to explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism is not, in any way, scientific.
So what is the difference between these two positions? Perhaps the worst that Professor Reiss actually did was to posit the idea that such a situation might arise and that pupils’ questions of this nature should be taken seriously by science teachers. (Surely that’s what any good teacher would do?) Maybe members of the Royal Society do not wish to be reminded that so many people actually believe creationism, so by raising its profile in this way, Professor Reiss’s comment was failing to chime in with a secularist agenda which likes to claim that only the odd crank or two believes, literally, in the biblical story of creation.
For the Royal Society to get involved in the religious vs secularist debate would be a retrograde position for it to adopt. It is, after all, the ‘Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge’ – not a Philosophy debating society. It includes within its numbers advocates of atheism, secularism, Jews and Christians along with members of other faiths. Up to this point, it has advocated a broad-church approach to the religious and philosophical stances of its members. (Take, for example, the philosophical and religious positions of Isaac Newton and Michael Faraday.) It is a matter of concern that Professor Reiss should be asked to step down, merely for suggesting that a religiously-influenced stance on the origins of the cosmos should be taken sufficiently seriously to be challenged on its scientific veracity. It is a matter of even greater concern, perhaps, to note that Professor Reiss is also an ordained priest within the Church of England. Could this have added a greater hysteria to the calls for him to step down from his seconded position?
It is interesting that Lord Robert Winston is quoted as saying: ‘I fear that in this action the Royal Society may have only diminished itself… This individual was arguing that we should engage with and address public misconceptions about science – something that the Royal Society should applaud.’ If the Royal Society is starting to exhibit something resembling a Dawkinsian secularist knee-jerk reaction, then it is guilty, itself, of entertaining a ‘misconception about science’.
(18th September …) I’ve had one further thought about this subject since writing the post: there are some who suggest that the best place for creationism to be addressed is within the confines of RE lessons, largely on the grounds that ‘creationism’ is a religious viewpoint, as opposed to evolution, which is a ‘scientific’ viewpoint. This is to entirely miss the point, however. The two theories are occupying the same intellectual space and are competing theories, rather than completely different subject matter. Unless creationism is tackled within the context of science lessons, it is implying that both evolution and creationism are, in fact, both religious viewpoints. I cannot believe the Royal Society would be too happy with that kind of conclusion that pupils could draw, even though it is entirely implied by relegating the subject matter to RE lessons. In the end, creationism must stand or fall by the canons of scientific verification, in exactly the same way as must evolution. A further point is that much creationism is backed up by ‘scientific’ theories, which must themselves be subject to a scientific analysis. In the end, it’s a case of the old adage that if you walk off the pitch refusing to play, you are deemed to have lost the game.
Posted on Tuesday, 16 September 2008 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 4 comments
They’ll never make him a bishop now …
Sir Cliff Richard explained his rather liberal views on same-sex relationship in the Times last week. I can hear the sound of a thousand Evangelical jaws dropping. I think he’s being rather brave – so maybe I’ll forgive him for recording Millennium Prayer. Thanks to Maggi for pointing me to this.
Posted on Sunday, 7 September 2008 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 1 comment
New picture
The new head picture of this blog is Porthtowan Beach in Cornwall. We’ve stayed there on holiday now for the past three years. It’s one of my favourite places on the planet, as earlier posts will show. The sunsets are amazing – easily beating anything I have seen in California (too much fog where the scenery was nice; not enough scenery when the fog went away). The surfing’s good too. The Blue Bar tops everything off with tasty food and good beer.
I can understand why my American friends love the West Coast. In a country where most cities are land-locked, it can be amazing to visit a coastline where the sun sets over the ocean. We saw a great one from Point Montara Youth Hostel. Britons need to remember how lucky they are. In the UK, you’re never more than about 80 miles from the coast – something which has come to prominence in the excellent BBC series Coast.
So although I’ve seen some lovely places in California as we toured down the coast between San Francisco and Santa Barbara, the following places are, in my personal opinion, more spectacular coastline: North Cornwall – especially between Porthtowan and St Agnes; Gower Coast – especially Three Cliffs Bay and Rhossili; The South Hams of Devon, especially Slapton Beach; South Cornwall, especially St Just in Roseland. I could go on … Now if only we could export the weather of Southern California to Britain – consistent blue skies and temperatures of a nice 84 degrees Farenheit.
But back on Porthtowan – of all the beaches I’ve visited, I think it has the best sunsets.
Posted on Wednesday, 3 September 2008 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | 2 comments
iBond?
News out on Gizmodo today is that in the next Bond film, Quantum of Solace, 007 will be using a Sony Ericsson C902. What? Not an iPhone 3G?
Not a chance. Can you really see Daniel Craig turning his attentions away from some stylish, attractive and, no doubt, curvatious accomplice to fiddle around surfing the net or reading his gmail on an iPhone?
I don’t think so.
James Bond uses a phone to call people. And, if the leaks are to be believed, to kill them. But I just can’t seem him squinting at it to look at Facebook. Can you?
Posted on Wednesday, 6 August 2008 by Paul | Posted in uncategorized | Comments Off
