Diary of a Donkeybody

Saving the Hester affair

2012-01-30T11:36:00.001Z

Well, Mr Hester, you clearly didn't read my post before announcing you had decided not to accept your bonus after all. I'm sure Mr Cameron has phoned you to say thank you. Of course, it hasn't got the hacks off your back - who conveniently forget that you've turned an annual £24.1 billion loss round in four years so that the bank is now making a profit. I don't reckon it's your fault that the world economy has continued to slide into recession - which, I assume, is why the markets remain a tad depressed. Things like the euro crisis and recession in the States can't be laid entirely at your door.

So I wouldn't blame you, if you picked up your substantial bonus from last year (more than four times this one!) and offered your considerable financial talents elsewhere. I'm sure there are some banks out there who'd love to use you. I get the feeling that you're not quite ready to enjoy your arboretum and twiddle your thumbs. It would be a shame if you did either.

Or here's another suggestion. How about taking an unpaid sabbatical and producing a rationale for incentives that even the grubby Quintus Slides of this world could understand? They, after all, are the public's source of wisdom on such matters. I think you could afford it. Should RBS look like going pear-shaped while you were working on it, you could always step back in and steady the ship. Hopefully the team is good enough to carry on with the progress you've made so far. While you were about it, how about George Osborne, or even David himself, commissioning you to devise a bonus-scheme for the city big bosses which is transparent and fair? I reckon, coming from you, they might listen, and something good come from this tangled mess of envy and inequality.

With best wishes.

Tankers and bankers

2012-01-29T19:11:00.001Z

Give the - I was going to say, the poor man, but that wouldn't exactly be accurate - the rich man a break. A few years ago, my late aunt bequeathed to me some Royal Bank of Scotland shares, which was very kind, not least because they were worth quite a bit. Sadly, I didn't cash them in, and now, as everyone knows, they're practically worthless, thanks to the good offices of the benighted and knighted Fred Goodwin. They're worth about a twentieth of what they used to be, which is a massive fall by any count. Now I'm not too fussed about my personal wealth, to be honest. We have enough to get by and to enjoy life. For example, we've have just booked to see Dreamboats and Petticoats when it comes to Oxford in the summer, including the wise-in-hindsight line: 'It's no good living beyond your means. If everyone did that, the whole country would go bankrupt.'

Dreamboats and Petticoats © The Guardian

Of course, that's what Northern Rock and RBS did massively, and at the time it seemed impossible not to bail them out - hence the government owning a whopping 84% majority shareholding of newly created RBS shares. I'm not complaining, as my shares were a gift in the first place, but I have been interested in their fate ever since. RBS was clearly built on foundations of endebted sand (like of course many Western economies, including our own). Sir Fred Goodwin was hoofed out and in 2008 Stephen Hester was shoe-horned in to rescue the company.

I am not happy with the huge disparity of wealth existing in our country in a time of economic austerity. I don't like the £millions salaries and bonuses that executives award to themselves and each other. In my view there is no justification for them. No one needs such vast sums year after year, and frankly I don't buy the talent-drain argument. But I actually can see some logic in offering Mr Hester a £2000 cash plus almost a million in shares package, if, as he seems to be doing, he steers the loss-making RBS tanker off the rocks and turns it around. What more effective incentive could there be for a banker than to see the value of his shares rise as the company enters profitability? In the meantime, we, the taxpayers, would have the prospect of eventually recovering the £85 billion we sank into the out-of-control vessel four years ago - or even making a profit.... That could, given the political will, be useful in reviving the economy and creating jobs for our young people.

Of course, £85,000,000,000 is not a bottomless pot in national terms, but it's not peanuts. Unless Mr Hester and co succeed in turning round the company, it'll be more like a bottomless pit. I sometimes wish populist politicians, like Mr Miliband, would ignore the tabloid pack and pause to think what the cost of failure at RBS before taking pot-shots at the messenger his government appointed.

Meanwhile, in order to be even-handed, I scarcely believed when Jane told me that the cost of the opening and closing parties of the Olympics and Paralympics had jumped from £40 million to £80 million, and the budget for security had also doubled to £553 million. Maybe the security is necessary. Maybe we have intelligence of a major Al-Quaida threat. The minister, Hugh Robertson, blamed the Arab Spring, which his leader supported to the tune of £950 million in Libya. It seems to have increased insecurity here.

But the opening? Apparently we're going to have the biggest bell in Europe cast - er? Why? "Ask not for whom the bell tolls," perhaps. So we can ring the death knell for the British economy? We're going to call the ceremony, 'The Isles of Wonders', to celebrate both Shakespeare (The bell is to be inscribed with Caliban's description of the island in The Tempest, "Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises".) and the National Health Service... The Tempest's island is of course not part of Great Britain. I was mildly amused to see an academic article beginning, "The evidence is overwhelming that Shakespeare not only set The Tempest on a Caribbean island,..." - Jamaica, possibly, home of Usain Bolt and tipped by Asafa Powell to make a clean sweep of the men's 100 metres? Even were the bard thinking of England, the end of the play is not exactly encouraging, as it leaves Caliban and his two drunken companions in charge of the island, and we're left to speculate what sort of government they'll end up being - while the rest return to the civilization of Italy!

In the "Austerity Olympics" of 1948, Janie Hampton, Olympic historian, told the Today Programme that "no money was spent at all". There were young people, choirs, orchestra and military band. And it was a jolly good show. The Edinburgh Tattoo is pretty impressive too. I'm not sure why we need to have all the latest gizmos, light shows, professionals and excessive fireworks - and try to outdo other openings. The Government constantly tells us we have to economise and that we're in a time of austerity. Too right! And yet all of a sudden, there go our taxes (or our national overdraft) on what are only games. A better way to celebrate the NHS would be to divert £40 million in its direction, rather than use the money as a prodigal means of telling the country how much the coalition loves the health service despite the cuts it's making.

Unsatisfactory

2012-01-17T13:22:00.001Z

One of my favourite lines of poetry comes near the end of T S Eliot's The Journey of the Magi:
"It was (you may say) satisfactory." It is the precisely accurate word for the magi's discovery of the baby after their cold coming at the worst time of the year. Eliot rescues the word from its debased coinage of "passable" or "mediocre", and returns it to its pristine meaning of "making enough" or "giving satisfaction". After a good meal, when offered more, you reply, "No thank you, I am satisfied." Eliot resisted the contemporary habit of throwing in superlatives or adverbs to lend weight to a word, knowing that it merely serves to drain the original of meaning. You know the sort of thing, "That's really really good (or wicked)!" or "That's mega-cool!"

So in a way I was pleased to hear the news yesterday that Ofsted intends to scrap the "Satisfactory" category in its assessment of schools' performance. Previously there'd been four: "Outstanding - good - satisfactory - inadequate". Yesterday an Ofsted press release announced: "Ahead of a government summit on ‘coasting schools’ to be held at Downing Street later today, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has confirmed his intention to scrap the ‘satisfactory’ judgment for school inspections. The move is designed to tackle the number of coasting schools that have remained stubbornly ‘satisfactory’ over a number of inspections, as highlighted in Ofsted’s Annual Reports over recent years. The proposals, which will be subject to consultation, would mean that any school that does not provide a good standard of education will be given a new “requires improvement’ grade." (Pity that even Ofsted managed to make a punctuation error - which is less than satisfactory and requires improvement.)

Sadly too Ofsted isn't acting from as disinterested a motive as restoring the power of language. So Chief HMI and former whizz-kid headteacher (credited with turning round failing schools single-handed...), Sir Michael Wilshaw, says, "Of particular concern are the 3,000 schools educating a million children that have been 'satisfactory' two inspections in a row. This is not good enough." (As I've explained, "satisfactory" precisely means "good enough".) It sounds as though the idea is to amalgamate the present "satisfactory" with "inadequate", creating an even blunter hammer to crack the nut (or the NUT perhaps). In fact, dark suspicions lurk that it's a ruse to prove how unsatisfactory state schools are after all, proving the need for academies, free schools and all the other devices for diversifying (or confusing) the system. The government might like to know, what every effective teacher knows, that workers, whether students or employees, respond better to encouragement than to threats.

It is devoutly to be hoped that the promised "consultation" will be more of the John Lewis "forum" model (favoured by the deputy prime minister) than the commission-and-ignore approach which the government seems to be meting out to the Dilnot Report.

Happy Birthday, Professor

2012-01-14T12:36:00.000Z

Last Sunday, the most famous MND survivor and scientist, Professor Stephen Hawking was 70. He got MND 50 years ago. I was sent this report by a friend and fellow blogger, who commented on how inspiring his words were. "The severely disabled but always active and indomitable professor Stephen Hawking said on his 70th birthday: 'Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. ... Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up."

"Professor Hawking reflected on his life as 'a glorious time to be alive'."

I love his sense of wonder. In one way or another, we can all share that, and the great thing is it doesn't depend on our physical (or intellectual, come to that) abilities. A child has loads of it. Somehow we lose the wonder muscle as we grow up. I suppose it's a case of atrophy from lack of exercise, but the muscle is still there and we can bring it back into use, given practice - and then what a wonderful world to be explored awaits us!

As someone who was written off as terminal with only two years to live 50 years ago, he is eloquent evidence as to why we should not rush to write people off as fit only for a lethal injection. "It matters that you don't just give up." And I'd add that Stephen Hawking matters, whether or not he succeeds at anything more; but he matters because there are those who care about him as a person they love - and that makes him infinitely valuable.

I don't think he's any less flawed than the rest of us. I don't think his great intellect grants him unique insight into the meaning of life, or the existence of a Creator. Cleverness has its limits. Science deduces from the physical, but some things like love and beauty aren't susceptible to that sort of investigation. We just recognise them. As we begin to deteriorate, mentally from the age of 45 we learned this week, our physical nature begins to decay. To be honest facelifts and botox only make matters worse. And yet we don't become any the less capable of loving and being loved. MND does rapidly - or gradually - ravage the body, but still one cares, is cared for and has a life to live. And, as I sit at my laptop in touch with friends on the other side of the world, I entirely concur with the professor: it is a glorious time to be alive.

It's only a game

2012-01-09T18:41:00.001Z

Personally, I was disappointed: Bristol City 0, Crawley Town 1, in the FA Cup. There's a posse of us at church who follow sports, and so my old interest in Bristol City was rekindled. Well, it had to be different from the local favourites, Swindon, Oxford and Reading. This season has been quite interesting, as they sank to the bottom of the table - until Derek McInnes was appointed as their new manager, and their fortunes began to change. Now they're up to 6 off the bottom in a steady but not meteoric rise. So being beaten by the well-endowed and precocious Crawley from two divisions lower is a bit disappointing - compounded, of course, by Swindon's flukey win over Wigan. But there - as my wife annoyingly but accurately says: "It's only a game." Wasn't it Liverpool's Bill Shankly who said that football was more than a matter of life and death? Pretty silly, but it's certainly big business.

As clearly are the Olympic Games. I have a feeling I for one will be over-saturated with the pre-Games hype. We had it on Songs of Praise yesterday; David Cameron bigged it his New Year message - as one of the two hopes for relieving a year of economic gloom; today he dragged the cabinet down to an Olympic venue for a meeting. I admit they are the big ones, but still they only games. Sorry!

The dissenting voice

2012-01-05T19:10:00.000Z

Tucked away in the BBC's website report of today's campaigning report of assisted dying was a sentence which caught my eye. "However, one of the 11 commissioners, Reverend Canon Dr James Woodward, disagreed with the conclusion." I'd corresponded with him last year after my somewhat intemperate refusal to give evidence to the "commission", and apologised for tarring all the commission with the brush of prejudice at the outset. I've made no secret of my feelings about the whole exercise, but I have to say that Dr Woodward's statement in Appendix 3 of the lengthy report repays reading and for me is its redeeming conclusion. It can't have been easy to differ from the majority vote.

He seems to me to have identified important issues, in particular breaking our society's taboo of discussion of death and dying, and having a broader debate about the kind of society we want to live in before thinking of changing any so fundamental law.

"As set out in the executive summary to this report, I do not feel able to put my name and support to the more specific recommendations that are made in chapters 11 and 12 of this report concerning the majority decision of the Commission that the present law could be changed to allow assisted dying in restricted circumstances. I support the coherence, rigour and quality of this work and hope that it will be read and used as a basis for further research, work and public debate. I regret that some have felt unable to contribute to the process of discussion, engagement and listening that has characterised the process. I wish to continue to work with my fellow Commission members to promote a deeper and wiser dialogue that moves away from polarised and entrenched positions on assisted dying that are incapable of listening to a wide range of issues and experience.

"In our work it has become clear that there are significant difficulties with the present law. My visit to Switzerland to learn something of the law and practice there raised many more questions about the way a culture views and values life, death and the freedom to choose. However this complex and contested area of human life cannot be dealt with through the law or medicine alone. We need to engage further with the social and ethical reflections on experiences of death and dying. The ethical debate is not over and it is the responsibility of all ‘sides’ of the debate to listen more carefully to the questions and concerns of one another.

"Further there are important theological questions about suffering, personhood and the value of the vulnerable that need to inform a more open conversation about death and dying in Britain today. I am particularly concerned about the adequacy of UK health and social care where dignity and compassion are values that are universally affirmed but often not part of the day to day practice of those who are tasked to care.

"In conclusion I believe that a broader societal debate is required before any attempt is made to move to a change in the law on assisted dying. As a society we need to bring all our collective wisdom to bear on these questions in an open and honest fashion. I understand that my particular view is a minority one and I both respect and admire my fellow Commissioners in their views and recommendations. I hope that the report will be read carefully — it is an important contribution to the debate."

I have written to thank him, and I very much hope his thoughtful voice will be listened to. Meanwhile, in response to my last post, Sally, a doctor friend of ours, could have begun part of the discussion with this powerful message: "Years ago, while working in a hospice, I admitted a patient who was in agony having had totally inadequate analgesia in a prior hospital. His wife was screaming at me to end his life, and he was rolling around in agony, but within in a short time he was sound asleep with good analgesia. He slept for about three days having been completely exhausted by being left in severe pain. He eventually woke up and subsequently had a good death.

There is such a thing as a good death, but death is remote and almost taboo in contemporary society. We should not abdicate responsibility for striving for excellence in palliative and terminal care. We should not turn doctors into executioners. This is not a religious discussion. Civilised secular society has a role in addressing the concept of a good death which has no need whatsoever to involve killing."

Lord Falconer's Choice Illusion

2012-01-05T11:04:00.000Z

So the Falconer "commission" has rebranded itself as a "panel of legal and medical experts" and confessed to being funded by and packed with assisted suicide supporters. In fact, the MP involved said, there was no one on the panel previously opposed to it.

The fundamental issue seems to me to be a matter of choice, but it's not a matter of individuals choosing how they want to die. Rather it's a matter of us deciding what sort of society we want to live in.

This is the article I'd hoped would be published in a national paper, but wasn't in the event.

"Last year, in the midst of austerity andrecession, the BBC’s ‘Children in Need’ raised a record £26,332,334 bythe end of a single evening. Today theself-styled Commission on Assisted Dying under the chairmanship of LordFalconer, champion of the legalization of assisted suicide in England andWales, will be presenting their conclusions. Considering the ‘commission’ is funded by and predominantlymade up of similarly-minded people, it’s not been hard to predict what some ofthose conclusions might have been. They’ll be couched in reasonable and balanced terms no doubt, andthey’ll hardly be novel. However,on the principle that if you keep repeating something enough times, it willeventually be believed, they’ll serve their purpose.

"One of the main themes, let me guess, willbe that of freedom of choice. Theargument runs something like this: since 1961 suicide has ceased to be acrime. Terminally ill people, forexample with Motor Neurone Disease or Locked-in Syndrome, reach a point whenthey are unable to take their own lives. Thus they are deprived of a civil right and unfairly discriminatedagainst. They, it is said, of allpeople might well want to end their lives - and the law as it stands means theycan’t, because the same Suicide Act (amended 2009) goes on to state: “A person(“D”) commits an offence if (a) D does an act capable of encouraging orassisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person, and (b) D’s actwas intended to encourage or assist suicide or an attempt at suicide”. It does also leave the jury discretionto convict or not, and only permits proceedings “by or with the consent of theDirector of Public Prosecutions” - which explains the minimal convictions underthe Act in 50 years.

"If someone like myself should wish to leaveour disease behind, why should we not say so and why should we not be assisted,without the fear of our assistants’ facing prosecution? Surely it’s my life and my choice?

"In discussions people have said to me,“Suicide’s been legalized. Thatmeans it’s my right to take my life.” The wording of the Act does not exactly express that meaning: “The ruleof law whereby it is a criminal act for a person to commit suicide is herebyabrogated.” To say that the statewill not regard a suicidal person, whether successful or unsuccessful, as acriminal, is not the same as saying that the state sanctions or encouragessuicide. In fact the wording ofthe 2009 amendment was widened in order to cover internet sites promotingsuicide, implying that the state’s inclination is to discourage suicide. Mr Justice Baker’s judgement in therecent case of patient ‘M’ summed the principle up: “The factor which doescarry substantial weight, in my judgement,is the preservation of life. Although not an absolute rule, the law regards thepreservation of life as a fundamental principle.”

"The question is whether personal choice cantrump the preservation of life. Itis, of course, not true that we have unfettered freedom of choice. For example, we are not free to driveon the right or without a seat belt, because the state does not want us to killeither ourselves or each other. Similarly, where we may smoke is restricted. Even what we may say and write is limited. There aregood reasons for such things, but the point is choice is not aninherent right. Autonomy, theoft-touted synonym for choice, literally means “having one’s own laws”. That is incompatible with being part ofa larger society. Therein lies theflaw in arguing for legislation which allows for a variety of practice in thetaking of life, or assisting to die. Once you say that it’s possible to decide your own personal laws inmatters of life and death you have no fundamental ground to say a particularaction is unacceptable. It willall depend on circumstance and motive – and that is shifting sand. Even ‘compassion’ is an elusive andsubjective motive. You may setapparently water-tight perameters, but they also will shift.

"To abandon the preservation of life as afundamental principle of our society’s laws, in the name of personal choice,would be to retreat from centuries of hard-won progress. It was, after all, only in 1969 thatParliament voted to abolish the state taking life. During the debate on the abolition of hanging, Duncan Sandysled the opposition to the vote, arguing that “We have no right to assume that thefirmly held views of the overwhelming majority of the British people areunworthy and misguided.” His viewwas shared neither by the Commons nor the Lords, and so even the life of themurderer was protected. (It willbe interesting to see whether Sandys’ contention about public opinion, whichseems predominantly to favour euthanasia, will be echoed by the ‘commission’.)

"So what will society say to me when I get near the end of myMND – if it’s not to allow someone to top me when I’ve had enough? I hope it will say, “We will see youthrough this. We will give you thebest quality of life that’s possible. We will provide all the palliative care that you need, includingsupporting your carers. We will doeverything possible to ease your symptoms and to control your pain.” And I would say, “Please keep mecomfortable. If the pain reliefshould shorten my life by hours or days, that’s all right. You’re only doing your job. And when I should die, just let mebe.”

"Is it a Utopian ideal? In fact it’s the legal situationnow. But aren’t there doctors outthere who’ll betray one’s trust? Aren’t there trusts and commissioning consortia who will try to trimtheir care costs? There are horrorstories of the neglect of the elderly in hospitals, after all. (It’s worth pondering whether onefactor beneath the horror stories is the progressive devaluing of the dependentperson?) Well, there are risks, butthe society which firmly holds the preservation of life as a fundamentalprinciple will be on the lookout for such breaches and, most importantly, putits resources where its principle is. And the risks are small beside the risk of abandoning the principle thatlife is precious above all else.

