Algorithmic worship
OK, so it was probably because my brain was overheating in the service: Evensong after a rather hasty train journey in the kind of hot humid air you get just before summer rain begins. I only have one cassock, bought for my ordination, in “good value” wool for which I have been grateful in many a cold medieval church building over the years. But tonight was different – I was pouring sweat from every pore as we got to the last song of the service, a modification of an old Dave Bilborough number with dull linguistic monotony. But then I realised that it was possible to trace a simple formula for predicting the words with logical precision:
(Let there be x shared among us,
Let there be x in our lives
Now may your x fill the nations
Cause us, O Lord, to arise;
Give us a fresh understanding of
y x that is real;
Let there be x shared among us,
Let there be x.)
where x is a member of the set {love, peace, joy} and if (x>elements(set)), then x recurses to element 1 of the set in a final element substitution; and where y = {brotherly | sisterly} where (if the nth element of the x set is odd) then y=”brotherly”; else y=”sisterly”.
I’m sure that a proper mathematician or logician would be able to express this rule more elegantly, but at least this minor discursion took my mind off the heat. Also, since it was an Offertory Hymn, I wondered whether it would be in order to augment the x set with a further element, namely, “cash”, but sadly they hadn’t thought of this.
This logico-hymnological phenomenon has emerged steadily over the years as old choruses, which were originally “one verse wonders” have increasingly been pressed into service as full hymns as their original audience has aged, but the principle goes back a long way. For example, can you remember…
(q is flowing like a river
flowing out to you and me
spreading out into the desert
setting all the captives free).
In this case, q can be substituted with the same members of the set used in the Bilborough chorus in the first example.
Of course, like all logical systems, it is possible for bugs to get into the system. For example, the sets could be corrupted with alien elements, either substituted or added. For example, by adding “soup”, “beer” or substituting “lurve” at some point in the set.
I’d be interested if any readers (if there are any left) have other hymnological algorithms they would like to share with me (and the world) via the comments.
Posted on Sunday, 13 June 2010 by Paul | Posted in humour | 3 comments
Coming to the Watershed in Bristol – 5th March
After the fun of last summer’s Banksy exhibition in Bristol, here comes the movie…
Posted on Tuesday, 23 February 2010 by Paul | Posted in humour | Comments Off
Strict Sabbatarianism on the Web
You have to admire the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland for keeping to their principles: anyone trying to visit their site on a Sunday gets the following…
I tried a superficial attempt to get their server to “break” the sabbath by changing my timezone so that my clock ran ten hours ahead (ie. in Monday), but it wouldn’t play – presumably their site is linked to Scottish time. However, it struck me that the website was, itself, using electricity which had been generated on the sabbath (unless it reverts to battery power). So even by responding to my http request, it was breaking the letter, if not the Spirit, of the law. By the way, I wonder if anyone has told them that the Sabbath Day is on Saturday, and that Jesus was raised on a Sunday – which is hardly a case of God “resting”…
Posted on Sunday, 7 February 2010 by Paul | Posted in humour,theology | Comments Off
Quit strumming that guitar and cut the cheesy lyrics
It was fairly early into our marriage that my nearest and dearest gave me an honest assessment of my long-term prospects as a worship leader. I’d fallen into it somehow, either because I was the only guy in the university Christian Union who wore a leather jacket or because everyone else was even worse at the guitar than I (except Keith J, who was *good*). But by the time I’d reached my mid-twenties, I’d been playing the guitar and leading worship for a number of years. The problem was that I’d been listening to jazz-funk instead of Christian albums since I was in my teens and it had infected my strumming style with dangerous backbeats, so it was kind of hard to understand my playing. (That’s my version of the story, anyway.) Like most Christians of my age, I never questioned the lyrics, despite the fact that anyone with a passing acquaintance with Freudian psychology cannot sing “Jesus, take me as I am…” without feeling terribly guilty about the sexual associations it evokes.
How refreshing, then, to read Andy Walker Cleaveland’s blog post on Christian cheesy lyrics, with some concrete examples. This is getting familiar territory: Nick Page has tackled the subject in his book And now let’s move into a time of nonsense but his book suffers because he was (understandably) unable to get permission of any of the song authors to actually cite the examples of silly or meaningless lyrics which his book is about. At last, someone’s pointed out that though Mat Redman’s tunes are good (as examples of the kind of genre in which he composes), his lyrics seldom convey much by way of theological substance – in contrast (I would contend) to the much-maligned Graham Kendrick.