"‘Children in Need’ projected on our TV screens thecourage and beauty of disabled, dependent and often dying children. It showed us the incredible enduranceand compassion of those who care for them. There can be no question as to their worth and of the valueof enhancing or at least ameliorating their lives. We know it's right. The society which cherishes life, even at its most tenuous, is far preferable to one which admits the principle that some lives are disposable. 'Children in Need' or the 'Commission'? I know which vision I prefer."

from Children in Need website

I know the so-called experts are not calling for euthanasia, but only for assisted suicide of mentally competent adults, but my point is that once the preservation of life is breached as a foundational principle of law and life-taking is permitted a Rubicon will have been crossed, and we shouldn't be fooled that it's the end of the road for the advocates of euthanasia.

A new year

2012-01-04T16:21:00.000Z

Before the media frenzy breaks tomorrow with the launch of the "eagerly awaited" - listen out for that phrase - it could be part of their press hype - report of the phoney Falconer "commission" (it's already been launched - or "advertorialised" as Peter Saunders pungently put it - in The Telegraph and The Observer), time for me to reflect in the lull.

With Jane's broken collar-bone I've entered the realm of employing a carer. Ralph comes in to give me my stretches, get me up, dressed and down to breakfast, leaving after I've been to the toilet. My usual chair's been replaced (again) with the riser-recliner so that Jane doesn't have to haul me on to my rollator. So most of the day is spent here, where I'm sitting, with necessary toilet breaks, of course, (sorry to mention it again), until Rachel gets me ready for and in to bed. It's the first time someone who's not family has had to deal with me like this, and I wondered whether I'd find it embarrassing or undignified as some people seem to. Or would I feel I was being "man-handled" like Tony Nicklinson? I have to report I felt none of those.

It seems to me it's largely a matter of attitude rather than reality. I'm not minimising the experience of dependency and diminishing powers. However we are simply mistaken to call it undignified. Actually, as Archbishop Cranmer says, there's Dignity in Living (as opposed to the mantra Dignity in dying).

On a lighter note, yesterday my three brothers and their wives came to lunch. We try to meet up once a year after Christmas - saves on postage for the presents! Because Jane couldn't drive, we changed our original West Country venue to here, with the others doing all the catering. It worked well - and we're still left with remnants of the meal.

My brothers and I still enjoy giving each other presents: I gave them a jolly little monkey that waddles along playing a pair of cymbals. (I can't work out whether he's like me or Lord Falconer. Like me he's wobbly on his feet; like the peer he looks good but does a lot of banging to little effect.)

One of them gave me a proxy goat, another a clock which has a different bird singing every hour (now banished to the conservatory), and the third "The Perfect Man", which has the following verses attached:

"They say good men are hard to find.
I know this to be true
But I hunted far and wide
And found one just for you!

He is no good at DIY,
He cannot fix the car;
But his socks are never smelly
And he doesn't stray too far.

He always listens patiently,
He won't pester you in bed
And if you get fed up with him -
You just bite off his head!"

It was, in case you'd not guessed, a packet of five of these cheery fellows. . . .

I wish you a cheerful new year.

The Queen's Speech

2011-12-26T19:07:00.000Z

With Jane out of action, the A team did a sterling job on Christmas lunch yesterday. We lingered over the turkey and trimmings with Château Capville 2009, and the sherry trifle and mince pies. One result was that we watched the Queen's Christmas address after 3 o'clock. However in my opinion it was worth waiting for. You can watch it here. I gather it's all her own work, without political advisers interfering. Perhaps it was an illusion fostered by the fact that Prince Philip was in Papworth Heart Hospital while the broadcast went out (obviously it had been filmed some time ago), and perhaps because Jane and I have been extra aware of the fragility of life, but to me there was a sense of the Queen wanting to record her most urgent message while she could.

It was nicely constructed, reminiscing over the royals' past year in which they'd seen extreme hardship in Australia and New Zealand and South Wales, and the response of courage. It reflected on the strength of friendship and family, mentioning the her two grandchildren's weddings. Its conclusion, somewhat flinched at by the press, was uncompromising and uncoded, simple and profound:

"For many, this Christmas will not be easy. With our armed forces deployed around the world, thousands of service families face Christmas without their loved ones at home.

"The bereaved and the lonely will find it especially hard. And, as we all know, the world is going through difficult times. All this will affect our celebration of this great Christian festival.

"Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: 'Fear not', they urged, 'we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

"'For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.'

"Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves - from our recklessness or our greed.

"God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

"Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God's love.

"In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, there's a prayer:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem,

Descend to us we pray.

Cast out our sin

And enter in.

Be born in us today.

"It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord."

"Neither a philosopher nor a general... but a Saviour with the power to forgive" - that is strong stuff. It's not PC, but yet it's true. "Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith" and it is able to heal families, friendships and communities, and, as her Majesty's prayer implies, it is not something endemic to humanity, but something given through Jesus Christ. Well said, Ma'am!

And thank you, family, for a wonderfully lovely Christmas.

Christmas thoughts from my chair

2011-12-16T21:11:00.000Z

While there seems to be determined effort in some quarters to remove the Christian message out of Christmas, such as items about trend towards secular carol concerts citing Raymond Gubbay's 120 Christmas concerts nationwide, not mentioning the astonishing fact that last year 41% of Londoners attended carol services, there was a welcome exception on BBC's Countryfile last night, which created a traditional village celebration with none of the sceptical airbrushing that we've become accustomed to. The Christian elements of the festival were straightforwardly explored, from the star to the God pie (three-cornered mince pie representing the Trinity) to the animals. It was thoroughly uncynical and refreshing. Thank you, BBC.

Coincidentally on Friday night David Cameron had hit a raw nerve with some in a speech in Oxford marking the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible, in which he talked about the importance of the Christian heritage of our country. He also said it was "easier for people to believe and practise other faiths when Britain has confidence in its Christian identity". "Why? Because the tolerance that Christianity demands of our society provides greater space for other religious faiths too.""Many people tell me it is much easier to be Jewish or Muslim here in Britain than it is in a secular country like France," he said. "And because many of the values of a Christian country are shared by people of all faiths and indeed by people of no faith at all."

Sadly the speech wasn't quoted on the Radio 4 news that night, only a predictable sound-bite from humanist ex-MP, Evan Harris, saying that restating our Christian history was divisive of religious groups - and anyway such ethical principles as "Do to others what you'd like them to do to you" predate all religions by thousands of years. Of course he adduced no evidence for his view, merely that they were rational principles. (Isn't reason God-given anyway?) He's quite wrong, of course, about the divisiveness of a distinctively Christian stance. When I taught in a multi-racial school in Oxford, it happened to be a Church of England school, founded by the Cowley Fathers to bring education to the poor areas of East Oxford. (The Christian contribution to education and in social involvement, by the way, is something often ignored or airbrushed out by faith's detractors.) Significantly ours was the school of choice for local Muslims, because they preferred a school where faith in God mattered to one with no religion. We used to enjoy our 6th-form assemblies in which Christian, Muslim, atheist, black, brown and white shared and discussed their faiths. Divisive? You're joking!

For someone who has no faith in God, it's a simple mistake to make imagining that different faiths can't coexist harmoniously. (It's also a lie fraught with danger, if not inciting hatred.) For many centuries they did so in the near middle east, as William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain beautifully records. And just last week I read this fascinating news item from Jerusalem:
"This holiday season, many evangelical Christians and their families are using the Hanukah Tree Topper and Star of David Tree Topper to crown their Christmas trees. The idea was the brainchild of Morri and Marina Chowaiki who have sold many thousands of the decorative 'menorahments' after making one to put on top of their own Christmas tree because they couldn’t find one in any store. The couple say that they have received many orders from people who want a symbol of Israel and peace on their tree and have received, 'tons of positive feedback.'"

There's a trenchant (and often misquoted) comment by Ben Stein, inter al speech writer for Richard Nixon, which was broadcast on CBS on 18th December 2005.
"Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

"I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are (US reality TV "couple"). I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I'm buying my dog biscuits. I still don't know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don't know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they've broken up? Why are they so darned important?

"I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don't care at all about Tom Cruise's baby.

"Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I'm a subversive? Maybe. But I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young? Hm, not so bad.

"Next confession: I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish, and it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit-up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees.

"I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are — Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they're slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we're all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year.

"It doesn't bother me one bit that there's a manger scene on display at a key intersection at my beach house in Malibu.

"If people want a creche, fine. The menorah a few hundred yards away is fine, too. I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way. Where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and aren't allowed to worship God as we understand him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we used to know went to."

Rather wonderful crib in Sorrento Cathedral

So to my friends, of whatever colour and creed, I wish you a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year (I guess there's more hope of the former than the latter!). Hopefully you'll reciprocate in the way that suits you best.

No, non, niet - no idea!

2011-12-14T17:37:00.000Z

"Who was responsible for ethical compliance?" I've just been watching the evidence of the News of the World's lawyer, Tom Crone, to the Leveson Inquiry. When asked that question, he seemed totally stumped, and in the end came up lamely with, "The Chief Executive, I suppose," (i.e. James Murdoch). When it was pointed out that the CEO had notional responsibility for everything, he responded that his own role he considered to be litigation compliance for articles. It seemed to me disturbing that it emerged that neither the legal department nor anyone else in a newspaper was responsible for the morality of what it publishes - disturbing and symptomatic. I'm hoping that the Inquiry will have the effect of shifting the press from unethical towards ethical journalism.

I gather that a new expression has entered the language. It's "doing a Clegg" and means something like going AWOL. It of course arises from the deputy prime minister's conspicuous absence from his boss's side when he triumphantly reported his "NO" to the cheering/jeering House of Commons. Strictly speaking David Cameron did not veto the Merkozy plan; he didn't forbid or block it. He just opted the UK out. Still it made good press, echoing nicely President de Gaulle's "NON" to Britain's entry into the EEC in 1967. Now that was a veto. We had to wait until his fall before applying again and becoming a member in 1973. One can only hope that our PM doesn't follow that other theatrical "NO", or rather "NIET"-sayer, Nikita Khrushchev's habit of banging his shoe on the table to emphasize his immovability. So unEnglish!

I've recently read an essay by the distinguished Nobel Laureate, Professor Amartya Sen, entitled Violence and Civil Society (in CAM 64) in which he argues that conflict is not best solved by state-sanctioned force. He carefully examines the commonly perceived factors giving rise to violence, such as class, poverty and religion. But they aren't the whole story.

There were two passages which struck me: "For example, appeals to country and nationality played a rousing role in the immensely bloody war in Europe between 1914 and 1918, and a shared religious background did nothing to stop the Germans, the British and the French from tearing each other apart. Yet, today, the Germans, the French and the British mix with each other in peace and tranquillity and sit together to decide what to do in their continent without reaching for their guns." Well, that was the vision behind the EU! Quite important we don't forget it.

Then there was this: "Democracy is more than a collection of specific institutions, such as balloting and elections - it is also dialogue, freedom of information and unrestricted discussion. These are also the central features of civil paths to peace." For some reason this put me in mind of the Occupy camp in the heart of that least transparent of places, the City of London, outside St Paul's Cathedral.

I've been asked why the Falconer "Commission" has taken longer to come out than expected. The answer is, I have no idea. I don't think it's because they got wind of something I'd written in anticipation - I'm not that important or that vain, I hope. I imagine it's a matter of waiting until the serious news clears out of the way to leave it room for maximum publicity.

In this context, I found Amartya Sen's comment on what he calls "the solitarist approach to human identity" (which sees human beings as members of just one group, defined solely by their native civilisation, or religion etc) illuminating: "The solitarist approach is an excellent way of misunderstanding (my italics) nearly everyone in the world. The same person can be, without contradiction, of Asian origin, a Christian, a socialist, a woman, a jazz musician, a doctor, and one who believes that the most important problem in the world today is how to make South Africa the cricket champion of the world." I doubt whether the professor knows such a person, but it's a point well made. To assume that one factor in somebody controls all they think and do is dumb. We are not machines; we're complex individuals trying to live together.

What value a qualified apology?

2011-11-30T10:54:00.001Z

The public sector strike was in full swing. I have been in two unions in my working life, NUPE which amalgamated with others to become UNISON, and AMMA which is now ATL. Both of them came out on strike on Wednesday. And I can understand why. It's tough to have your contribution to the economy rubbished (even though a day's strike apparently could cost £1/2 billion), and to hear yourself talked about as though you are not a tax-payer yourself. And it's tough to have the pension you've paid for all your working life shrink at a stroke.

Jeremy Clarkson, employed by the licence payer via the BBC, proceeded that evening at 7 o'clock to pontificate in his satirical way both about the strikes and oddly, in a week which had begun with the tragic suicide of the universally liked Welsh football manager, Gary Speed, he quipped about trains not stopping when someone commits suicide in front of them.

The press of course made a lot of his comments about shooting the strikers, which were in dubious taste but fairly characteristic Clarkson-babble. As often, he needlessly overegged the pudding, with adding "in front of their families", which demonstrated a juvenile lack of empathy in one so close to the establishment. When questioned about it the following afternoon, his response was typically bullish: "The BBC are not going to sack me and I am not going to apologise. What do you think I have done wrong?"

As complaints continued to flood in to the BBC, he was "persuaded" to make a statement of apology - which he did, sort of: "If the BBC and I have caused any offence, I am quite happy to apologise for it alongside them." But he insisted in his statement: "I didn't for a moment intend these remarks to be taken seriously - as I believe is clear if they're seen in context." I gather the wording was his, and, you'll notice it's one of those sorts of apology which implicitly puts the blame back on the person offended. This is a conditional apology using the word "if". A genuine apology is unconditional. "I apologise for the offence that my remarks caused." No "ifs" and no "buts". Just, "I'm sorry." The trouble is those words are usually blocked by our pride. Not only does Clarkson's apology contain an "if" and an implied "but", it also has another shifting of the blame, "If the BBC and I". I've puzzled over this. Is he saying that his remarks were scripted and editorially approved? Is he implying he was reading them off the autocue? It's hard to believe, but might possibly be the case. Perhaps he was referring to the sycophantic studio laughter that greeted his remarks. Otherwise it sounds rather like an errant schoolboy whining, "It wasn't just me, you know."

However, I actually found his remarks about suicide even more disturbing. As someone commented on Facebook: "I too found his comments on the strikers bad enough, but it was compounded by his terrible comments about people who may have committed suicide by being knocked down by a train. His attitude was, 'Why should the train stop for that? Why should I be put out?!' His appalling attitude reflects the worship of self above everything else. It's sad to see a man with ability demean himself in such a way for some cheap laugh!" I felt strongly enough to send a complaint to the BBC, which I've done only once before.

"In the week of the highly publicised suicide of Gary Speed, Mr Clarkson's comments about trains not stopping when desperate people step in front of them showed an unbelievable level of crassness and insensitivity. Even if, as he seems to suggest, the context was jocular, there was simply no excuse for his comment. Suicide is always a tragic event, for the person who was sufficiently depressed to take their own life AND for their family and friends. To make light of it is inexcusable; to make light of it this week and on prime-time television on an all-age magazine show was beyond comprehension. I was glad that an apology was made on the show by Matt Baker. As far as I'm aware, Mr Clarkson, whilst half apologising for his remarks about the strikers, has issued no apology to those bereaved by suicide or to those who have attempted it or to the train-drivers often traumatised by the experience of contributing to the death of another human being. As a licence payer who, I understand, contributes to his 7-figure salary, I'd ask the BBC to consider Mr Clarkson's position, as I suspect he won't do it for himself. The BBC is bigger than Top Gear. The very least the management should insist on is an UNQUALIFIED (i.e. no 'ifs' and 'buts') apology. Thank you."

Maybe it was an overreaction. Someone else commented: "WHY TAKE CLARKSON SERIOUSLY? HE IS JUST A BIG OVER-EXCITED KID , AND NOTHING MUCH HE SAYS IS WORTH COMMENT. PERHAPS IT IS LOOK-AT-ME PUBLICITY." I'm sure it was an attempt to get publicity. But actually he's a bit older than a kid, and he ought to have known better. More than 21,000 people thought so too.

Jane tells me to ignore him and deny him the oxygen of publicity - and she's right of course - but I feel better to have got it off my chest!

Watch out!

2011-11-29T14:37:00.001Z

Watch out! It appears that Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) is rolling out its overdue autumn offensive, with a little help from its friends. It must seem a shame that there's been so much important news hogging the headlines, such as the euro-crisis, the Leveson Inquiry, the Chancellor's autumn statement, the public sector strike, Egyptian and DRC elections, Pakistan border incidents.... But the Falconer "Commission" promised to report late November. Maybe, like the government's prediction for balancing the books, it had to be moved on a bit in the light of events.

BBC filming at Cornerstone

Well, yesterday afternoon I received a message from a friend saying was I going to be on the BBC later on. She thought she'd heard me on Radio Oxford. "Not that I know of," I replied. However in due course an item about a chap with locked-in syndrome accompanied by a picture of Tony Nicklinson, whom I'd met in the summer, was trailed for Inside Out South. And lo and behold, at 7.45 or so on came the piece which had been produced for Bristol. Listening to it again, there's one misleading piece of commentary near the end which says something like, "Now both Tony and Michael are awaiting the report of the 'commission' to see its recommendations...". No, I'm not. I'm aware that it's a done deal, and that the 'commission' was fatally compromised from its inception. I would be interested in what a Royal Commission had to say.

The significance of the item dawned on me today when my son pointed out to me the first item on the BBC website's News England page, headlined, "'Right to die' man seeks ruling" which linked to the "debate" I had with Tony. The article is about Tony Nicklinson applying to the High Court to grant permission for a doctor to end his life. As I've said before, he's a brave chap. I couldn't help but be moved and sympathetic when we met. I can understand why he felt his frustration unbearable, but I agree with someone who watched it (herself suffering from a painful degenerative disease); she said, "Sad he felt there was nothing to live for, not even his misguided but loving wife. Sad that people think their lives are their own to choose."

I imagine the case will get a lot of media coverage. I can't imagine that his advisers have held out great hope of success, since the taking of life is still illegal in this country. But of course there'll be a lot of discussion of inequality/discrimination and choice. And justifiable public sympathy and less justifiable indignation.

Next will come the "Commission" with a great hullabaloo and media circus - with an appearance of being official, and carefully researched, and balanced, and no mention of the the fact that nine of the 12-strong panel had previously declared in favour of assisted dying and none had declared against it. I imagine it will be presented to MPs as the definitive exploration of the issue and conclude that with tight safeguards doctors be allowed deliberately to take the life of someone so inclined.

In Canada, as I said yesterday, there's been a similar exercise. One response came from my friend Alison Davis, who has multiple disabilities and what many would call an unbearable "quality of life", who described her experience of asking for death to the Calgary Herald.

Alison Davis

Re: "No right to be killed; Doctor assisted suicide should not be allowed," Editorial, Nov. 20.

I was glad to see your excellent editorial stating the case against euthanasia. If it had been available to me some years ago, I wouldn't now be writing to you. I have several severe disabling conditions. I use a wheelchair full time and a vent at night. I have severe pain, which even morphine can't control.

I wanted to die for more than 10 years, at a time when doctors thought my life expectancy was very short. I attempted suicide seriously several times, and was saved, only because friends found me in time and took me to the emergency room, where I was treated.