But things aren’t as bad as they could have been. My wife’s early ministry of discouragement (“it’s either the guitar, or me”) has probably saved the Christian world from something much worse.
Posted on Friday, 8 January 2010 by Paul | Posted in humour,music,spirituality,theology | Comments Off
Banksy does some work outside the exhibition
Posted on Saturday, 25 July 2009 by Paul | Posted in humour | Comments Off
Office-speak
The BBC today is running a great magazine article on the most loathed office-speak phrases. The interesting question is why such verbal nonsense emerges in the first place. The consensus seems to be that it comes from minds which are operating almost exclusively within a work environment which is demanding (or even threatening) but also which is intellectually unchallenging and infertile. The world of the middle-manager is betwixt and between: it is pressurized, but ultimately not to do with life-and-death issues (as is, say, the world of medicine). It is routine, dealing with things which are ultimately banal, but where strong demands are placed on the manager which don’t bear on those lower down the pecking-order of the workplace. It is far removed from the innovative, intellectually challenging and creative environment of the research scientist or the focussed thinking of the academy.
The middle-manager, in order not to go insane, has to invent a kind of linguistic universe where the excitement of other worlds inhabits his or her own. This results in the large-scale importing of metaphors from other contexts which then are over-used, largely because they make the banality seem somehow more imaginative and glamorous. The world of office-speak is, therefore, a game of the imagination which prevents the middle-manager from going crazy with the cumulative effect of pressure and boredom: it’s a survival mechanism buried deep within their brains to prevent them from becoming cleaver-wielding lunatics. For them, the alternative is horrendous. Put yourself in their shoes (you may indeed be in those shoes): you are handed a set of figures which have emerged from a spreadsheet. They indicate an arithmetic difference between profits achieved in the year to date and the profits which should have been achieved in the year to date. This is the result of a simple subtraction, but the implications are that if that difference isn’t closed, either the expectations of shareholders will not be fulfilled, or some people are going to lose their jobs, or someone higher-up the the hierarchy is going to have their over-optimistic assessment of the profitability of the company significantly undermined by facts.
The middle-manager is then placed under pressure. What can he or she do to survive? You can’t simply wave the two figures at the team and tell everyone that they’ve got to work harder to close the gap. The banality and boredom of the situation conspires with the facts to produce demoralisation and further loss of performance. Enter the imaginative metaphor! The middle-manager remembers the phrase from a recent seminar they attended: we’ve got to ‘up our game’ he or she says. Suddenly, the dreary office disappears in the corporate cranium, and everyone is dressed in American Football kit – the crowds are in the stadium all around and just down the field are the ugly-faced opposition. The middle-manager is suddenly transformed into Bull Durham and the adrenaline starts to pump. Imagination turns that little subtraction sum from the spreadsheet into a drama. [Oops, wrong game! see Paul Davison's comment below!]
The last thing everyone needs is some linguistic pedant who punctures the metaphor with reality. The problem is that the work environment remains as dull as it ever was, which deadens the ability of the middle-manager to dream up endless imaginative metaphors. Eventually, the metaphors become routine, then they replicate and replicate until they take over the entire linguistic field. Eventually, nobody can understand what anyone else is saying because of this verbal fecundity. The whole office is drunk on metaphoric euphoria – until everyone is living in a parallel universe of disconnected imaginative images which have some vague connection to what they’re supposed to be doing. The whole office is on linguistic LSD, just about keeping things going in the real world, but in fact, off somewhere with the fairies.
The problem for English is that so much routine, boring commercial work is conducted in this language that there is a real danger that what started as an attempt at psychological survival has now attained the capacity to alter the language to the extent that it could become a meaningless stream of verbal dope. English could become the ultimate language of meaninglessness.
What is more worrying for me is that most of this is being reflected in church circles as well. The rich theological concept of ‘mission’ was, long ago, imported into management contexts, semi-digested by the behemoth of middle-management culture, then re-ingested by Christian leaders. These leaders have an impoverished view of mission which sees it purely in terms of the statistically quantifiable, where the spreadsheet is Lord. This theologically-starved view of mission debases Christian leadership from the truly apostolic into the managerial. As a result, we start to hear Christian leaders using management cliches, rather than biblical metaphors. So when you next hear your priest, pastor or minister talk about the Church needing to ‘up its game’, you know he or she has finally lost the theological plot. The answer is a sabbatical on a desert island with just the Bible to read. They may come back speaking in tongues, but they might also come back speaking plainly in English. For the mission of God takes place in the real world, not a fantasy one. And true mission involves true words, which call things what they are, and trustworthy language which opens people’s eyes to see what is really in front of them: that which the original Word brought forth and became flesh in order to redeem.