At first, I was angry with them for thwarting my wishes. Now, I'm eternally grateful. I want to live now, even though my pain is worse than it was when I wanted to die. What changed my mind is friends who refused to accept my view that my life had no value, and a group of very poor children, who loved me wonderfully and overwhelmingly. I found a reason to live in reaching out to help others, rather than turning the negativity on myself. If assisted suicide had been available then, no one would ever have known the doctors' prognosis was wrong, or that I'd be missing the best years of my life.

Alison Davis, Blandford Forum, U.K.

On the radar?

2011-11-28T12:57:00.001Z

Last Wednesday I spent the day (well, from midday to 5 o'clock) being interviewed for a 2nd-year Film Production assignment, by three students from the University of Gloucestershire. The documentary was, predictably, a "balanced" 9-minute film on assisted suicide. I was providing the balance. It was a long afternoon.

Near the end the chap interviewing said he had two questions from one of Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society)'s extensive staff, Mylinh Cao (their press trainee). My ears pricked up at that point. I felt vaguely flattered that I featured on DiD's radar!

First question: "We've noticed that your articles don't give you the title 'Rev' nowadays. Is there a reason for this?" Answer: "a. I'm retired. b. It's no secret. c. It's irrelevant. d. It's just cheap for people to diss views with a 'He would say that, wouldn't he?' whereas the arguments are too important for that.

Second question: "Is your attitude to assisted suicide a result of your religious beliefs?" Answer: "My view is primarily based on societal reasons. It's to do with the effects on the disabled and aging. A society that doesn't value human life is in trouble. So is one that allows people to terminate each others' life. Clearly my faith in God is important and informs all my life, including my philosophy of life. But in fact everyone has a faith of some sort - whether it's in God, or in science, or in technology, or in atheism, or in nothing. We all start with presuppositions. The question is what's the substance of the arguments.

I was interested to read that Canada has its own phoney enquiry into assisted suicide which has just reported. I read this on the Secondhand Smoke blog:

I Told You The Fix Was In On Canadian Euthanasia Panel

Wednesday, November 16, 2011, 12:11 PM

Wesley J. Smith

The in-the-tank media is huffing and puffing, trying to make something important out of an entirely predictable recommendation by the Royal Society of Canada commission to legalize euthanasia. But commissions can be created to obtain a specific result, as this one was and did.

In fact, I told you this very thing would happen two years ago, to be precise, on October 28, 2009. Here’s the Secondhand Smoke post, “Stacking the Deck for Euthanasia in Canadian ‘End of Life’ Commission” in its entirety:”

“Expert commissions” to advise on contentious issues of public policy are usually political tools designed to come to a predetermined conclusion in order to pave the way for a desired policy changes. Remember that as we take a look at a new commission being appointed by the Royal Society of Canada to look into end of life issues. From the story:

Queen’s Philosophy professor Udo Schuklenk has been selected to head a prestigious new international panel on “End-of-Life Decision Making” in Canada. Appointed by the Royal Society of Canada, the expert panel will investigate key aspects of this critical issue – including voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide – and prepare a public report.

Stories such as this never seem to look deeper than the job titles of the panelists, as if they come to their work with no preexisting positions. So, I decide to check, starting with Udo Schuklenk. What a surprise: He’s a pro euthanasia philosopher. How do I know? He’s said so. For example, in an essay explaining why he is an atheist, he wrote:

No matter how unbearably patients suffer due to illness or injury toward the end of their lives, the world’s monotheistic religions stand as one in their rejection of many dying patients’ requests to end their lives in dignity. That we may well be of sound mind, and that there is no prospect of our condition improving, makes no difference to their stance. Our own considered judgment that life is not worth living any longer counts for nothing to organized monotheistic religions. According to them, we are not ethically entitled to ask for physician assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia. This is surprising, given that at the end of our natural lives churches have promised us that we would be going to heaven – or hell, as the case might be. If at the end of a decently lived life we would go to heaven and enjoy eternal life, why are they fighting our earthly death so vigorously? None of this makes any sense at all if we take religious beliefs about our afterlife seriously. Once again substantial, avoidable human suffering is a direct consequence of religious interference with our end-of-life decision-making.

I don’t care about his religious views, but to chair a panel with such a clear view in favor of assisted suicide, indicates the direction in which the commission’s recommendations are expected (designed) to go.

But perhaps I am being too cynical. Let’s see who else is on the commission: Ah, Scot philosophy professor Sheila McClean who wrote The Case for Assisted Suicide, a book described as arguing fervently in favor of legalization. Hmm, I wonder how she will vote?

Another commissioner is a Dutch euthanasia researcher. Cute.

Then there’s Jocelyn Downie, author of Dying Justice, a book urging the decriminalization of both euthanasia and assisted suicide. The bias isn’t even subtle.

I spent some time researching the views of the two remaining members, but neither seemed to be particularly involved in the issue. So let’s count them, at least for now, as neutrals. No matter: Even assuming both are as adamantly opposed to assisted suicide as their co panelists appear to be for it, the deck is stacked, the fix is in, 4-2 for permitting assisted suicide in at least some cases.

The next step in this Kibuki Theater will be for the media to trip over themselves to report breathlessly that “the experts” have deeply pondered, and determined–after much hand wringing, there is always hand wringing–that assisted suicide should be allowed. It is all so scripted and predictable.

Gee, I was right. But then, on these matters, I usually am.

Watch out for the same coming here when the so-called "Commission on Assisted Suicide" under Lord Falconer reports in the next few days or weeks. You may recall that 9/12 of the commission members had previously pronounced in favour of assisting people to die. The Commission is funded by Terry Pratchett (assisted suicide campaigner), and the brainchild of ... guess who? ... Dignity in Dying - otherwise known as ....

Counsel of hope

2011-11-25T10:59:00.001Z

This week there have been two stories which have leaped to my attention. One, I have to confess, I first heard on the Breakfast Show on 5 Live (Well done, the BBC!). The other appeared in The Guardian and The Telegraph. What they had in common is that they are about men confounding the realists and the scaremongers.

The Bolton News

The first is the story of Gary Parkinson: Paralysed former professional footballer Gary Parkinson has been given a role scouting for his home town club — despite only being able to communicate with a system of blinks. Gary Parkinson once played for Middlesborough and was coach for Blackpool Youth Team. He had a brain-stem stroke which has left him with Locked-in Syndrome (like Tony Nicklinson whom Jane and I met in the early summer, you may remember, for BBC West's Inside Out programme). It doesn't sound as though he has the same fancy computer, but he communicates with his wife, Deborah, through blinking his eye. He once played with Tony Mowbray, Middlesborough's manager; and he's now sent the many DVDs of youngsters hoping to get a contract with the club, whom he rates by blinking: from once, no, to four times, sign him!

I was really impressed by the determination of his friends and family (and presumably himself) not to give up on him. At the end of the Bolton News article, I read:
"The 43-year-old was initially confined to his bed following a stroke in his brain stem.

But there have been improvements.

"He has been for day visits to his home, while there are hopes he will get his speech back after an operation on his vocal chords.

"Mr Mowbray, speaking in Middlesbrough’s match-day programme on Saturday, said: 'We were determined to give Gary a role, where he could feel involved. Not only that, I genuinely value his opinions about the game.'"

The second story was from Belgium and concerned Rom Houben who had been in a "coma" for 23 years. He had been a martial arts enthusiast and almost killed in a car crash in 1983. He was regularly diagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state. "For 23 years Rom Houben was imprisoned in his own body. He saw his doctors and nurses as they visited him during their daily rounds; he listened to the conversations of his carers; he heard his mother deliver the news to him that his father had died. But he could do nothing. He was unable to communicate with his doctors or family. He could not move his head or weep, he could only listen" until a neurologist from the University of Liege took another look. "Using a state-of-the-art scanning system, Laureys found to his amazement that his brain was functioning almost normally." With intensive physio, he now has some movement and is able to communicate using a touch screen with one finger.

From The Guardian

"The moment it was discovered he was not in a vegetative state, said Houben, was like being born again. 'I'll never forget the day that they discovered me,' he said. 'It was my second birth'."

One wonders if in the brave new world of euthanasia, which some organisations are pressing towards, Rom Houben would have survived to see his second birth - or whether his "quality of life" would have been written off as negligible, his care withdrawn and his death engineered. The preservation of life is a paramount principle in human and humane society.

"Dum spiro, spero" - while I breath, I hope - the old saying goes. What a shame that so many now utter counsels of despair! "You're disabled: you'll not be much use." "You're old and going senile: you're just becoming a burden." "You have a terminal illness: you've got nothing to live for." That's all diabolical nonsense. Every life is great gift.

Brodie of Glenbogle

2011-11-16T11:36:00.001Z

I don't know if I'm alone in seeing a resemblance between Mr Brodie Clark CBE and Golly Mackenzie of Monarch of the Glen. Golly, if you remember, is the faithful long-serving gillie of the Glenbogle Estate.

I watched the grilling of Mr Clark by the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons yesterday. Clearly some of the MPs had been briefed by the Home Office politicians. Brodie Clark came across as someone who thoroughly knew his business, and far from being a "rogue" irresponsible bureaucrat careless about national security. Where the blame lies in the ministers' apparent ignorance of the contingency arrangements for "Health and Safety" emergencies I don't know, but that seems the nub of the problem. What was clear was that the boss of Border Agency, Mr Robert Whiteman, in post for all of five weeks, has a great deal to learn in man-management. This well-endowed and bearded young man seemed to want to cut a figure as decisive and authoritative. He doesn't seem to have wanted to listen to experience and to consider carefully.

Archie has just appointed a new estate manager at Glenbogle. He's keen to impress. There've been reports of loose record-keeping. He meets with the grizzled Golly, who explains that they do a daily count of the red deer throughout the year, and a regular headcount of the grouse. However in the early spring and autumn in the migration seasons they don't count the individual wildfowl on the estate, just do a weekly approximate calculation. "Then how do you check that no one's poaching them?" asks the new manager.
"Well, you can't - that way, just by counting."
"You mean you don't know exactly how many stock are on the estate at any one time?" he asks incredulously.
"Aye, I mean that."
"But how do you know Lord Kilwillie's men are not coming and stealing our best stags?"
"I'd know. We have our ways."
"That's not good enough. I'm suspending you and getting one of my friends to investigate you. And if I were you, I'd go gracefully, and ask for retirement. I'm sure the Laird would give you a decent pension. How long have you been working here?"
"Only 38 years."

Good management in my view involves giving direction, but also listening to and supporting one's workforce. Not sacrificing them after years of service. People are not turkeys. I read that "local organic turkeys are in short supply" in the States, in face of "increasing demand for organic free-range turkeys for Thanksgiving" this year. In British politics it seems we want our civil servants to be entirely battery reared - tasteless and faceless, but well-fleshed.

Accept life

2011-11-15T17:57:00.001Z

I have never done this before, but I've been so excited by something that I'm replicating here a post from my other blog, Room with a view. I've just finished reading a remarkable book which was sent to me by my former colleague, Elspeth Waidson. It's The Wooden Suitcase by Emmy Goldacker (which was translated by Elspeth's parents) and published last year. Emmy Goldacker's father was a German Jew who emigrated to Palestine; her two brothers died fighting in the war; she herself worked for the German government as a translator and then began teacher-training. In 1945 she was arrested in Berlin and condemned to 10 years hard labour in Siberia. This is her story, which is stranger than fiction. It reminds me in some ways of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Much of it is harrowing, revealing a woman's incredible fortitude and faith in life. It's a real insight into the Gulag Archipelago of Stalin's Soviet Union. Near the end of her sentence, after years of unimaginable hardship in concentration camps, she describes going on a work-party to harvest hay on the tundra. They have to cross the River Usa by ferry. They're north of the Arctic Circle:

"I stood at the rear of the ferry. The engine started and the jolt caused me to sway this way and that; however I regained my balance and looked around at the wide expanse of the landscape around us. I no longer heard the women's chatter, so entranced was I by the beauty of this mighty river whose slight ripples reflected the light of the midnight sun. This yellow-golden light, covering the violet-brown swamps to the right, this light that spread over the giant black pines on the left like a yellow-golden veil. What infinite peace!

"I felt and comprehended the infinite quality of the northern landscape. I saw the beauty of the sky and the water, and was happy and thankful, in spite of the years that lay behind me, that I could still be receptive to this beauty. I was alive and still had feeling! I could have been dead or completely apathetic. I made another attempt at the 'Our Father' and I could say the prayer almost to the end. I realised it was a grace. How small and insignificant I seemed to myself. Who indeed was I? Today I was here, tomorrow someone else would be at this spot. How unimportant! All that was important was to see this beauty and to accept the grace with gratitude."

What a profound and simple piece of writing - after seemingly unending years of deprivation and suffering, Emmy is moved that she is alive and still has feeling! She realises it is a gift - a "grace" simply to be accepted with gratitude. Life and feeling are inalienable gifts.

PS Do read the whole book. emmy+goldacker/h-+morgan+waidson/jean+h-+waidson/the+wooden+suitcase/

Remembering

2011-11-11T11:02:00.001Z

Shortly before 11 am this morning I received and read this from Andrew White's UK link-man. I thought it was a positive note to strike: remember the peacemakers. Peacemaking is hard and costly work - and frequently dangerous. War is only ever justified if its aim and result is to establish justice and peace. But as Andrew White and his friends are committed to showing, there is a better way than war. Perhaps you'd include him in your remembering this weekend. There's no more critical region for peace than the Middle East, which is teetering on the edge of catastrophic conflict.

Dear Friends,

As many of you will know, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918, Armistice was signed on the Great War; the war that was to have ended all wars.

However since then, over 100 million people have died in armed conflict around the world, or by disease and famine brought about directly by the privations of war.

At 11am today, many of us will take a pause from our usual busyness to remember with gratitude those who gave their lives for the freedoms we now enjoy. The terrible reality is that most of those 100 million souls did not give their lives for noble freedom, but for myriad other reasons; largely the folly and greed of their fellow man.

We have seen over-eager military intervention for political gain. Conversely, we have seen a deplorable lack of intervention when prompt, decisive action could have headed tragedy off at the pass. But most of all, we have seen rhetoric ramping up violence in place of dialogue that would have defused tension.

In Baghdad, where we work, a good month is one in which merely 150 civilians lose their lives to sectarian violence. A year ago on October 31, five militiamen stormed the Syrian Catholic church during the Sunday service, terrorised them in unimaginable ways for four hours, before detonating their suicide vests, leaving 48 worshipers dead.

In the months that followed we witnessed a marked increase in violence against the Christian minority in Iraq. Pipe bombs were planted outside front doors. Sticky bombs were placed under their cars. Sameh was head of security at St George's church. He is a Muslim but was targeted because his job is to protect our church. He survived the car bomb, but his leg was blown off above the knee.

At least 120 Christians died in those two months, for no other reason than for their faith.

Blessed are the peacemakers

But then it all changed. Working with the most senior religious leaders in Iraq, we convened a three day dialogue in Copenhagen which resulted in a joint Sunni/Shia declaration, which was then read out in mosques across Iraq. Through our work, a declaration that: "The Christian community is the root of Iraq" was heard.

The result of this declaration? Violence against the Christian minority stopped that very day. With a few sad exceptions, the agreement holds

Now, we at the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East make no claim to possess a panacea for all the world's ills. But it is our experience that carefully mediated dialogue can make the world of difference in de-escalating conflict.

We also know this; the only way to make a difference in these seemingly intractable conflicts is by being as committed to peace as the suicide bombers are to their cause. What a difference it would make if the international community were to devote the resources currently spent on waging war to building peace. (My emphasis - Michael)

So as you pause at the 11th hour on Friday, spare a prayer for the peacemakers. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.

With every blessing,

Peter Marsden

FRRME Director

The Blame Game

2011-11-09T12:57:00.001Z

I think it's time for a new campaign, with the working title "Praise not blame" - better suggestions welcome. I lie in bed and listen to the news. Have you noticed how much of it is about people blaming others? Sports journalists blame Martin Johnson for England's performance in the Rugby World Cup and his job is on the line. The Home Secretary pins the blame on Brodie Clark, head of the Border Force, for relaxing immigration controls too much in the summer. Michael Jackson's fans and a Californian jury blame his doctor for his death. Devon and Somerset Police are en route to blame Taunton Rugby Club for the terrible M5 crash. Poor care of the elderly is blamed on hard-pressed NHS staff. All of us blame the bankers for the recession. At least, some of us blame the Labour government for their prodigal husbandry of our resources. The present government is lining up the euro-zone as the guilty party in our flat-lining economy. The summer riots were blamed on a "feral underclass". The media seems to be fuelled by blame stories and, of course, it feeds them. I dare to wager that one of the questions every reporter and interviewer will ask whenever something goes wrong is, "And who do you think is responsible for this?" Who's to blame? And of course in hot pursuit comes the lawyer urging legal action.

Daytime TV in particular is peppered with adverts from "accident" lawyers. You know the sort of thing. "There I was at work, carrying a box, when I tripped over a cable on the floor. I bruised my nose and smashed my glasses and was off work for three weeks. Kenge and Carboys were great. They got me £3000 in damages - and it cost me absolutely nothing." "Kenge and Carboys - specialist accident solicitors - guaranteed no cost. If you've had an accident at work, ring freephone number 0800..." Of course it does cost - a lot - and the lawyers on both sides make a lot of money, from the employer, or their insurers (who are also paid by that and other firms), thus increasing the industry's costs. All because some silly person didn't look where they were going. I've heard of people suing councils when they've tripped over uneven paving stones and suing British Rail when they slipped on a wet platform. The fact is accidents do happen. They just do.

"local initiatives" such as this sponsored walk in aid of MND

Instead of looking for someone to blame, shouldn't we be praising? For example, shouldn't we be celebrating that fact that we have a good transport system, that we don't have to walk on roads of mud, that we have local councils who maintain our roads and pavements and take away all our excessive waste? Shouldn't we be praising our amazing free-at-the-point-of-need emergency services, the paramedics who come out 24/7 to pick and patch us up; our 24-hour Accident and Emergency departments who treat even obnoxious binge drinkers? Shouldn't our news channels be filled with items about people like Bill Gates supporting Aids relief with his billions, and local initiatives such as Street Pastors, volunteers who patrol town centres to come alongside and help young (and not so young) pubbers and clubbers rolling out in the early hours greatly the worse for wear? The good thing, I have to confess, about the next couple of weeks is that we are occasionally shown items about projects supported by Children in Need. Wouldn't it be good if our news focused on such things all year round? There are plenty of good news stories around.

Manchester - The Mustard Tree at work

Let's cultivate our taste-buds so that we prefer praise to blame. I don't know if "blame" is the same as Jesus meant by "judge", when he told us not to judge. I think it was about having a critical spirit, so there's relevance about what he said next: "For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you."

So here's my first item of praiseworthy news in my Praise not Blame campaign! Good news from Manchester. You'd be welcome to send links to other good news stories. I want to break this cycle of negativity which seems so to have captured our national psyche. Life is good!

Life's goodness shouldn't be news, in the sense that it shouldn't come as a surprise to us. However it appears that it is news at the moment. Let's celebrate it.

And how about this for a novel idea? Instead of us all taking part in the Blame Game, why not let someone who gets something wrong say, "I'm sorry. I made a mistake there. I'll take responsibility"? Like, sadly, to give him his due, Graeme Knowles, the Dean of St Paul's.

Confined to barracks

2011-11-06T18:01:00.001Z

Having a heavy cold which makes me sound a bit like an elephant with a bun stuck up his trunk has meant my being CB (confined to barracks) these past few days. To be honest, it doesn't make a great difference to my schedule, as I'm not highly mobile and don't get out much. The last time was on Thursday - to my amazing dentist from whom I consistently come away grateful and wee bit euphoric; followed by my weekly trip to Cornerstone, while Jane skivvies in the kitchen. Anyway today I stayed at home while Jane went with our friends, Pete and Jane, to a kind of mini home-church with a friend who's ill.