Posted on Saturday, 25 April 2009 by Paul | Posted in humour,theology | 2 comments
Google cockupiaith
The County of Monmouthshire is well known to be confused as to its national identity. From the Norman Conquest until the 16th century it was part of the Welsh Marches – a kind of geographical no-mans-land, under local feudal barons (the Marcher Lords). After 1542, it was created as a distinct county and added to the rest of Wales by Henry VIII. Nevertheless, it retained a very English identity – especially those parts of the county lying to the east of the River Usk.
The accent of the county varies hugely, from a definite South Wales (and therefore, Welsh) accent, to a very peculiar tongue as you approach the English border. The place-names are also heavily Anglicised, both in spelling and pronunciation, from Welsh originals. “Wenglish”, a curious mix of English and Welsh, is also not unknown. (It’s a kind of equivalent to “Franglais”, the language many Brits speak when in holiday over the English Channel – or if you’re French, La Manche).
Those of us who remember when all the Welsh county names (and boundaries) were changed in 1974 and then changed back again in 1996 can well understand that residents of Monmouthshire would get confused, after they had spent 22 years in Gwent, which was once also the name of the ancient Kingdom of Gwent which covered this part of Wales between the 6th and 11th centuries. People in East Monmouthshire are just plain confused as to which country and county they are in.
However, to add to their troubles, you will find that if you look at this part of the world on Google Maps, the nice people at Google have tried to be culturally sensitive in the marking of the border between England and Wales. They’ve marked the English side of the border “England”. They’ve marked the Welsh side of the border in what they deem to be the local language, so it’s marked, “An Bhreatain Bheag”. This language is Gaelic: spoken in Ireland and Scotland. Not Wales. The local language spoken in Wales is called “Welsh”. So the residents of Monmouthshire now have to contend with the fact that their side of the county border with England is marked in Gaelic. So are they now English, Scottish, Irish, or (just perhaps) Welsh?
The Welsh for “Wales” is “Cymru”.
“An Bhreatain Bheag”, apparently, is Gaelic for “Little Britain”.
Are Google trying to tell the Welsh something here? Or is it just the influence of one particular character in the BBC comedy series?
Posted on Wednesday, 4 March 2009 by Paul | Posted in humour | 5 comments
How come the Pentecostals have all the fun?
We need more of this kind of stuff in the Anglican Church … BOH!
Posted on Friday, 6 February 2009 by Paul | Posted in altworship,emerging church,good ole cofe,humour,music | 4 comments
MC Paxo vs Dizzee Rascal
The most sublimely funny part of the coverage of the Obama victory yesterday was in the extended edition of Newnight when things got to the point where we saw bro Jeremy gettin down wiv da kids. Check it out, yo’ll be crippled, innit. I think they should give “Mr Rascal” a guest slot fronting the next edition.
Posted on Thursday, 6 November 2008 by Paul | Posted in humour,politics | Comments Off
Style in the New Economy
Good morning comrades!
Well today is the start of a new era, with the return to a state-managed economy and the final, petering-out swawk of Thatcherism. Now if this sounds a little like overstatement, just consider: by the end of today, it is likely that the banking system of Britain will be committed to becoming state-controlled and state-backed. Politically it isn’t possible to pour such unheard-of amounts of money into banks without ensuring that the Chief Investor (the State) has control over its investment. It appears that over the weekend, even those countries which appeared to balk at this step, have been forced to fall largely into line with the actions of Britain. Comrades Brown and Darling have their political stars in the ascendent, internationally and domestically. In terms of economic theory, as it pertains to Western democracies, Capitalism has bowed to inevitability of Socialism rather than face a total meltdown of the world financial system.
Now I’m aware that there are a lot of people out there, not least those working in the City of London, who were born after the year 1979. (Historical note: this was when Margaret Thatcher‘s government was elected to power in Britain). The New Order which has emerged in the past week might leave many younger adults culturally and stylistically at something of a loss as to how to present themselves in the economic environment our New People’s Republics (of Britain, USA, etc…) So, some words from an Old Lag on these pages will, no doubt, help as people get up and dressed for their work this morning.
Your Dress Code
In the bin needs to go your natty suit, Italian-styled jacket, soft-leather booties or shoes, white shirt and silk tie. Embrace neo-Punk. What need is the following (and today’s stock-traders may wish to take note of the companies who will be called upon to supply the new People’s Uniform):
- Trousers (US: Pants) — Black or dark blue drainpipe jeans with definite signs of wear, ideally turned up at the ankles to about mid-calf length
- Tee-shirt — Either Che Guevara, Anarchy in the UK, or something with a quote by Ginsberg or Marx, unwashed and definitely un-ironed, over the top of which you should wear…
- Woollen jumper — ideally knitted by your mum, gran, or aunt, with cigarette-burns, unravelling at the cuffs and elongated in length (to just below the crotch) through washing many times on unsympathetic wash-cycles **without fabric conditioner**: hard water is better than soft, giving that true Hammersmith Palais look. Should have the texture of cardboard.
- Underwear — Y-fronts: the older the better, if you must wash it every day, don’t make a point of telling anyone
- ESSENTIAL — Doc Martin 1460 8-hole boots *in black only*
- ESSENTIAL — a Donkey Jacket, as worn by true comrades on picket lines in the golden years
With your donkey jacket on, you will look sufficiently a part of the New Lumpen Proletariat to do some hot deals in the trading rooms today.
Your Accessories
With the turn of history’s wheel, you will need to completely re-evaluate all the other items you may have got used to carrying about with you. There’s an immediate problem here with electronic items which were produced by the old capitalist economy. The New Socialism is emphatically not anti-technology, but some rethink on the effete stylistic elements which had grown up in the era of the fat cats…
Take, for example, your iPod™. If anything symbolized the era of unrestrained individualistic capitalism, it was this little box. So as of today, you should rebrand it a statePod. In addition, you need to get rid of those wussy white earplugs. This change may be more difficult to manage than most, as all options were designed to be either discreet or linked to the capitalist style economy. But a careful look up on internet army-surplus sites should produce the right kind of replacement:
Out:
In: 
Of course, you will also have to do a major replacement of your listening tastes (partly because the sound isolation of the cans above is such that everyone will hear what you’re listening to). Delete all that Lounge, RnB, Ambient and NuJazz. In comes anything recorded in Britain between the years 1976 (the arrival of Punk) and 1981. Essential listening as you get out of the underground and walk to your dealing room is London’s Burning (The Clash), Ghost Town (The Specials), and, probably most appropriate of all: Babylon’s Burning (The Ruts).
Your Politics
Of course, the ability of political parties to weather economic changes and to completely re-invent themselves for new circumstances is nothing new. At the moment Gordon Brown is safer as Labour leader (and possibly as Prime Minister) than he’s ever been. So the Conservative Party needs to do some serious re-alignment for the new Socialist Order. This won’t be too difficult after turning into New Labour just a couple of years ago. This new change obviously means dumping David Cameron and making a truly inspired and innovative leadership appointment for the New Political Era.
Tory Leader: Yesterday’s man …
Tory Leader: an Inspired Choice for the New Era …
Your investments:
National Savings Certificates
Doctor Martens
Army Surplus Stores
Your Charitable Giving
Just because you’ve just lost 55% of the value of someone’s investment portfolio and will never see a personal bonus again in this life-time, that doesn’t mean that there’s any excuse to be ungenerous in this new economic era. There will inevitably be some time-lag before the State manages to take control of all aspects of social security, so consider, particularly those causes which may have fallen through the grid (or who had invested in Icelandic banks), especially those who are presently facing a greater-than-usual number of calls for their help at this difficult time; for example, the Fat Feline Protection League.
Summary
Well, that’s a start. Now you know how to roll up to work, (with a copy of the Financial Times cautiously wrapped-up inside a copy of the Socialist Worker ) without suffering stylistic death. But this is only a survival guide. There is now ample opportunity for other old geezers to offer further stylistic advice in the comments below to help our younger colleagues to survive stylistically in the New Keynesian era. Over to you …
Posted on Monday, 13 October 2008 by Paul | Posted in humour,politics | 7 comments