So I spent a quiet and thoughtful morning on my own. Among other things, I was pondering on what lies beneath the St Paul's protest and, come to that, the summer riots. I know there's no simplistic single answer. In fact one of the (more inane) criticisms aimed at the protesters is that they don't have an alternative. "Where's your programme for reform?" That misses the point entirely. One of the factors behind popular cynicism about current politics is precisely that in campaigns politicians make a whole load of promises, which they then fail to carry out when they come to power. Even now one hears politicians trimming their downright condemnation of the St Paul's protest as they discover that it has more support than they first thought. Such unlikely people as George Soros (megafinancier), Bill Gates (megaindustrialist) and Rowan Williams (megaecclesiastic) seem to have found common issues with them, such as the International Financial Transaction tax (the Robin Hood Tax). Oops, one senses the politicians think, we'd better not miss the band-wagon. Thus they expose one of the weaknesses of our liberal democracy. Instead of politicians standing up with their principles by which they will stand, we have politicians whose only principle is to please the people. I suppose the arch-exponent of this was Tony Blair, with focus groups, e-petitions and spin doctors, whose aim was to win at all costs. He of course has set the trend and David Cameron is said to follow his example.

On the surface it seems a reasonable approach: find out what the people want and then give it to them. Isn't that what democracy is all about? The answer is No. That's not democracy; it's demagogy. It's a system of government where the loudest voice rules. Actually it's mob-rule. The alternative is a system where men and women clearly set out their principles for public examination - and then stick to them. In that system the quiet people, the ordinary voters, have equal influence with the loud-mouth lobbyists. It all depends, of course, on that old-fashioned word "Honour". It depends on our politicians honouring their word, but more than that, being people of honour. I don't often write to MPs, but I don't think I'm alone in the feeling that, when I do, I'm receiving a people-pleasing reply rather than a plain honest expression of opinion. By the way, I think something of this lies behind the Occupy movement's use of general assemblies which I gather are as long as a piece of string. They are an attempt to resist the power of a vocal lobby dominating decisions.

Something else which I believe, recognised or not, lurks behind the protests is a general unease that something is rotten in the state of Britain, and to some degree in the Western world. You don't need to be a prophet to recognise that justice is not flowing like a river (Amos 5.24), either nationally or globally, and to call for it. Ironically I suspect that a contributing factor to this has been the elevation of personal choice over corporate responsibility. Ironically, because on the face of it to allow more personal choice is to add to the sum total of freedom. The end of the 20th century was the great period of deregulation, from personal ethics to market economics. The City markets were deregulated - and since 2008 the world has been reaping the whirlwind. Personal ethics (such as divorce and abortion) were made a private issue rather than one which had implications for society, and we are now wrestling with the effects of divorce on countless children. People who dare to uphold traditional Judaeo-Christian values such as columnist, Melanie Phillips, are branded as "bigots", and we begin to see a new sort of politically correct censorship creeping in under the guise of freedom. However it's a "freedom" defined by the demagogues.

On 27th November 1997 a letter appeared in The Times under the title "The Death of Trust":

"Contemporary morality tends to elevate the right to choose above every other value. It finds offensive the traditional teaching on the sanctity of human life which has been part of common morality in Western societies. This outlook is having many profound effects. It has desensitised many people to the evil of abortion. It has also predisposed many to support euthanasia.

"Euthanasia aims at ending a life judged to be no longer worth living, either because of suffering or because of presumed ‘poor’ quality. The aim is accomplished either by a direct action, such as administering a lethal injection, or by depriving a person of medical treatment or of ordinary care in order to bring about death. An essential defining characteristic of euthanasia is the intention to end life, that is to kill."

The letter was signed by Cardinal Basil Hume. This month will see another push towards euthanasia with the publication of the "findings" of the very unofficial Falconer "commission" on assisted "dying". Hopefully it will be seen for what it is, a piece of demagoguery by a well-financed, well-connected and vocal lobby group.

PS Moving interview tonight on Songs of Praise with Glen Campbell and his wife Kim. He's the American country singer, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. That's faith.

Doors open at a cost

2011-10-28T17:21:00.002+01:00

By now St Paul's Cathedral should have opened its doors and allowed worshippers in to a service - and presumably tourists to try to recoup some of its lost revenue from a week of closure. It's been a sad episode, and sadly it isn't over yet, as I read that the church authorities are joining with the City of London Authority to seek a court injunction to evict the protest camp from its land. I heard Mr Fraser of the CLA talking about them obstructing the highway. Ludgate Hill is the only through road in the vicinity and is on the other side of a thumping great cathedral from the tents.

What is sad is that the Dean and Chapter have been in such awe of both the lawyers and the Health and Safety firm they employ. The H&S people tell them it's not safe to keep the cathedral open, and instead of talking about how safety could be preserved they lock the doors - only to find a few days later that there was quite a straightforward solution after all. Create a firebreak next to the walls! Now apparently their lawyers have advised them not to talk to the protestors before they get to court. What interesting advice! Somewhat contrary to Jesus' advocacy of negotiation: "Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison."

There's a witty but sad cartoon in today's Guardian by Steve Bell, which will no doubt give delight to those who take every opportunity to attack faith. It does reflect the popular perception that the church tends to side with the rulers of this world. There is of course a dilemma for any church "rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's", let alone the established church of a country, against following the example of its founder who was a friend of the alienated and sinners and not of the establishment.

Eventually last night I was moved to write to the Dean and his fellow clergy:
Dear Dean and Chapter

I'm a retired country vicar and not much interested in church politics, but I want to say how glad I am at the news that St Paul's is going to unlock its doors tomorrow. The closed doors have been a symbol that has spoken more loudly than many thousand words. I am sure others have observed the irony of the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent words in Harare in the context of the parable of the wedding feast: "You know very well, dear brothers and sisters, what it means to have doors locked in your faces by those who claim the names of Christians and Anglicans. But... the Lord proclaims that he has set before us an open door that no-one can shut. It is the door of his promise, the door of his mercy, and the door into the feast of his kingdom." That's the message that clergy throughout the country preach Sunday by Sunday, and so to see the great west doors of London's cathedral locked trumpeted a dreadful denial of our words.

I am sorry that Canon Fraser has felt it necessary to resign, as it seems to presage an impending attempt to evict the protest camp through the law courts in conjunction with the civil authorities. He undoubtedly says uncomfortable and controversial things, not all of which I agree with, but he has earned credibility with those who have no faith in the 'establishment'. I sincerely hope that the church authorities will not lend their support to what will be viewed as an attack on peaceful protest and expression of free speech by the powers-that-be. No doubt there are many generous benefactors to St Paul's within the City, but that should not restrain the church from prophetic detachment. I suspect that refusing to take part in legal action will be a far more eloquent gesture than organising a debate of many words.

I join with many in praying for your wisdom and courage in these challenging circumstances.

Yours sincerely

Sadly, the Bishop of London has muscled in on the "evict the protesters" coalition. However, lest you think all in the C of E Establishment support the St Paul's line, there's a pithy blog-post from one of our local bishops, Alan Wilson, worth a read: Bishop on shutting St Paul's: "... do they have the stomach to engage in the real world at the crest of a tidal race between people, money and power, or are they just overgrown public schoolboys playing indoor games in their own self-important Tourist Disneyland?"

There's an awful irony in the timing of this whole mismanaged fiasco, in that it has completely overshadowed the Reasonable Faith tour of Professor William Craig Lane which ended on Wednesday in Manchester in a debate with Professor Peter Atkins, and was remarkable for the refusal by Richard Dawkins to a debate in Oxford. Craig Lane seems to be one of the Christians with whom atheists would rather not debate; so respect to those who were ready to defend their corner. But what a shame it is that some rather unusual and important debates should have been pushed off even the religious columns by a less than glorious piece of news - which sadly promises to run and run. Someone must be rubbing his grubby little hands in glee. Happily, he won't have the last word. Hallowe'en is just the prelude to All Saints' Day!

The people's Olympics

2011-10-26T16:25:00.000+01:00

I've not yet met anyone who's managed to land a ticket for the Olympics next year. One person I know applied for £1000 worth (a sort of spread betting - a bit risky!) but even he wasn't allocated any. I don't know how many corporate tickets have been doled out, but I bet it was a lot. So much for it being "the people's Olympics"!

On the other hand just last Friday my bank rang me about an unusual transaction: "London theatre tickets?" It turned out it was a debit for tickets for three afternoons at the Paralympics. I'd applied for three tickets on each afternoon - and it appears I've got all of them. Whey-hey!! As the events are equestrian and rowing it looks as if we'll be enjoying some rather good events next summer - and as I need someone to push my wheelchair the tickets were amazingly good value - £10 for me and my handler, for each afternoon! What I hope and trust is that other people who applied for the Paralympics will have a similar success rate. As I imagine corporate entertainment won't have hogged those tickets, I reckon the Paralympics will be the real people's Olympics - which is excellent news. As I've said previously, disabled people are no less human or worthy of dignity than the able-bodied. And certainly the achievements of disabled athletes are equal, if not greater, than those of their able-bodied counterparts.

Those who write the disabled off and who see nothing but doom and gloom in a disabling condition need their heads and consciences examined.

Hospital nonsense

2011-10-25T21:16:00.000+01:00

Would you believe it? I've just heard on the TV news that one of our local hospitals has been fined for allowing both sexes in the same ward. Apparently there were 17 transgressions in the last month. The hospital (the Great Western in Swindon) explained that they were largely on the admission and assessment ward. Presumably that is where emergency admissions end up if there's no room for on the regular wards. What do people want a hospital to do instead? Keep a couple of beds empty on every ward in case patients come in for a particular ward? Send patients home again rather than put them in one ward for a night? (There are curtains round the beds after all.) Ship them on to another hospital? (The JR in Oxford has the same problem.) Leave them in the corridors? Get real, someone! Hospitals have acute cases to cope with, and busy ones have more than the others. I'm not saying mixed wards are desirable.

But the biggest nonsense of all is fining, FINING of all daft ideas, hospitals who find themselves on occasions forced into second-best. No hospital doctor or manager wants to mix sexes in the wards. They don't deliberately do it. I assume that just sometimes that's the least worst option. What is the point of fining hospitals, which are already strapped for cash, thousands of pounds and making their jobs even harder? I sincerely hope that at least the fining nonsense is stopped in the health reforms going through Parliament at the moment.

On the receiving end

2011-10-23T18:45:00.000+01:00

What a wonderful fortnight we had!

It began with a MND Association meeting about ready-made meals delivered to your door - not that I need that, having a live-in cordon bleu cook, aka Jane, and has ended last Saturday with an MNDA walk in Blenheim Palace grounds in beautiful sunshine. As usual the fun of these times was being with others sharing similar experiences and those who know what it's like. As you can tell, the walk in Blenheim couldn't have been better - warm, clear and well supported.

In between I've been benefiting hugely from the NHS, and enjoying the company of friends. Oh yes, and we had a fun weekend of celebrations at my favourite local coffee shop, Cornerstone.

My lovely dentist spent over an hour extracting yet another tooth which had cracked irreparably. She was incredibly patient and the procedure was pain-free. Amazing. And then there was a visit from my physio to check up on my back. She discussed various options for us to consider, and showed Jane a couple of extra strenuous exercises she could make me do. And I must say my back is marvellously loosened. Now I have to work on my posture, to correct my pisa-like rightward tilt.

There are obviously some busy beavers in the Local Health Trust with nothing better to do than to send out questionnaires, as I've received one about each service over the past couple of weeks. No doubt it's a good thing to check quality, but personally I resent on their behalf the implied mistrust of these excellent health professionals. Of course they came out with the highest scores on my rating. I felt tempted to write at the end: "LEAVE OUR NHS SERVICES ALONE - AND GET OFF THEIR BACKS!" Experience shows that trust generally produces better results than fear.

Anita showing Jane the new machine

Then there was the Cornerstone celebration weekend - lovely weather again. It was a triple whammy: marking their achievement of 5 stars (top) status in the food prep and hygiene inspection regime, and the purchase of a new Swiss-made coffee machine, and the launch of a new menu. It just gets better and better. There were two days of celebrating - well, it was a good excuse for a party. And the general verdict has been that the coffee's rather good. So far, I've sampled cappuccinno, latté, mocha, americano, espresso (double) and hot chocolate. Not at all bad, I must say.

Geraniums and pansies still in flower

Locking up the church

2011-10-22T14:08:00.005+01:00

©National Portrait Gallery

When I was ordained my late godfather passed on to me an engraving by an unknown artist of the Cambridge priest and don, Charles Simeon (1759-1836), who came to real faith through the process of examining his conscience before taking communion as a student at King's. It used to hang above my desk as a reminder, among other things, of the cost of being faithful to the Christian gospel.

After graduation he was ordained and appointed as curate-in-charge of Holy Trinity Church in the centre of Cambridge. The congregation was none too pleased to have an enthusiastic preacher to challenge their comfortableness: "They showed their displeasure toward Simeon by not attending and locking the small doors of their pews (which most churches had at the time). At times, they even locked the doors of the church to prevent Simeon from holding additional services. Simeon persevered, however, and remained rector of the parish for 54 years, gradually winning over his parishioners and making a great impact that reached well beyond Cambridge" (Anglican Library).

Another of my heroes is the obscure Welsh curate, Daniel Rowlands (1713-1790), whom I first came across on a TEAR Fund study week in West Wales. He discovered the good news of a loving welcoming God while he was curate to his brother in Llangeitho, a village between Aberaeron and Aberystwyth. It completely radicalised his life and his preaching, to hear which people came flocking in their thousands from all over Wales. Oddly the church authorities did not approve, not least because he didn't care where he preached. After a few years the Bishop of St Davids revoked his licence on a Sunday as he began to preach. Rowlands took the congregation out to the churchyard and preached his sermon there. However, "the deed was done. Rowlands was shut out of the Church of England, and an immense number of his people all over Wales followed him. A breach was made in the walls of the Established Church which will probably never be healed. As long as the world stands, the Church of England in Wales will never get over the injury done to it by the preposterous and stupid revocation of Daniel Rowlands' licence" (Bishop J C Ryle, 1869).

So what are we to make of a church today locking its doors? Of course I'm thinking of St Paul's Cathedral, which has been presented with a real conundrum. As the Dean, Graeme Knowles, announces on its website:

"Welcome to St Paul's Cathedral

We welcome all those who come through our doors - as worshippers and pilgrims, or as visitors and sightseers from London, the United Kingdom and the whole world.

The Right Reverend Graeme Knowles, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral"

It's an important building and a huge tourist attraction. Its description on Google reads "St Paul's is a lasting monument to the glory of God and a symbol of the hope, resilience and strength of the city of London and the United Kingdom." My friends in London are divided about the rights and wrongs of locking the doors.

The Dean and Chapter (Cathedral clergy)'s official statement seems based round this paragraph: "The Health, Safety and Fire officers have pointed out that access to and from the Cathedral is seriously limited. With so many stoves and fires and lots of different types of fuel around, there is a clear fire hazard. Then there is the public health aspect which speaks for itself. The dangers relate not just to Cathedral staff and visitors but are a potential hazard to those encamped themselves." Under John Humphrys' cross-examination, their spokesman, the Rev Rob Marshall, (Listen here: Today programme), was remarkably unconvincing. "You do seem to be dodging around"(JH). Looking at the pictures it does seem that the main steps to the west where everyone goes in and out are not in the least impeded by the encampment.

The conundrum of course is deeper than health and safety. Does the cathedral give the appearance of approval to the protest by tolerating it, or does it express solidarity with the "city" businesses where it ministers by pressurizing for it to end? Incidentally, as Humphrys was quick to point out, St Paul's is a major business itself. It seems to have chosen the latter. I'm sad that the decision has been dressed up in the disguise of Health and Safety, which is hardly convincing.

It's a shame that the protest has been dubbed as "anti-capitalist", and to a degree that's how the "Occupy Wall Street" movement regards itself. However, it seems to me that the St Paul's grouping includes a major strand of protest against inequality, the 99% suffering because of the decisions of the immune 1%. The notion that polite conversations between clerics and city financiers and politicians might change things is a trifle naïve.

As for locking a church, it's certainly far from unknown round the country, on the grounds of security and the fear of theft and vandalism. I think it's a shame. Certainly in our parish we had one church open 24 hours a day and another during the hours of daylight. Yes, we had men of the road sleeping in church premises; and yes, we had occasional acts of vandalism, but the symbolism of having open doors outweighed all that. I have to admit we didn't have priceless treasures on show. As for closing the doors and abandoning services, that seems to me exceptionally sad. What was that about "a symbol of ... hope, resilience and strength"? What about the glory of God? However, a friend of mine who's spent time there has reminded me, "God probably doesn't mind doing without the evensong in St Paul's for a while. He is busy mixing and mingling in the conversations outside."

Ironically, in his recent visit to Harare where he met and challenged the powers that be in the person of Robert Mugabe, before 15,000 Africans packed into a stadium, Archbishop Rowan Williams said, "You know very well, dear brothers and sisters, what it means to have doors locked in your faces by those who claim the names of Christians and Anglicans. But... the Lord proclaims that he has set before us an open door that no-one can shut. It is the door of his promise, the door of his mercy, and the door into the feast of his kingdom." (Archbishop's sermon in Zimbabwe) Yes! That is the most important statement we can make with a church door.

Master Innovator

2011-10-13T19:33:00.003+01:00

The lovely Lisa

Well, here we are, Rebecca! I don't like to duck a challenge, and, as you were looking for a comment about Steve Jobs, here it comes. As most people and you know, I'm an Apple fan. Ever since Sheila got me an Apple Lisa back in the early '90s, I've loved them. (Shame I let the local Apple dealer have it when I replaced it. A Mark 1 recently sold for $15,000 on eBay!) I can't remember what number this MacBook is but I've been faithful since then.

My lovely family gave me an iPod Touch for my 60th. I don't go around with my earphones plugged in, but I do love its versatility and portability. (By the by, I don't get why that's cited as a symptom of our being an impolite society. For crying out loud, it wasn't so long that youngsters went around with blaring ghetto-blasters cradled on their shoulders - remember? There were texts on Radio 3 this morning from people on their commute into London listening to classical music on MP3s. I suspect it's just a case of grumpy old men seeking a pretext to grouse about teenagers.)

Steve Jobs who died of pancreatic cancer last week was the CEO of Apple and took delight in personally unveiling the succession of unmistakably elegant products, which really set the pace for other firms. I believe that Apple became one of the world's biggest corporations. He ascribed its success to a synergy of multiple talents, "because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians who also happened to be excellent computer scientists".

In the year after his diagnosis and treatment for cancer, 2005, he spoke to the students at Stanford University (not Stanford in the Vale UK, but California USA) at "commencement". It's a moving speech, including this portion:

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

You can read the whole speech here and see a video of 15 minutes of it: Steve Jobs in June 2005. Jobs himself didn't have a personal faith in God, as far as I know, but clearly he shared some of the insights of Jesus: such as living in the light of death (Jobs) or eternity (Jesus); follow your heart and intuition (Jobs), the Spirit will guide you into all truth (Jesus).

I came across an amusing, if clichéd, cartoon last week. When I posted it on Facebook, Dave made this comment: "Too late, Steve, Jesus did the upgrade 2k years ago!" Good point, Dave! Jesus is the innovator sans pareil. He's responsible for no end of beautiful and ingenious inventions. Even Steve Jobs got his brains and flair from him - as he's no doubt discovering. The Twitter trend piously and probably cynically went, "Steve Jobs RIP". It could stand for "Readjusts 'Is Perspective" - which might not be all that fluffy-cloudy comfortable.

Information - the hope of democracy

2011-10-12T15:59:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I received an email from a friend who has a daughter in Thailand. Its subject was simply Thailand. It said: "... you may not be aware that Thailand is suffering the most appalling floods, totally ignored of course by our media who consider the peccadilloes and scrapes of our politicians and sportsmen far more important!

"Much of Thailand, including Bangkok, is very low lying and when the canals overflow, it gets pretty disgusting. As Jane says, if it reaches that stage as predicted they will have to wade through sewage to get out of their apartment!!
"The latest news is that 100 crocodiles have escaped in one of the provinces – such fun!!
"All such a contrast to our ‘Harvest celebrations’." You can read the Reuters report here.

John's email did reinforce to me how much we are in the hands of our media for our view of the world. In the UK it would appear that innuendoes about ministers and rugby players jumping off a ferry are world news. There's a thought-provoking interview with Noam Chomsky in today's Huffington Post, the foremost internet newspaper, Noam Chomsky exclusive. For any of my readers too young to know, he's generally regarded as the father of modern linguistics. The Huffington Post calls him a geopolitical guru...! He's certainly a canny observer of the international scene. Towards the end of the interview he's asked about the media and comments, "It's almost a tautology to say that democracy can function to the extent that the public has information and analysis available that puts them in a position where they can make sensible decisions... I don't like to talk about the UK media... but the impression I get when I'm here in London, if I want to find out what's going on in the world, I have to pick up the New York Times, and the internet. I can read half a dozen newspapers every day and get a ton of information of gossip about this society star and what this person's doing, and so on; and if you get to page 20 you may find a little international news." He fairly mentions the exceptions such as the FT and some outstanding correspondents, but he says, "This is a serious problem for a society that hopes to become democratic; it undermines functioning democracy in very obvious ways".

That is quite an analysis - and by the way criticism of our society. We can only claim to be a society that hopes to become democratic.

So here's some more international news. First from Andrew White in Baghdad: "Today has been such a day. We woke to the wonderful news of the imminent release of Gilad Shalit. We shared the great news that we wanted the conference for youth and adults. Then the darkness began. Bomb after bomb. Shuddered but not hurt. We do not know how many have been killed but we know the light of the Lord is still here."

And then some more from Bangkok: "Thailand is really in the midst of a major disaster but getting very little coverage. M has gone out towards Ayutthaya today with a group from the CCT with 1000 boxes of food which we made and packaged from 4am today. We plan to do the same over the next 3 days. Not sure how close they will get before it has to be put in boats. He and his team will be talking with the authorities about how they can help with the evacuated children. Some are in centres although many are still trapped upstairs in houses or even still on roofs.

Reuters

"Bangkok is under threat but the government wants to protect it at all costs – so are diverting water to other places in huge amounts, meaning massive damage. It might have been better to have slowly let some water into Bangkok. The suburbs are now waist deep in some places.

"As it is they are still expecting the centre to flood at the weekend when the water from up river comes down coinciding with predicted high tides. We are in one of the high risk areas, as is the kids' school and the church. When we were looking at the church yesterday P reckoned that if the water goes over the walls around the compound then it will be waist deep in the church. Even if it doesn’t, if the general area is flooded it will come up through the floor. Please pray this doesn’t happen.

Reuters

"We have done what we can to prepare personally – stocking up on food and water. Today I will get out more cash and buy candles. We are on the 2^nd floor which is good as far as our stuff is concerned and we may be able to offer refuge to others although our place is quite small. The worrying thing is that if our area floods it will be from the canal (which they are planning to use to divert flood water into) and most of the canal is sewage, so it will be even dirtier than flood water normally is."

The writer's father's comment was, "When I compare this to trivial trash we get on the BBC news, I despair!"

Change the story

2011-10-10T17:10:00.000+01:00

There was, I thought, an interesting comment from Mariéme Jamme from Senegal on "Start the Week" this morning about our view of Africa today. Speaking about our view of its being full of corruption and failure - whereas in reality there's a lot of good news from the continent - she partly blamed the BBC for giving "negative narratives" (fed by the NGOs). Shuyun Sun agreed in relation to the Western media's cover of China. There is, it seems, a narrative, a world view, which we are adopting, fed largely by an intellectual/political elite who dominate the news outlets.

We need to be on the look-out for the way our perspective on current affairs and indeed life itself gets skewed by the mass entertainment/information machine. It should be a warning sign that entertainment and news are twinned at the hip. Really hard news, which disturbs our comfort, is not likely to have much of a look-in. The way the entertainment industry works is to soften us up with a series of warm-up acts until at last we'll no longer be shocked at the comedian's blue jokes or obscenity. In other words we have our normal perspective changed. It's the way, of course, that propaganda works - to pump out enough half-truths (the most diabolical sort of lie) until our grip on truth and reality is sufficiently loosened so that we believe the opposite to where we started.

Mariéme Jamme describes herself as "a proud African woman". Her comments struck me in the context of the BBC's coverage of two events in her continent: one was the brutal suppression of a demonstration by Coptic Christians in Cairo, protesting about the partial demolition of one of their churches with no intervention from the police, with 25 or more fatalities and over 200 hospital admissions. Should one be bothered one can read the shocking facts. Meanwhile more extensive coverage was given to the Development Minister's announcement that Malawi was having its aid grant cut by £19 million because of persecution of homosexuals. Why, I wondered, did the government choose to cut aid to Malawi and not Egypt, or Pakistan, or China? Was the announcement simply a calculated step in establishing the coalition's liberal credentials?

I came across this trenchant post on Archbishop Cranmer's blog: Cairo: 23 homosexuals slaughtered by Egyptian Army, in which he simply points out the inconsistency of using our standards of behaviour for judging recipients of compassion.

The preservation of life

2011-09-28T18:25:00.000+01:00

Today there was some good news from the High Court. The family of Patient 'M', who's in a Minimally Conscious State, were denied permission to order her life support (food and water) to be turned off on the grounds that she would not want to "live a life dependent on others". There are thought to be thousands of people in a similar situation. It was an example of what could happen when families think they can second-guess their incapacitated relatives. However Mr Justice Baker ruled against the family, and I'd say in favour of the patient: "The factor which does carry substantial weight, in my judgement, is the preservation of life. Although not an absolute rule, the law regards the preservation of life as a fundamental principle."

That's a principle worth maintaining against the tide. I'm glad it's been upheld. I expect there'll be moves to get the family to appeal, though I trust not. It's all very well to encourage people to write down their wishes about dying, as the family lawyer said after the verdict. It's long been known that apparently unconscious patients are more aware of their surroundings and conversations than we imagine. How awful to be aware of being slowly starved to death! That's not something such people will suggest you anticipate, will they? And when will they stop peddling the lie that a dependent life is not worth living?

The shifting sands of science

2011-09-27T17:09:00.000+01:00

First we discovered that dinosaurs weren't all the scaly or pachyderm monsters of popular films and TV programmes, but that some had feathers "just like our pigeons in the park". I feel a tiny bit guilty that my children grew up with Usborne picture books, which have given them quite the wrong impression. Oh dear, oh dear!

However now something much more fundamentally serious has raised its fascinating head, emanating from the CERN laboratories in Geneva. That is that particles (neutrinos, I think) seem to be travelling faster than the speed of light. BUT THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE - according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It would mean that one could travel backwards in time - even if, so it seemed to this non-scientist, rather slowly. Well, the European scientists reckon they've checked and double-checked the improbable findings; the Americans at Fermilab in Chicago, it has to be said, are sceptical and reckon their transatlantic buddies have overlooked some tiny but significant detail and are setting out to "prove" it.

When the news broke, there was quite a bit of fluttering in the dovecotes of physics. On the World Tonight programme on Radio 4, the space scientist, Dr Maggie Aderine-Pollock, had an excited conversation with presenter, Ritulah Shah. Aren't you frightened, she was asked, that this undermines your whole scientific world? "If this experiment is correct," she replied, "it is slightly scary, because it means we’re stepping into the unknown, but at the same time there’s a real sense of excitement, because what will we find instead?"
RS: "So do you think the popular view of science in which, arguably, science provides all the answers is very misplaced?"
MA-P: "I think we went through the same process in the 1950s in relation to medicine - doctors knew it all." Now we know they don't. "Science is an evolving process."
Then Ritulah Shah asked this very interesting question: "If the CERN experiment can be replicated, if the data can be stood up, then would it be better for the popular view of science to be one of science delivering new questions and discoveries rather than of one of it delivering the answers?" and received this equally interesting and honest answer: "Yes, because 'answer' sounds as if we have all the answers and we've got it done and dusted; and that isn't how science works. Science works... as an evolution.... We don't have answers; we have evolving questions." Now that, to me, sounds like real science - and to be true, whatever the outcome of the neutrino debate.

And it reminds me of Socrates' wisdom, as related by Plato: "This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing anything. On the other hand, I - equally ignorant - do not believe that I know anything." There's a conditionality which popularisers of science seem unable to grasp, bestowing on scientists an omniscience which the best of them would not claim for themselves. Science is a voyage of discovery, not a destination.

Wikidness

2011-09-22T15:54:00.001+01:00

It's ironic that Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has been trying to stop the publication of his "unauthorised" autobiography by Canongate, a small UK publisher. The self-appointed crusader of free speech has been hoist by his own petard. I used to think he did us a favour by blowing the cover of secretive government.

However, this week Andrew White wrote a short message on Facebook (which has infuriatingly changed its format) from St George's Church in Baghdad: "I am afraid to say that the situation for the Jewish community here is now very serious, as it is for the two people who help them. Their names have also been published by Wikileaks. We have no option but to try and get them all out of here. This is such a serious issue and Wikileaks obviously do not care if they threatened the lives of already the most at risk community in the world. Any credibility they ever had has now gone as far as I am concerned. Will you please pray for their safety until we can get them out."

Someone recently told me that a lot of the "rioters" were out on the streets because they had never learned empathy. This seems to me another and more sinister case of lack of imagination or empathy. And this instance, there's no excuse.

Watch your words

2011-09-20T16:41:00.005+01:00

What do these two complexes have in common?

Well, for a time my home was just down the road from both; and I've been in both of them. One is Clifton College, where I went to school. The other is Stepping Hill Hospital, where I used to visit as a curate, not least when they were fighting for my son's life (maybe that's a slight over-dramatization, but he was desperately ill!). This year, however, they've both been in the national news for much sadder reasons. At the New Year, Clifton hit the headlines in connection with the murder near Bristol of the young architect, Joanna Yeates; Stepping Hill hit the news in July over suspicions of patients being killed with contaminated saline.

Today the BBC website for a time ran a headline: "Saline nurse 'scared' to go out". It was referring to Rebecca Leighton, the nurse at the hospital who'd been accused of tampering with the drips but since exonerated. It brought to mind the way the media presumed the guilt of Christopher Jefferies, Jo Yeates' landlord. He had been an English teacher at Clifton. He also proved to be innocent.

What both Jefferies and Leighton had in common was to be tried and found guilty by the press without trial, and without justification. I was glad to see that the headline had been changed to "Released nurse 'scared to go out'". Whether the press will ever learn is doubtful. But the damage is done. In her interview, Rebecca Leighton said, "I find it hard to look any further into the future than right here and now, but I'd love to have my life back, exactly how it was before." I'd love to have my life back... The pen is mighty, or, as St James said, "How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness." It's a dangerous lie that "words can never harm me". Words can do irreparable damage.

Squaring the circle

2011-09-17T19:07:00.000+01:00

I don't listen to the BBC World Service so much these days, but this morning I happened to tune in to The Forum. The format was a three-way discussion this time on the subject of Activism. The participants were a French architect, a South Korean economist, and an Australian "anarchist" poet, John Kinsella, who's a fellow at Churchill College in Cambridge. It was a provocative discussion.

I was particular interested in their discussion of language, kicked off by the poet who advocates "linguistic disobedience", which I think means resisting the way that language is used as a system of control' ie scepticism about words and control. It reminded me a bit of what I wrote yesterday about the Nazis' use of "compassion" in the early 20th century. We have not to collude when language is manipulated by those with power and influence. For example, government spokesmen construct the myths they want us to believe by their selection of terms - as the saying goes, one man's terrorist is someone else's freedom-fighter. Kinsella talked about writing a poem trying to prevent the death-sentence on an Australian in Singapore in which he stripped away the rhetoric and describe the event as it is: "the executioner will eat a meal before and after"; as he said, "Anyone who takes a life is a hypocrite." When meanings are hijacked, imperceptible control is exercised without our realising.

It's a technique I've come across among the campaigners for euthanasia. The Voluntary Euthanasia Society (whose purpose was what it said on the packet) rebranded itself, a few years ago, as Dignity in Dying, and took to talking about Assisted Dying rather than Suicide. There are four ways of dying: natural death, accidental death, being killed and killing oneself. There's also an attempt to hijack "compassion" to legitimise putting an end to someone's life prematurely. One needs to ask, "What's the agenda beneath replacing plain English with gobbledy-gook?"

Other interesting hijackings include "having a baby" and "marriage". Picture a couple. The wife discovers she's pregnant, "Honey, we're having a baby!" The politically correct man replies, "No, dear, you're carrying a foetus." And I guess 99% of the population would consider "marriage" to mean what it's always meant, the union of a man and woman for companionship, procreation and family life. But not for much longer. The meaning of the word is being manipulated to create a new myth.
I'm indebted to Paul Huxley for this sardonic comment on the official redefining of words.
"Square circles to become legal

"In a groundbreaking move, the government is set to introduce square circles.

"The Deputy Minister for Shapes commented: 'It is time that we gave true equality to circles, not only to rectangles. Why shouldn't circles be considered square?.'

"Under the new law, mathematicians and geometrists who object to this redefinition will be allowed to continue using the old definitions, and definitely won't be forced to use the new terms in their research papers. However, all Maths teachers will be required to use the new definitions with their students.

"A spokesman for the fundamentalist group, The League of Geometrists, objected to the new rules: 'How can a circle be square? It is a contradiction in terms. If it remains circular, how can it consist of four lines of equal length?'

"But the Prime Minister, supporting the move, said: 'This move will be supported by all tolerant, welcoming, broad-minded people.'"

They really aren't

2011-09-16T17:48:00.000+01:00

OK, so temperamental televisions channels are a minor inconvenience, but some things which are portrayed as "simple" are far more significant. You could say they're a matter of life and death. I've met Katherine Araniello a couple of times. She's a conceptual artist, and she's thoroughly disabled. She appeared on 4Thought TV in the summer, talking about suicide.

Today she wrote a thought-provoking extended comment on Facebook, to which I responded:

Assisted suicide – The continual debate

What concerns me is the constant bombardment of how terrible it is if one does become disabled or they have a terminal illness and the negative imagery this places on anyone who isn't fit and healthy. People who are living with disabilities and terminal illness are in fear of their own lives being ended prematurely when they go into hospital because of the viewpoint that someone who is so ill or so physically dependent on others cannot possibly want to live – There are cases in which disabled/terminally ill people are in hospital and the only reference to them is the function of their body – e.g. it may be that they are on full-time ventilation – they require 24-hour assistance – and it is these people who are rendered as having no quality of life. There are cases in which such lives have been taken over by the medical world who believe that it is fair to not resuscitate someone who is so ill or disabled. These are the facts and these are the fears and these are the realities of the 21st-century that we are living in –

Earlier Katherine had made a comment about fascism, and I began my response from there:

- Michael Wenham
  Interesting, isn't it, that our society dislikes "travellers" - one of Hitler's target-groups? And I gather there are attempts to exclude the holocaust from history syllabuses for fear of "offence". I've just watched "Band of Brothers" withits horrific concentration camp scene. "Ah, but we could never get to that HERE!" Well, it began in Germany with doctors dispensing with the absolute sanctity of life. The phrase "the right to death has a sinister history: it recalls vividly the entire reasonableness of the successful campaign in Germany during the 1910s through to the 20s and 30s to convince the medical profession that “assisted dying” or “sterbehilfe” for those with an impaired “quality of life” (to use a modern expression which also has sinister historical overtones) as morally acceptable: a book published 13 years before Hitler took power, The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, Binding and Hoche’s Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens, together with Jost’s Das Recht auf den Tod (The Right to Death) [remember Sir Terry’s “right to die"?] had a huge influence on the German medical profession and without doubt paved the way for the Nazi euthanasia programme" (William Oddie). It probably wouldn't get that far here, but we should be warned that there are dangers in the idea of compassion. That's how the Nazis portrayed euthanasia.
- But you're right, Katherine, that there is a sustained negative portrayal of disability and dependence, which is both insulting, untrue and creates an atmosphere of fear. Actually we ARE ALL dependent, interdependent, and it's NOT degrading or demeaning to need help. We need to embrace that reality, not run away from it and try to scare others into running away too. "No man is an island" is true. You and I are pretty much 100% dependent on others, but your life is amazingly fulfilled, it seems to me, frustrating but fulfilled.
  
  The mantras of "compassion" and "my right" sound simple, but they aren't. Things never are; they really aren't!

Things are never THAT simple

2011-09-16T16:52:00.001+01:00

Oxfordshire's in the middle of the television digital switch-over, which seemed to be designed to make a generation of sets redundant, and create a whole new market for freeview boxes and digital TVs. Anyway it began this week. Being disabled I was eligible for the government scheme for help to make the transfer including a digibox. However I declined, as we already have one, and, so they said, it was just a matter of retuning the box.

All I can say is it's a good thing the rugby World Cup's on ITV, as the BBC reception here has been rubbish with all the channels duplicating themselves and cutting out to a blank screen within seconds. But fortunately ITV got the rights and my viewing hasn't been subject to that awful frustration - except yesterday when Pam Ayres appeared on the One Show. She of course was born and bred in Stanford in the Vale, and has just produced the memoir of that time, The Necessary Aptitude. According to the publishers:

"Pam Ayres' early childhood in Stanford in the Vale was idyllic in many ways, and typical of that experienced by a great swathe of children born in rural areas in the immediate post-war years. Though her parents' generation was harrowed by war, better times were coming. Everything the family needed was within walking distance in the village, and life with four older brothers and a sister in their crowded council house was exceedingly lively.

"In her late teens, Pam grew dissatisfied with her life as a Civil Service clerk with only the local 'hop' for scintillating excitement. Having seen three of her brothers called up for National Service and sent off to exciting destinations, Pam felt desperate for travel and adventure. She joined the WRAF and soon found herself in the Far East. There she began to write in earnest, and develop the unique talent that would make her one of Britain's favourite comics...

"Written with Pam's much-loved combination of humour and poignancy, The Necessary Aptitude is a beautifully written memoir of her early years."

Fortunately, I've since been able to listen to the programme on iPlayer. She is genuinely nice and unspoiled by success.

Eventually, having googled duplicating channels in digital switch-over, I discovered that I was one among many having problems. It wasn't as simple as we've been told - things never are. I think I may have solved it now - but I'm not counting my chickens.

This Humpty Dumpty life

2011-09-15T17:50:00.002+01:00

We had one of those excellent lunches which occasionally happen on Tuesday. It was with our friends, Peter and Ann. Peter, like me, has PLS. Like me, he was a teacher. He seems to have an endless supply of jokes - which is good medicine. We met in the coffee-shop at Bicester Garden Centre (not up to Cornerstone in Grove, of course, but not at all bad).

We had a merry time comparing notes.We have very similar stories, we realised, although Peter was diagnosed about 5 years before me and has only just stopped driving. He tells me 1 in 5 million have PLS. We certainly agree that our wives are 1 in 5M! He and Ann had a lovely way of describing PLS - which was something like "Not an end of life, but a change of life."

Peter, like his namesake, has a lot more physical courage than me - and so he's had a lot more falls. And he seems to bounce better. Whereas I go rigid when I fall, I think he has mastered the art of relaxing, which, as horseriders know, makes all the difference.

Last week I had an email from my friend in New York who has ALS (as they call MND). She lives in an apartment on her own - and of course there's no free National Health Service in the States. Her rollator (zimmer on wheels) was faulty. So she rang the ALSA repair man, but he failed to return her call. "I was ironically going to my desk to call ALS to see if someone else could set up the exchange, and the rollator was in front of desk - I'd been using it as a tray around my apt..... I'd sat on it before just to see what that's like. I decided to sit on it to make phonecall... and down I go!
"Hit my butt, arm and then my head went back to the wall, a part where two sides come to a point! Shocked and alone, I put my hand to my head, and all blood..., then sat on my bed thinking I could just put some vaseline on it and no biggie, but, exploring the wound, I knew it meant stitches, small but deep.... All day in the ER, CT scan and waiting for neurosurgery to attend! Actually treatment just two staples, five minutes, and they discharged me OK...." She ended with a three-day stonking headache, and of course the worry over medical insurance - as well as a useless rollator.

Peter told me that one year he fell 255 times. I don't think he was joking.... I imagine it was when he could pick himself up. Otherwise the paramedics would have had him on their blacklist! However, such are the hazards of MND/ALS. As my friend aptly puts it, this Humpty Dumpty life. By the way, apart from stiffness first thing, my back is pretty much as it was. Thanks for your concern.

And also, by the way, my remarkable and courageous friend and fellow-author, Jozanne Moss, celebrated her birthday on Monday - what an achievement!

Attitude is everything

2011-09-08T22:16:00.005+01:00

I was sent some amazing photos today, with the heading "Attitude is everything". They are of a little boy with effectively no legs. No doubt his life's not easy, nor for his parents. And yet it appears he enjoys a pretty full life - and enjoys is the operative word. I've not included the pictures of him cycling, horse-riding and water-skiing....

Yet I've been wondering, in the light of the attention drawn by the courageous MP, Nadine Dorries, to the extraordinary rate of abortion in this country, what "independent advice" his parents would have been given assuming that from conception he was going to be born like that. "What quality of life do you think he'll have?" I imagine the questions, the counselling, would have tended towards the conclusion of abortion being the "kindest" thing all round. And that is what disabled people feel and fear all too often, that they are regarded as having a sort of semi-life.

South African athlete, Oscar Pistorius

One of the great things about the World Athletics Championships in South Korea last week was seeing some disabled events taking place in among the able-bodied events, and even the South African, Oscar Pistorius, on his artificial legs, competing at the top level 400 metres alongside fully able-bodied athletes. Tomorrow tickets for the Paralympics in August next year go on sale, and I for one am going to try and get some. There'll be nothing second-rate about the athletes or their performances. In fact you could regard their achievement as even greater than what we'll see at the real Olympics.

I think it's a shame that Nadine Dorries' amendment was defeated. It wasn't after all very radical, just ensuring the women receive clearly disinterested counselling if they want it before having an abortion. I'm hopeful that the government's promised consultation will honour "the spirit" of the amendment, and ensure that pre-abortion counselling is carried out by trained counsellors and rigorously monitored for lack of pressure - either way -, so that there is real choice for women and, therefore, for their unborn baby.

A programme Jane and I often listen to is Radio 4's No Triumph No Tragedy presented by their disability correspondent, Peter White, who's blind himself. This week he was talking to the remarkable Dr Lin Berwick, who was born with cerebral palsy, put in an iron lung at birth, affecting her sight. Her mother wouldn't accept the doctors' advice to let her die and took her home, and brought her up rather too protectively. At the age of 15 she went completely blind and was sent away to a school for the blind, which was the making of her. Wheelchair-bound she worked in a bank, trained as a Methodist lay preacher and set up a charity to provide holiday accommodation for the severely disabled and their families. Eventually she met, fell in love with and married a widower. He developed Parkinsons Disease after six years of marriage and, after a prolonged depressed decline, he died refusing his medication. During his illness she lost her faith. The interview was recorded a month after his death, and so her grief must have been at its most raw. But her bleak conclusion was if we are determined to cut back on resources for care and support for the disabled then we should not be so assiduous in our efforts to save them at the outset. Reflecting on her own life experience she concluded for herself it would have been better if she'd not been saved.

Listening, I reflected that I was hearing the honest voice of grief. And also that I'd read the selfsame sentiment in the Bible on the lips of Job who cursed the day that the midwife announced his birth. God's verdict on him was that he was unusually righteous and that he had spoken what was right; he'd been honest rather than mouthing platitudes. Maybe, after all, Lin Berwick is not so far removed from faith - as she seemed wistfully to imply. I've no doubt she will achieve her ambition of building another holiday home in Cornwall, named after her late husband.

Personally I can't agree that any life, disabled or not, should be written off as not worth saving or preserving. I agree that it takes resources and that there's a cost to pay. And I agree that we need to know when to let go, and that that's hard. But we have the ingenuity to make life fulfilling despite all appearances. We shouldn't give up. Maybe the little lad may grow up to be another Oscar Pistorius, or a Nobel prize winner.

Survival?

2011-09-03T16:27:00.001+01:00

That Ray Mears has a lot to answer for. Jane and I were in a particularly sunny mood yesterday - well, it was sunny and hot of course, which helped. But it was just one of those times when we felt intensely fond of each other. However, you don't want to know about that, I'm sure. Suffice it to say, we decided to drop everything and go out for a picnic.

There's an area of woodland not far from here which we enjoy. It's quite wheelchair-friendly, with a large picnic area cleared in the middle. Not surprisingly, being the end of the holidays, there were a lot of families there too - which was fine. Fine, children out enjoying the fresh air, and making noise, as children do.

We found a picnic table in the partial shade. Three mums were nearby with multifarious offspring. One chap I noticed, say about 8 or 9, was on his own. He had a camouflage bush-hat and camouflage crop trousers on and a grey t-shirt. He seemed to minding his own business, idly bending over a sapling. Then he started to try tearing off its side shoots. His younger brother, as is their wont, drew his mother's attention to this. "Don't do that, Raymond!" (not his real name) she called out, before returning to her conversation. He stopped, for a while, and then resumed his activity. Despite one more maternal intervention, he eventually succeeded in completely stripping the young tree and bending it right over to touch the ground. I'm not sure what he was making in his imagination, whether it was the beginnings of a shelter or an animal trap. He certainly left behind him a pile of leafy branches and one sapling which will never survive to become a tree. Ironically Ray Mears styles himself as a wilderness bushcraft and survival expert - and has become popular through his tv series, World of Survival and Extreme Survival. They are quite educational and fun to watch.

However it struck me that young "Raymond" needed a bit more guidance on how to apply his hero's lessons in the real world; and then it struck me that probably there are very few lessons for the real world to be drawn from Mears' programmes. After all, the principle, "You don't need equipment, you need knowledge to survive in the wild", will probably, barring a freak accident or disaster, be of little use to his viewers. Like most tv, like ex-commando Bear Gryll's programmes, Mears basically provides watchable entertainment.

But if my assumption is right (and it may well not be) that young "Raymond" was influenced by what he'd seen of big Ray - the way he dressed and the sort of things he does on screen - then the uncomfortable question occurs, how else does what they see on television influence children's behaviour? I'm sure I'll be told there's no statistical correlation to prove it, but observation of little "Raymond" and actually of big adults like me suggests a significant influence. (Otherwise tv advertising would not be the big business that it is.)

I suspect, nevertheless, that it will take more than the efforts of my young friend to dent the beauty of these shared open spaces. And, to be fair, I suspect that Mr Mears has done more to open eyes to the wonders of the natural world than to encourage incipient vandals! Certainly as Jane pushed me round the track that circles through the common, we saw a world of infinite variety, charged with the grandeur of God - which even my new camera couldn't do justice to!

All creatures great and small

2011-08-30T18:15:00.002+01:00

I apologise if I upset you by saying one can have too much of a good thing. I have to confess to having had a surfeit of Mrs Alexander's hymn, "All things bright and beautiful". The trouble is it pops up so often as the people's choice for weddings, baptisms and even funerals. You'd have thought the days when it was staple diet of school assemblies were long gone - but of course the significant factor is that Grandma and Auntie Flo like it. ("Morning has broken" and "Lord of the Dance" took over as assembly fodder and often appear as choices, but increasingly I found couples asking for my suggestions - dangerous!)

Anyway, although I'm surfeited with the hymn, I agree with the sentiment that nature is the gift of God. Talking of creatures bright, beautiful and small we've been enjoying the company of our grandchildren for the bank holiday weekend. A highlight of their time here was visiting their aunt's horse, Dave. He is large. So grooming him was an interesting exercise!

He's a gentle giant, and so two of the girls rode him in the exercise yard. I'm amazed at the understanding that Rachel has with Big Dave. I suppose it's what all good riders have. There was an item on Countryfile on Sunday of "horse whispering" an Exmoor pony colt - very gentle and patient - and impressive. It looked a bit more like what I think our relationship with animals should be than the rather brutal behaviour often portrayed on screen. Hopefully it's a thing of the past. It's not what "dominion... over all the earth" means, though that's sadly how it was misused in the past.

On Sunday morning after church we visited the local rec - what a good facility such things are! Every local authority should have some. The girls had a whale of a time.

If this photo had a sound track, it would be full of screams about going too fast and falling off - not from Dad (well, not much)! I enjoy having family here.

It also does me good to spend time with friends. On Wednesday we had lunch on the roof of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, or rather in the dining room of the terrace there. It was beautifully sunny and warm. We were there with our good friend Elizabeth and her son Dominic. The menu was in keeping with the main exhibition about ancient Greece, excellent Greek cuisine, including Jane's and my first taste of squid.

Then we came to the desserts.... Melopita: honey cake and fresh figs. Very nice it looked too! But then came the wasps. Not just a couple, but Sennacherib's hordes. Amazing how quickly news had got round the wasp community in central Oxford! Our waitress was equally swift, and decisive. "You're going inside," she said, removing our plates. And so we followed her with the glasses and napkins. Miraculously, the wasps chose not to follow us.

The great thing about these particular friends is that they understand our situation perfectly, as Elizabeth's husband, Tim, who died in 2007, also had PLS (the slow sort of MND). For example, Dominic was very aware of my practical difficulties, and unembarrassed by them. We share a Christian faith, but more than that just get on very well personally. It was just one of those special times, which make you aware of how much love and care - and laughter - there is in our troubled world.

In with the in-laws

2011-08-20T21:37:00.001+01:00

After a few heavy posts it's time for something lighter. On Thursday we bade a fond farewell to Jane's parents after a short stay here. Her mum, you may recall, recently fell down six steps in their garden. She's clearly made of tougher stuff than me! She's back in one piece and going like a Duracell bunny.

One mealtime I asked her father whether he was on HMS Paladin when HMS Cornwall was sunk on 5th April 1942 in the Indian Ocean. My late uncle was on board the Cornwall as doctor. It was attacked by Japanese dive bombers and sunk within 12 minutes. My father-in-law was on the Paladin which was one of the boats which rescued the survivors. So there's the intriguing possibility that my future father-in-law met my uncle in the middle of the war, even fished him out of the sea. He told me that the Cornwall's captain had kept the men singing (mainly hymns) as they waited in the sea for rescue, hanging on to debris and floats for up to 30 hours. I imagine Uncle Paul was leading the singing.

Tuesday was warm and sunny, if you remember, and so we decided an expedition was in order, nothing too demanding - just the Oxford Botanic Gardens and then across the road to have lunch in the Old Kitchens in Magdalen College, which we thought they'd like. I think I was the most excited to find an episode of Lewis being filmed there (the fictional Morse's promoted side-kick, to be

distinguished from Magdalen's brilliant real life don, C S Lewis). Anyway there the crew were hard at work: "Let's do it again... and again..." The crime scene seemed to be on the banks or in the waters of the Cherwell. And there were the actors and extras looking extraordinarily unexcited! I got Jane to ask an assistant when the episode would be - probably no 4 or 6 in the new series. I'll obviously have to record the series.

The gardens themselves gave me plenty of opportunities to use the camera Jane gave me for my birthday, with its zoom and close-ups. Had a bit of trouble getting into the disabled loo but am happy to report it is a good one.

Then it was over to Magdalen. For wheelchair users they have to open the main wooden doors ("otherwise reserved for the Queen" - and anyone else who needs it!). The Old Kitchens are a good place for an economical lunch in congenial surroundings (e.g. £2 for a bowl of soup, croutons and a roll). Then we wandered through the grounds (herbaceous borders better than over the road, according to one gardener amongst us) and into the chapel with its remarkable copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, before home.

Otherwise our time was spent together talking, puzzling over codewords and crosswords, and neglecting the TV - which I gather we in the UK watch for an average of 4.3 hours per day, to the detriment of our longevity. We should be out walking regularly instead enjoying the beautiful world we've been born into. And I reckon enjoying plenty of good company such as we've just had - and of course in the picture!

Research good news

2011-08-20T16:58:00.000+01:00

I was interested to come across an article about research into the "direct conversion" of skin cells into nerve cells without the use of stem cells. The problem with the embryonic stem-cell route is the risk of the cells developing tumours. "In mid-August, the journal Nature published three separate papers describing methods for direct conversion of normal skin cells into nerve cells.... (In Sweden) Research leader Dr. Malin Parmar said he was surprised at how receptive the fibroblasts were to new instructions:

'We didn’t really believe this would work, to begin with it was mostly just an interesting experiment to try. However, we soon saw that the cells were surprisingly receptive to instructions.'

The Swedish team noted that using the direct conversion technique to bypass stem cells avoided the ethical problems inherent with embryonic stem cells, as well as the tendency of embryonic stem cells to form tumors. The paper was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." (from Life News)

The point of producing nerve cells is to help in researching diseases such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, MS and MND, to see the causes and development of the diseases, which is turn leads to therapies. In my view not using embryonic stem-cells (i.e. derived from embryos with the potential for life) is entirely preferable. I don't want my cure to be at the expense of another's life.

No comment

2011-08-19T16:43:00.001+01:00

I was interested in this item of news which I imagine is true:

Polly pulls out of atheism debate
Atheist Polly Toynbee has cancelled her debate with leading Christian apologist William Lane Craig. Toynbee, the President of the British Humanist Association, apologised for the inconvenience but said, ‘Having looked at his previous performances, this is not my kind of forum.’ Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling have already chickened out of tackling Craig as he tours the UK. The American philosopher has previously debated Anthony Flew (when he was an atheist), Lewis Wolpert, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Harris admitted that Craig is ‘the one Christian apologist who seems to put the fear of God into my fellow atheists’. Toynbee’s debate, organised by Premier Christian Radio, was due to take place at Westminster Central Hall in October. The search is now on for a suitable British replacement.
Source: The Church of England Newspaper (14/8)

It looks to me that they've now found a replacement, atheist philosopher Stephen Law. It's part of the Reasonable Faith Tour, which includes in the absence of opponents a one-sided debate on Dawkins' The God Delusion at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford! Craig Tour Details

And here's an ironic YouTube video about various responses to the tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC1xgS1XGSg&NR=1

Let your words be few

2011-08-12T18:31:00.002+01:00

My feeling is that too many words about the "rioting" in our cities have already been avalanched forth for anyone's good. So I'm going to keep mine short.

I find the petition to dock benefits from people convicted in connection with the disturbances repugnant and perverse, as if depriving them of the means to live or a house to live in would achieve anything but hatred and despair.

I find the pronouncements of politicians and the media sanctimonious and self-blind. Their student japes were succeeded by scandals in their respective occupations. I've quoted Portia before in this blog:
"...Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy." We all have items of wood in our eyes, large and small.

I love the title of a sermon to be preached in the open air on Saturday: "Jesus came not for the righteous but for the riotous"!

Finally, the best discussion I've heard on the subject was first broadcast on Sky News on Wednesday: Sky News interview. An ex-gang member, Gavin McKenna, and the leader of Target Against Gangs, Sheldon Thomas, speak with inside understanding of what I in comfortable suburbia don't have a clue about. The interviewer was struggling to get her mind round what they were saying. I don't blame her, but we still need to hear them. "We have seen more people cry over material things than over the life of a young person." If we have ears to hear, we must listen.

Things fall apart?

2011-08-09T18:10:00.001+01:00

Is it another "long hot summer"? I suspect that's a fairly widespread fear when people look at the news pictures of the "riots" in London and other cities, and when they hear the news of the tumbling stock markets. There's a much viewed video doing the rounds of social media of a West Indian old woman berating the hooligans who are creating the havoc (http://www.twitvid.com/4JTZH). She doesn't mince her words; in fact her language is far from middle-class; so be warned if you watch it.

But for me she is verging on the prophetic. I came across the clip through my friend, Louise, in Australia. She commented: "I like this because this woman speaks with absolute authority - and has the right to. What I cannot bear is the self-righteous judgmentalism of many on Facebook making pronouncements of one sort or another into the situation. Yes, the looters are utterly wrong, violent and in some cases really stupid and thoughtless - and yes the acts are pointless and will achieve nothing. BUT where is the grace? Where is the compassion and understanding of some of the reasons why it might have escalated to this degree? Hmmmmm. Can really only cope with Facebook in v v small and occasional doses before it sends me right over the edge...!"
Amen, sista!

There was also this uncomfortable comment from Nathanael Johnson: "Just below the surface of our well-scrubbed society, sin, selfishness and lawlessness lurk. In the last few years, we've seen some bankers robbing people blind when they could get away with it. Now that chaos has erupted, some of the poorer classes have been (surprise surprise) just as opportunistic. The clothes and haircuts change, but people are the same as they have ever been: fallen and in need of Christ. In some ways, it makes one realize what a blessing it is when human beings do keep the law and act in responsible ways."

Inebriated?

2011-08-08T13:21:00.002+01:00

Well, I wouldn't quite say that, although I did enjoy two small glasses of wine, thanks to Clare, our friend from Exmouth, and John and Ness, friends from Stanford, between Monday and Saturday. So I doubt whether it was the alcohol. We've just had an amazingly good week. Amazing, because we arrived at the Bath & West Showground each day for praise and Bible study by 9.15 in the morning, leaving for our peaceful cottage about 12 hours later. Amazing, because although I wasn't exactly comfortable, that time was spent in a manual wheelchair and the pain didn't bother me. Personally I tend to believe that it was more to do with people praying for us than mind over matter. (Those who know me will agree that my mind is rather feeble when it comes to controlling my matter!)

At Sleepy Hollow

I'm reflecting more about some of the things I've come home mulling over in my new blog, Room with a view. So I'll not go on about it here except to say what an amazing wife Jane is. She did everything for me, and I mean everything. Think of going to the loo, and I've probably said enough. The showground is not exactly flat, the marquees are not that wheelchair-friendly - although there were usually willing folk to help - and Jane pushed me everywhere.

So now it's back to overcast Grove, but I'm hoping that the clouds won't blow over my spirit for some time yet. I have things to do, books to write...! However, D.v., I suspect we'll be back to the winning combination of our haven, Sleepy Hollow Cottages, and our spiritual watering hole, New Wine! Sleepy Hollow, I must add, is three delightful cottages, well off the beaten track in the Somerset levels. Highly recommended - well, we've been returning for years.

Nooze, "our" pad at Sleepy Hollow

Good news

2011-08-01T11:02:00.000+01:00

Two nights in bed - able to get up without excessive pain - and so we're off to New Wine, a day late; but better late....

Of wider significance I've just read this exciting article by Peter Saunders: Three exciting news stories about stem cell research. I agree with him that good research is ethical research.

Oops, that hurt!

2011-07-30T18:52:00.000+01:00

A week ago, I began a rather jolly post with this paragraph: "Yet again I've had cause to be grateful to the NHS, but more of that later. First, a quick update of the week's events, including our wedding anniversary, which we celebrated by meeting with the local branch MNDA seeing how the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre can adapt clothes when it becomes impossible to dress yourself. The great things are velcro and full-length zips. It was actually more interesting than it sounds when the seamstresses who knew about such things started chatting about their craft. We finished our celebrations by attending the local area clergy social - which also was better than it sounds!"

Since then I've fallen silent. As Facebook friends will know, my initial optimism over a little local difficulty, i.e. a fall on Thursday lunchtime, has taken something of a battering. Such falls are the stuff of MND, but I've not had a full-on fall for a couple of years now. I'm quite cautious walking with my rollator. But I suppose a full day previously had left me a bit tired and, getting into position for lunch, I simply keeled over backwards, and once you're going, you're going, going, gone. (I learned today that you use 300 muscles just to keep balance. Whether it's true or not, I don't know, but the control nerves of enough of mine aren't working!) My head hit the china cabinet and my spine the solid floor. Jane who'd been in the next room ran in and set about patiently calming me down, before calling the paramedics. That's the prescribed procedure, since getting someone with MND from the floor to upright is not a job for one person or for amateurs. I was feeling rather sorry for myself. After 15 minutes a car arrived with Gemma, who checked me over. Vital functions ok, probably no major injuries (no untoward sensations in the legs). But she was small and getting me up was no job for her and Jane, and so she summoned an ambulance which in 20 minutes brought two burly ambulancemen, who addressed me clearly (! Jane says loudly) and eventually hoiked me to my feet. When I'd recovered from feeling faint, the assessment was I didn't need to go to hospital. So I ended up in my wheelchair and we were left to lick our respective wounds, Jane's emotional, and mine physical.

Afterwards, and subsequently, we've reflected on the service we received, the initial response by the ambulance service and then the consultations by phone with the GP about pain and other relief. It is really astonishing. It's something else for which I'm truly grateful. I gather it's a case of deep bruising, which as it works out gets more painful. So after a couple of reasonable nights' sleep I had to resort to sleeping downstairs in a riser-recliner chair downstairs. The nuisance has been having to cancel all engagements, such as the dentist and meals out with friends, and, by now, we should be having a break in Somerset and enjoying the company of thousands at the picturesquely named New Wine Festival - not an oinological gathering but a worship and teaching fiesta, which we first attended with our church. I'm trusting that it won't be long before I stop behaving like a fragile bean-pole and become more like an articulated human being again! Maybe I'll start pontificating on events again then. There's been a lot going on around the world since I laid my laptop aside.

God loves the red tops

2011-07-18T16:58:00.002+01:00

I've been thinking about my last blog-post, and in particular the comments about throwing (or not) stones and about praying for opinion-formers. In fact I fell asleep with it on my mind last night. And I was thinking about red tops - including Rebekah Brooks, who'd been arrested and held for twelve hours yesterday.

One of my treasured books is called Easter Enigma. My copy has an inscription to Jane and me, dated 24.2.84. It was reprinted in 2005 (2005 edition) with a new cover. It was written by my late dad, and is about the apparent contradictions between the five accounts of Jesus' resurrection. As someone put it, it's drawn from first-hand, on-the-ground investigation. Dad was not scared of thinking outside the box. In Chapter 2 he looks at the first witness, Mary Magdalene - whose saint's day is this Friday. He argues, convincingly in my opinion, that we actually learn more about her than just those times she's given the Magdalene tag (meaning "from the town of Magdala", on the west of Lake Galilee). She's also the sinner who washes Jesus' feet with her tears, and Mary, younger sister of Lazarus and Martha.

It's certainly a view shared by those who understand character such as novelists, film-makers and artists, if not by over-learned academics. Clearly the Preraphaelite artist Frederick Sandys shared the view as his picture painted at the end of the 1850s shows her holding a jar of "very precious ointment" (perfumed oil). It also, of course, depicts her with long red hair - as was traditional from medieval times. I don't know the significance of that. The Bible doesn't mention it, though it does mention her letting her hair down to wipe Jesus' feet - a culturally disreputable practice. My dad suggests that the sensitive and intuitive Mary left the dull suburban home in Bethany to find some excitement near the new royal city of Tiberias. "We should probably not think of her as a street prostitute, but as a person of poise and charm whose favours were sought by the upper ranks of society." Anyway she becomes stigmatised as a notorious "sinner", whom no self-respecting rabbi should let near him. But Jesus has already had contact with her and released her from both guilt and what's been driving her in a self-destructive pursuit of influence and pleasure. Her modus vivendi becomes quite different, but her ultimate influence far exceeds her suburban dreams, as he gives her the most historic scoop of all time, his first face-to-face interview after his death and resurrection, and commissions her to break a news story that will run and run.

I imagine most people have written Rebekah Brooks (née Wade) off by now as an icon of the worst of unethical journalism - which is pretty low on the current scale of morality, a rung or two above paedophiles perhaps. And it's true that horrendous things were carried out under her editorship, it seems. And yet... Jesus would not have written her off. There's a human story there - this Lancashire girl, state-school educated, with dreams to be a journalist, travelling to Paris for further study and experience, starting work at 20 on a very short-lived Warrington paper and then going to Wapping to work as a newsdesk secretary. By the time she's 32 she's worked her way up to become the youngest editor of a national weekly. In 2003, aged 35, she's the first female editor of The Sun. In 2009 she's the Chief Executive of the whole shooting match, News International - neighbour and friend of the Prime Minister, who, along with his two predecessors, was a guest at her second marriage. And now on 17th July 2011, resigned as CEO, attacked on all sides in Parliament, she's arrested on "suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and on suspicion of corruption allegations contrary to Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906."

And there's a human being there too. Feisty but fallible, dreaming but damaged, successful but sinful - like all of us. Is it too much to pray that Jesus will meet her? One thing that's certain is that he would tell her he's not written her off and that he still loves her. The admiration of the most influential celebs pales into insignificance beside being liked by him. As the self-confessed "greatest of sinners" once said, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." That sort of transformational encounter is the sort that no one, but no one can hack into, but its result would exceed your wildest dreams, Rebekah.

Fra Angelico's "Noli me tangere"

Mary Magdalene had an amazing focus after abandoning her former profession. She started again from the bottom acting as the lowest house slave washing feet, sitting listening and learning as a disciple, having her endurance tested to breaking point watching the one she loved tortured and die - before she was given the scoop of all time. And then she retired into obscurity - satisfied.

News reflections

2011-07-17T18:33:00.019+01:00

I tend to agree with the opinion that the News Corp affair has occupied an excessive amount of our news coverage. It's not surprising of course, as the revelations about what the News of the World apparently got up to were indeed shocking. And, I'm sorry to say, there's an element of circling jackals about the other news media. One senses a certain relish at the potential downfall of a media mogul, or at least the clipping of his wings. The BBC too, of course, sees in Sky its main rival as news outlet (though its audience share is in truth comparatively small); so perhaps there's some schadenfreude on its part.

I have the feeling as well that politicians are quite enjoying the discomfiture of the organisation which has harried them and whom they have feared - and, it has to be said, courted. I suppose that is a source of embarrassment to most of the movers and shakers in the main parties.

Yet, I wonder whether this is that big a story. It's certainly taken its scalps. However, after all, we are in the middle of a Euro-crisis which has the potential to trigger another global financial collapse, and we're facing a famine in the Horn of Africa threatening to become a catastrophe. The 'revolution' in Egypt seems to be erupting again, there's a war carrying on in Libya largely unreported, and of course there's been another marching season in Northern Ireland with attacks on the police.

This story seems to me a "media story", an instance of the media's narcissistic-like fascination with itself. I came across this revealing table from the Information Commissioner about illegal activity carried out by newspapers in 2006.

In the Cranmer blog of 13th July I learned that "Trinity Mirror Group are the most corrupt of the lot" with 1663 misdemeanours and infringements, in the 2006 table. Hot on their heels came the Mail Group, with the Murdochs' a poor third. I'm sure News Corp have redressed the balance somewhat now, but there don't seem any who are purer than pure, even the Observer/Guardian stable. I think of Jesus talking about throwing stones. "Whichever of you is without sin..." - I guess he meant without any sin and he included us. And I suspect that when the judicial enquiry begins the Murdoch empire won't be alone in being worried.

By the way, we used regularly to pray for "opinion-formers' in our church services. I don't pray for them anymore. I reckon I should start again.

Let's end on a positive note, such as the Proms having started or Darren Clarke winning the Open Golf. Actually my weekend has been made by being visited by friends on Friday, family on Saturday morning and more friends on Saturday night - with rather nice meals created by Jane.

Things I'm grateful for

2011-07-15T19:12:00.002+01:00

My mother-in-law is a remarkable lady - no jokes about dragons-in-law here. Last year, at the age of 82, she exhibited for the last time in the annual show of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers at the Mall Gallery. This week she phoned Jane and mentioned, by the by, that she'd been gardening last Saturday and, pulling out a shrub, had fallen backwards down a flight of concrete steps, gashing her head, her legs and arms, and bruising herself all over. The minor injuries clinic took an hour to patch her up and told her to do nothing for 48 hours. Her verdict was without a hint of self-pity, "I was very lucky, wasn't I?" She wouldn't countenance cancelling the overnight visit of an old friend a couple of days later. They entertained him and took him out. Well, she said, keeping busy took her mind off it all. They don't make them like that these days, as they say! Actually I think they're wrong. I think they are people like that around still, with what's sometimes called an attitude of gratitude.

In fact since Monday when we went to visit Tony I've positively been trying to look out for the things I'm grateful for. And I don't mean the sort of gratitude urged on us when faced with a lukewarm unappetising school dinner: "Eat up. Think of the starving millions; they'd be grateful for just a bit of that." To which the answer (unspoken of course) is, "Well, they're welcome to it all." That's comparative, and usually negative, gratitude. "I'm grateful I'm not starving, not that ill, not living there etc."

I've been thinking about the sheer gifts I enjoy, such as:
I'm grateful for the circling red kites which add glamour to our humdrum suburban skies.
I'm grateful for the wood warbler which came and picked the bugs off our smoke tree.
I'm grateful for the hoverflies which fly in and out of the conservatory hanging in the air like miniature humming birds.
I'm grateful for the sunshine which relaxes my muscles and for the rain which keeps the lawn reasonably green.
I'm grateful for the dentist who's going to sort out my teeth - again.
I'm grateful for the man who services my lift and for the chap who repairs my wheelchairs.
I'm grateful for our nice home adapted to my needs, and I enjoy being able to look at a constantly changing, interesting garden.
I'm grateful for the car which means we can get out and about.
I'm grateful that we can afford to go away for holidays together.
I'm grateful that I am able to see rivers and lakes and oceans.
I'm grateful that I can sit on a hillside and watch Jane and Jess (our dog) go off for a walk - and return.
I'm grateful that I can sleep next to Jane in bed.
I'm grateful that I'm married to Jane and she's a good cook - and all-round good egg.
I'm grateful that my family all have jobs that I admire and are such fun company.
I'm grateful for my friends who seem to like me and have stuck with me.
I'm grateful for every day which brings new things to learn, some pleasurable, some painful - but such is life.
I'm glad to live in a universe which is so vast, and beautiful, and complex, and intricate, and endlessly mysterious.
I'm glad to know that existence is not absurd or pointless.
I'm grateful that the secret of life's origin and destiny is found in someone who lived the most loving and selfless life, in history (c. AD 1-33).
I'm glad Jesus Christ knows me.
I'm grateful to be alive.

Meeting Tony

2011-07-12T17:57:00.000+01:00

I first heard of Tony Nicklinson when Radio 5 Live's Victoria Derbyshire Show came from his home last year. He was campaigning for a change in the law to protect from prosecution someone assisting a person unable themselves to commit suicide. He himself had a massive stroke six or seven years ago which has left him in a "locked-in state". It's a wretched condition. He's totally paralysed, except for his head. He communicates via a computer which he operates by the blink of an eyelid. He has carers to get him up and in the evening, as well as an all-night carer. He lives in a nice bungalow home with his wife, Jane, and one of his two daughters. Even so it's not much of a life, and one can understand his wanting out.

As you'll have gathered, we were meeting as part of a projected BBC Inside Out West programme for October. The BBC obviously thought that getting two crocks with opposite views about ending life would make good TV, and so Jane and I agreed to go over yesterday to his home in Melksham in order to be filmed in discussion, or "debate" as Tony preferred to call it. It was bright and sunny, the wheat and barley fields beginning to turn to gold as we drove across the Downs - the best of English summer days. Then it was along the motorway and down the A350. Jane timed it perfectly, drawing up on the dot of 11 o'clock. There was Kirsty's Ka and, presumably, the cameraman's VW estate. The house was obvious, with its ramp and extension. Outside was a skip full of builders' rubbish. Kirsty, the producer, popped out as we arrived, radio mike in hand. So once I was installed in my wheelchair and wired up, Steve the cameraman took over, and we had all the rigmarole of meeting and then pretending to meet Tony and Jane - knocking, "Oh hello, nice to meet you etc...."

Then it was into the sitting room for the real business. By the time we had two wheelchairs, Tony's flatscreen computer with its stand, and the camera and sound boom in there wasn't room to swing a mouse, let alone a cat. In the end we were ready for the conversation. It transpired that Tony and I were going to be left to get on with it. The format was basically him putting questions to me and my answering. It was a slow process as he had to type his questions blink by blink on to the computer, which then spoke to me, and I then answered, which isn't itself a fast process. He asked me if I wanted the law on suicide changed, to which my answer was No, because I don't want the taking of life to be sanctioned in any form. Was that because of my religion? Probably. My faith affects my whole life, but it's not the only reason. There are other factors why I think it's a dangerous idea. And so we went on.

I suppose the nub of the argument was his insistence of having the choice, which he reckoned I still had and he certainly doesn't. Afterwards I reflected that, in fact, I would be physically very hard pushed to commit suicide, even if I wished to, which I don't. He feels it's a matter of equality, that those who are physically incapable are discriminated against by that fact. He'd produced a "scheme" which, he reckons, would afford immunity to those who helped people like him die. I felt that "my choice" can't trump all other considerations. Our choices have consequences for other people. "No man is an island". My main point was that once we open the door to allow the taking of human life in any circumstances it sets a precedent. At one point I asked him about the good things in his life - which, unsurprisingly, he couldn't see. I was fairly convinced that there were some. I felt we were really talking at that point, not just debating. I hope that survives the final editing.

Not Steve our cameraman, but you get the idea
of the size of the camera

Because, evidently, there is much more material on tape than can be used in a 10-minute programme. I guess we were filmed for getting for a couple of hours, as well as the filming that Kirsty has done before with us and Tony's wife Jane. We eventually called a halt to the filming, partly because the poor cameraman was wilting (with the camera on his shoulder the whole time), partly because we were beginning to go round in circles, and partly because I felt tired. And so we parted. And hoped to keep in touch.

We decided to do something entirely different on the way home - and so we did. We stopped at Morrisons' Chippenham store, made use of their facilities and had some lunch in their café. Not exactly haute cuisine, or even, to be honest, moyenne, but rather refreshing ambience and very sympathique staff. It was fine. Suitably fortified, we made for the motorway, the hills and home. Thank you, those of you who remembered us. It makes a difference.

Friends' photos

2011-07-11T20:53:00.001+01:00

I think this might become my new Facebook status! We were given these rather special dates by Mandy when she came to our Friday supper group with Charles, and good old Pete and Jane. These evenings are nourishing to my soul. We talk, and read and enjoy God's company. Of course it was the title that appealed to me, but the dates themselves are something else!

And here's another photo that appealed to me. I was sent it by Nic who lives near Cambridge. On the left is the office of the church they go to in St Ives, called The Bridge - and on the right is the name of my late distinguished father. In fact it's the premises of a firm of precision engineers who, I think, specialise in making instrumentation - nothing to do with theology.

And lastly the pièce de résistance - we saw this book for the first time a week ago on Saturday, when we called in on its editor, our pal John Milnes. It is a magnificent book, as Jane said, a real work of art. The Ashmolean in Oxford has a small but priceless collection of instruments, and John, himself an instrument maker and repairer, has assembled the country's foremost experts to describe them and the world's best photographer of instruments to capture them. The result is a thing of beauty. The Deluxe edition is already sold out, but you can still buy the standard edition for £280, http://ashmoleaninstruments.com/! I think the cover photo is of the prize violin of the collection, "Le Messie" Stradivarius, which John told us is the best preserved original Strad in the world. Inside there are photos from every angle in the best possible lighting. I think Le Messie means the Messiah rather than Lionel Messi, the star of FC Barcelona. It's just the star of 18th century Cremona. I suspect the violin will still be admired long after the footballer's forgotten.

Filming again

2011-07-09T14:01:00.002+01:00

While the News of the World was being unmasked as the lowest form of tabloid newspaper (though squeaky clean now, as News Corp would have us believe, to the background noise of shredders and disc-wipers), we saw on TV reports of a monumental tragedy beginning to unfold once again in the Horn of Africa. This is how the Disaster Emergencies Committee described it:

DEC Chief Executive Brendan Gormley said: “Slowly but surely, these people have seen their lives fall apart – crops, livestock and now their homes have been taken by the drought. They’ve been left with no alternative but to seek shelter and life-saving help elsewhere. We have a duty to help quickly before the situation spirals out of control.”

Large areas of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia are affected and the DEC appeal will also include South Sudan – set to become the world’s newest country on July 9.

More than 1,300 people a day, the majority of them children, are arriving in the Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya near the border with Somalia.

The Dadaab camp was already the world’s largest refugee camp with a population of 350,000 – larger than the city of Leicester.

“Of course these people need a long-term solution with investment and political will – but right now it’s about preventing a tragedy,” said Mr Gormley."Many of these are a forgotten people, caught in the midst of conflict in Somalia and an ever-worsening environmental crisis.”

Against the background of the one sordid and the other shocking news stories, I'm reluctant to blog about the mundane events of my life. I feel like one of those "petty men" whom Cassius described. Come to think of it, he could have been talking about Rupert Murdoch, couldn't he? Picture Ed Miliband as Cassius and David Cameron as Brutus, in PMQs:

Artist's impression of the Colossus
of Rhodes

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of the fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings." The interesting question is whether any of our politicians is willing to sever their links with the Colossus, and inflict "the unkindest cut of all". Of course their problem is what happened to Brutus and Cassius!

And, by the way, there was a good and thoughtful comment in Friday Night Theology headlined "How can I plan a holiday, now I know about this tragedy?" Helpful and worth a read.

However, I'm not a political blogger (much!), so back to my week. It's been busy, but my big event was being interviewed and filmed by Kirsty Hemming from BBC West. She's a producer for Inside Out West and is working on a programme to go out in the autumn at about the time Lord Falconer's "commission" brings out its "conclusions". She came here to see us on Thursday. She was very nice - but then good interviewers are! They need to set you at your ease.

Well, she interviewed me in the conservatory for about half an hour, and then we took her to have lunch at my favourite coffee shop, Cornerstone, where she did a bit more filming. In the event very little of the tape will appear in the final programme, of course. Editing is the creative part of filming, which of course allows the editor to put a slant on the film. I suspect, however, that Kirsty will maintain a fair balance. On Monday we're off for another session of filming, with Tony Nicklinson, who has locked-in syndrome and wants the law on ending your life to be changed. He has to communicate using his computer. The idea is for us to discuss the pros and cons. I suspect that won't be easy in any way. But I hope we get on all right.

A medical day

2011-07-06T11:31:00.002+01:00

"You're having a very medical day," Jane told me on Monday. It was true: Lesley, my physio, was round in the morning for her regular check-up. I reckon she and Jane are part of the reason that my condition has not deteriorated more, them and the fact that it's that rare beast PLS - and a lot of people praying. She tells me my main problem is tightness in my adductor muscles and shortness in my hamstrings. She came up with a canny antidote to the former, which is sitting with a tightly rolled up sleeping bag between my knees - which forces them to stay apart. There's no hope of me becoming bow-legged like my revered Clifton art teacher, "Fluffy" (because of his hair) Leadbetter. He was the scourge of any cyclists who dared ride past the teaching block which housed the art school on its second floor. You were meant to get off at the gate but it was a long way to the bike sheds.... So it was tempting to risk it and stay on your bike, or at least scoot, round the corner! However, if Fluffy was in his lair, woe betide you! You'd hear a Scottish roar from on high, rooting you to the spot, followed by a thundering descent down the metal fire escape at the end of the building. I don't recall what the sanction was, but the ensuing encounter was terrifying enough.

As I say, I won't ever have knees you could fly a spitfire through, but the adductors might stop tightening. The consultant has warned/encouraged me that Jane and I probably have a long haul ahead of us; so everything that keeps me flexible is welcome. So are gizmos that make life easier - which is why my second visitor came. It was Martin from the Oxford Centre of Enablement. He came to talk about environmental control systems, i.e. technology to assist with daily living - like controlling the TV, turning lights on and off, closing curtains, summoning the lift, answering the phone and opening the door. The major need of those for me at the moment is answering and opening the door, because on the whole Jane and I have worked out a satisfactory modus operandi, which means I get on fine when she's out for some hours. However, the MND Centre tries to keep ahead of patients' deterioration, which is usually very fast. It's therefore normally hard to keep up. The system we talked about could be controlled from an iPad or iPod Touch - which was nifty - but I think had a few snags, like needing someone from the company to come and reprogramme things when you wanted to change something. So we're thinking on it. But it's another great service from the NHS.

Sadly I'm going to have to avail myself of the Health Service yet again, because, in the middle of lunch, eating a slice of home-baked bread and cheese, another tooth decided it had had enough and lost its head, i.e. the top fell off. So in a couple of weeks it's back to my nice dentist. One of my family, who's not with the NHS, is in the middle of root-canal treatment, at the cost of £450.

And of course that was like the big story of the day, the publication of the report of the Dilnot Commission. I've not read it through as I'd like to, but I gather it's factually and economically highly literate and its conclusions seem to me, at least, fair and affordable, protecting 2/3 of oldies' capital against care costs and adding no more than 1/400th GDP to public spending. As Andrew said, 'If we're not willing to spend that on caring for our elderly and younger vulnerable people, what does that say about our society?' - only more eloquently than that. Two things struck me about the news coverage of the report: one was the extraordinary authority that Andrew showed in interviews and debates. He knew it was a good report, based on sound principles. He knew he had a good "product". The other was the almost universal welcome the report received, especially from charities representing interested parties, but also from politicians (though naturally government ministers wanted a bit of wriggle room, promising us a white paper "in the spring"). The one dissenting voice I heard was from a Dr Patrick Nolan (if I remember right), an economist from the right-wing think-tank, Reform, on Channel 4, who waffled about affordability in financially straitened times, ignoring the facts that we'd spend less on it than on the Libyan expedition and that its implementation would not happen before our hoped-for economic recovery. In my view, the Commission was a job well done.

A plaudit and postscripts

2011-07-02T13:23:00.000+01:00

If for nothing else, one has to give Mr Cameron and his government credit for tackling some of the hottest potatoes that have been cooking for decades, like the pensions problem, the benefit system and the social care time-bomb, and of course end of life care. You may not agree with their exact approach to dealing with the financial crisis (I don't think I do), but without doubt they haven't ducked the task of deficit reduction. Of course commissioning reports isn't the same as tackling the problems. I suppose the acid test will be the extent to which they act on the various reports they've received. Will they follow them up as rigorously as they've laid in to cutting public expenditure? There is naturally a lot of political debate ahead, but I honestly hope that, while he listens, Mr Cameron isn't persuaded to let the grass grow up around these issues yet again.

I'm sad to learn that the Witney Town Council has not allowed the charity LIFE to hold a rally to celebrate its 40th anniversary in the Leys. There's been a bit of a hoo-ha about it, as you can discover in the delightfully reactionary Archbishop Cranmer's blog.

In what I hope will be my last word on Terry Pratchett's BBC programme about "Dingitas", I was a bit shocked to be alerted on Facebook to a news item in the Daily Mail. I did describe the programme as "creative" in the Guardian, but I hadn't realised just how creative it had been. The death of the young man with MS, Andrew Colgan, wasn't shown. What we did see was Sir Terry and his assistant back at their hotel playing Elgar's Nimrod variation and toasting him at the moment of his dying. In What the BBC didn't reveal his brother tells how his dying took 90 rather than the usual 20 minutes to take place.
"My mother cuddled him for the first 40 minutes but she was advised to let him go because knowing she was there may have caused him to cling to life. She did so with tears in her eyes." The implication would seem to be that either Sir Terry was toasting his brave demise prematurely, or that the filming was - well - creative. Whichever, the BBC were, let's say, selective with the truth, as the impression was given of a normal Dignitas "dignified" death.

Good morning!

2011-07-01T12:59:00.001+01:00

When Jane pulled back the curtains this morning, I looked out on a clear blue sky and the houses over the road lit up by sunshine.

When I turned on the radio, there was an item about the report on end of life care provision by the CEO of Marie Curie Cancer Care, Thomas Hughes-Hallett. He was talking about it at 7.10, and then, an hour later, there was a discussion about it with Care Services Minister, Paul Burstow, and the palliative care consultant at St Thomas' and Guy's hospitals, Rob George, introduced by a clip of Tony Bonser, describing his son, Neil's death at his home, "He died peacefully, where he wanted to be" - thanks to a Macmillan nurse's intervention, asking the right question at the right time. It was a brilliant example of how dying can be managed well - so different from the many scare stories that are peddled too often. You can hear it half way down this article. The report seems to be saying that more widely available palliative care at home and in hospices would actually save on hospital budgets and therefore not cost the NHS more. Refreshingly, the minister welcomed the government-commissioned report without reservation; unsurprisingly he wouldn't be acting on it straightaway - examining implications, pilot projects etc. But it was good to hear something really positive about end of life care.

Perhaps the most encouraging point in the Today programme was the very end when John Humphrys said: "Just before we close, we've had a huge response to our item on palliative care, the care of people who are dying... very warm praise from an awful lot of listeners for Tony Bonser who spoke so passionately and with such dignity about the death of his own son, who was terrified of hospitals and did eventually, in fact, die at home. One email in particular caught our attention, Marian Nash whose father died just on Sunday. She arrived at the care home just as they were calling the ambulance, even though he would not have wanted to go to the hospital, and in the end she says, 'she fought her corner' and he died at home. She says he had a beautiful death surrounded by two of his children and with his favourite music playing in the background. 'I dread to think what his end would have been in hospital.' And that's what so many people have been saying. And every single email we've had,... from people who've had experience of hospices , says how wonderful they have been and how great care workers have been at home." Maybe the BBC is learning to give the silent majority its voice - or maybe the silent majority is finding its voice.

That wasn't all. The Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, a good argument for Judaism, was giving Thought for the Day. He was reflecting on the prevailing mood of pessimism and on actually how blessed we are. We may be preoccupied with cut-backs and pensions, but in a global and historical perspective (he mentioned his parents and grandparents who, I guess, were in mid 20th century Europe) "The lot has fallen to me in a pleasant place," he quoted from the Psalms, "I have a goodly heritage." Amen, that's true.

A couple of hours later I was reminded of the Burmese pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who gave the first of this year's Reith lectures on Tuesday morning. What a brave woman! 21 years under house arrest, refusing to leave Burma for fear of not being let back in - even at the cost of seeing her two sons and not being able to see her dying husband. We take so much for granted, and we gripe about such insignificant things.

What the doctors think

2011-06-30T12:41:00.002+01:00

The British Medical Association is holding its annual representatives' meeting in Cardiff this week. This morning they discussed Motion 305

"That this Meeting:-

i) notes that the significant majority of members of Lord Falconer’s Commission on Assisted Dying are publically in favour of assisted suicide and euthanasia;
ii) supports the BMA’s stance in not giving evidence to the DEMOS Commission on Assisted Dying;
iii) questions the stated impartiality and independence of the Commission on Assisted Dying;
iv) requests the BMA Ethics Committee to make the Association’s opposition to assisted suicide and euthanasia clear to the Commission on Assisted Dying;
v) requests the BMJ editorial team to present a balanced and unbiased coverage of the Commission on Assisted Dying."

All five parts were passed by a clear majority on a show of hands. It seems I'm not alone in my opinion of the Falconer "commission". Next week I'm due to try to explain my reasons to BBC TV West. Peter Saunder's blog will give you a full account of the background and implications.

You'll be surprised, perhaps, to know that the BBC haven't yet reported this, though they did headline the doctors' opposition to changing the clocks to double summertime. I probably don't need to comment further.

In order to be even-handed though, I did think that Evan Davis on the Today Programme give Cabinet Minister, Francis Maude, an appropriately rigorous cross-examination about public service pensions (2 hrs 11 min in), pointing out that the annual cost of them was set to decrease by 25% in the next few decades. The minister seemed not to have been as well briefed as he might have been.

Thought for today

2011-06-29T18:33:00.001+01:00

I was really struck by this comment today from a friend of mine with a nasty neurological condition: "I do not know all the answers but I personally look forward to the end, but I am quite happy to let God make that decision. My husband likes looking after me as do lots of people, and I would feel I would be kicking them in the teeth if I were to take away their choice." Now that's impressive selflessness.

For a view of the Dingitas factory different from the one we normally see, I recommend this article from the Mail, A daughter watches her mother die. Karen Royle talks about the devastating effects of her mother, Rona's assisted suicide. She had MND and wanted the quick exit for herself, but it left her husband utterly lost and her family shattered. 'Compared with Mum, Dad had the better death, without a doubt,’ says Karen. 'Although his body was riddled with cancer, he died peacefully at home with us.'

You can see what my friend means.

Welsh reflections

2011-06-27T21:42:00.002+01:00

When we arrived at Pen y Banc, I had mental energy for little else than sleeping, watching TV and thinking. I'm not a natural meditator, though clearly MND does force you to sit and stare, as the poet half-recommends.

So here are some reflections from last week.

Early (for me, i.e. 9.30 am) on Sunday we went to St Dingat's Church in Llandovery. Dingat I learn was one of the 36 offspring of Brychan, Irish chieftain and saint, of the sixth century. Well, there were a good deal more than 36 in the congregation. Just as we pulled up outside, a couple of minibuses from, I think, Coleg Elidyr, the local Camphill Residential Special Needs School, were disembarking their passengers. The service wasn't particularly inspiring, the music wasn't especially good, the liturgy was the same as ever, the sermon was comprehensible and straightforward (memorably telling us that academic scepticism about the Trinity was "a load of rubbish"). And yet it was probably the time when I have been most aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit in a church service. I was reflecting on why this should be so, and my conclusion was, "Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it unto me." The welcoming acceptance of those we tend to exclude from polite society was the reason for Jesus' presence.

I recall listening the Dream Center's Youth Pastor speaking at Kingdom Faith in the mid '90s about the vision that led the Barnetts to that remarkable church in downtown Los Angeles. On the website it says, "The vision was birthed out of the fact that in 1994, Pastors Matthew and Tommy Barnett came to Los Angeles with the intention of building a church. They found that they first had to address the physical needs of this impoverished community." My memory is the vision was expressed in dialogue form: "Jesus, we want to build a church where you are present." The Lord, "Bring in the poor, the marginalised and the outcasts - I love their company and I'll be there."

I've mentioned before the joys of the Beamer Tramper - the cross-country disabled buggy. We first came across it at Pembrey Country Park near Llanelli, and we went back there on Thursday. Blue-badge holders can book it free of charge. It allowed us to go for a really good walk together, which is a real treat.

We made it up to the view point looking over to the Gower Peninsular, passing en route the hugest specimens of the blue wild flower, Viper's Bugloss, I've ever seen. From the wonders of nature to the perversity of humans. Once we were up there there was a puzzling spectacle below us. Men in orange visijackets and black and green bundles were spread out below us on the grass and dunes. As we came down we discovered more. It was the debris of a student event, we were told. 70 people had been working since Monday clearing up. They still had some way to go by the look of it. The ground had apparently been covered.

When we reached the information centre, however, we were told it had been a good occasion. I gather it's not dissimilar to Glastonbury after the festival. Both fun and creative events, both leaving a lot of rubbish. I suppose there are some similarities in the natural world, such as vultures and dung beetles. We live in an interdependent world. But surely we can do a bit better than just abandoning our detritus indiscriminately behind us? We're not merely animals.

Home sweet home

2011-06-26T20:37:00.003+01:00

We're just back from a great week near Llandovery in mid-Camarthenshire. It's where we've been before - well off the beaten track, a single-storey building attached to a 200-year old Welsh farmhouse, with lovely views over the River Towy to the Black Mountain. Being Wales the joy of the view is that it constantly changes, sometimes shrouded in rain, sometimes stunningly clear, and of course changing with the time of day.

However what's best about Pen y Banc is the amazing garden which surrounds it, created by Kenneth and Gill over the past twenty years. I reckon it ranks in its small way with the best of the great gardens like Aberglasney nearby. Sadly I can't get round it, but Jane enjoys it and takes photos so that I can see what I'm missing! Here are some pictures.

And yet, in spite of everything, it's good to be home again - and that's not because I've missed the internet! Far from it! I can't imagine being at the beck and call of a bleeping Blackberry all day every day. What a nightmare! I think they should be called Brambles - you don't want to get caught up with one.

WHO-ay!

2011-06-18T11:45:00.000+01:00

We spent a very interesting afternoon yesterday with our curate. I was going to say he clearly keeps ungodly hours as he sent me a message when I'm tucked up and snoozing peacefully, but then I remembered that he's in church each morning to say Morning Prayer at 7.30. So I suspect it's me who keeps an ungodly timetable, and he's got the godly schedule!

Anyway, he pointed me to the World Health Organisations Guidelines for Media Professionals Guidelines for Media Professionals on the portrayal and reporting of suicide, which ends: "There is an obligation on media professionals to exercise caution in reporting suicide, and to balance imperatives like the public’s ‘right to know’ against the risk of causing harm."

Its bullet point summary is:

• Take the opportunity to educate the public about suicide

• Avoid language which sensationalizes or normalizes suicide, or presents it as a solution to problems

• Avoid prominent placement and undue repetition of stories about suicide

• Avoid explicit description of the method used in a completed or attempted suicide

• Avoid providing detailed information about the site of a completed or attempted suicide

• Word headlines carefully

• Exercise caution in using photographs or video footage

• Take particular care in reporting celebrity suicides

• Show due consideration for people bereaved by suicide

• Provide information about where to seek help

• Recognize that media professionals themselves may be affected by stories about suicide.

The report warns against the copycat danger of media reporting of suicide, which is well researched and accepted, especially with high profile stories. The WHO resource is well worth reading. I've no doubt that the BBC were aware of it; I'm sure Dignity in Dying (the old Voluntary Euthanasia Society) knows it very well. No doubt it's one reason they assiduously avoid the term "assisted suicide". But if Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die on Monday made one thing clear, it was that we were watching a suicide, not the double-effect of pain relief administered by a doctor for a terminally ill patient near death.

On a brighter note, today we've heard that our great friends in Australia have had their first baby, a boy. Mum is disabled, but full of the joy of life. Congratulations! Happy Birthday, Jacob!

The law of the jungle

2011-06-16T17:58:00.003+01:00

Here I am sitting in Cornerstone (my favourite coffee shop), enjoying a peaceful cup of coffee. I've just put up on its Facebook page pictures taken at Tuesday's friendly AGM. And now I've noticed on Peter Saunders' blog that the BBC is putting out another programme this coming Tuesday about patients in a permanent vegetative state, and my heart sank, especially when I read how it's billed: "There are thought to be as many as 5000 such people in the UK. The working party will look at concerns that assessment and diagnosis of patients is not consistent across the country and will ask whether the cost of long term care is affordable to the NHS. Ann Alexander examines calls for a reform of the process to end the life of such patients where their families believe their loved one would no longer wish to be alive. The programme reveals how some hospitals appear unaware of the law and hears how the process can be lengthy and costly, putting families under further strain"(Peter's italics). As Peter comments, the old specious euphemisms. (There was rather a witty Mac cartoon in The Telegraph on the subject.)

You can see the way the argument's running. This Monday it was, "Individuals should be allowed to choose when they die (only when their lives are unbearable, of course)." Next Tuesday it will be, "Oh yes, and did we forget to mention those who can't choose? Can we afford them? No. They're very expensive to keep. So let's put them down." The argument flows from choice to non-choice so easily, from patient's decision to family's wish so seductively. "Surely they have no quality of life?" You may remember this was something I touched on in Chapter 21 of I Choose Everything, "Compassion costs":

"With the discovery that we can have some form of communication with some patients in a persistent vegetative state (deep and long-lasting unconsciousness), one of the first questions journalists asked was whether that meant one could get an answer to the question, ‘Do you want to go on living?’ They expected, I think, to be told No, and that this would solve the dilemma of keeping comatose patients expensively alive, but the surprising truth they heard was that the vast majority of ‘locked-in’ patients (perhaps the nearest one can get to a conscious vegetative state) want to stay alive. Contrary to the account in the film, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who authored The Diving Bell and the Butterfly merely by a movement of an eyelid, did not ask for his life to be ended. Just down the road from where we once lived, in Stepping Hill Hospital is a 26-year old mother locked in her body, Michelle Wheatley, who steadfastly wants to live. There is, it seems, a deep-seated instinct to stay alive, and actually to keep alive. We don’t naturally stand and do nothing when someone tries to jump under a train. Something tells us that life is precious. We know it’s good to be alive, even when it’s hard. We value life, rightly."

Who's next? I wonder. The senile who can no longer express themselves at all? Can we afford their care costs? "No doubt they'd rather be dead." I'm sure the Radio 4 programme will have people claiming that ending the lives of deeply comatose patients is only compassionate. But I'm afraid it's not compassion. It's economics, and it's the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest.

I reflected on Monday on the irony of Choosing to Die immediately following Springwatch. The latter is presented by jolly, jocular personalities, full of the joys of spring and new life; the former by the saturnine Mr Pratchett, presiding with melancholy solemnity over death. Where's the link? I thought. Then I remembered the pictures of the young buzzards and barn owls who consumed their weaker siblings. "It's the way of things," Chris Packham explains in lugubrious tones. "They have to survive, when their normal food runs short or when the owls can't hunt because of the rain." It's the law of the jungle, but not the law of community. We don't live in the jungle - do we? Individualism brings death; community brings life. And the law of community is love.

Compassion isn't feeling sorry for someone or yourself;
it's staying with them through their suffering to the very end.