London - October 2011

Tuesday evening, 19th October, and the golden sun streams down Knightsbridge to illuminate the world-famous frontage of Harrods. I ventured inside for a wander around its ground floor Food Halls, always a place to view instead of to buy, especially at their prices, though my next-day’s foray into Fortnum & Mason showed them to be even more expensive!


Wednesday morning, 20th October, and a walk through Kensington Gardens in the chilly air. Grey squirrels scampered about foraging under the fallen leaves, ignoring the nearby walkers, cyclists and runners.


And so to the bridge across the Serpentine, and leaning over I noticed this line-up of seagulls. This is clearly a regular spot for them, for as I passed by again the following evening, the posts were once again occupied, some of the gulls observing a duck that was diving around them dredging-up tasty little snacks.


Wednesday afternoon I called in at the V&A and spent 10 minutes or so just sitting in the main sculpture hall surrounded by architectural grandness.


Thursday morning, 21st October, and as I walked through Kensington and up to marble Arch I encountered this line of Guardsmen passing Apsley House, en-route to the Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace.


By lunchtime I was at the Tate Britain and viewing the exhibition of apocalyptic paintings by the Victorian artist, John Martin. A wealth of canvas and monochrome prints, and a good audio-visual show of his last three great paintings of the End of Days.


Later in the day I walked down through St. James’s Park and got this view from the Blue Bridge – surely quintessential London.




As the sun dipped into the west I ended up at the Albert Memorial and caught the last gleam of light as it shone on the gold decoration. It also shone on something else in front of the Albert Hall, something that shouldn’t, for reasons of good taste and style, be riding a bicycle. I thought I could hear the “Boris bike” squealing …….

In all, an excellent break in the capital, but it was good to get back to the quiet of the country.

Long silence means ....

... that it's been a busy couple of weeks, with piles of paper on my desk that have needed to be dealt with, but much of which has been waiting for responses from other people before it can be taken any further.

And now I have a fortnight off ... and on this, the first day of my holiday, I have phoned the Archdeacon to arrange the Commissioning of a Benefice Elder; dealt with the Diocese over a forthcoming conference I am attending; chased up English Heritage - without whose permission I cannot submit the Faculty application to replace a trashed window in a church vestry; spoken with a church treasurer about a yew tree, a dead branch on a lime tree, changing signatories on a bank account and another account; and re-filed the list of church papers etc. that are kept in the Suffolk Records Office.

But at least my desk now looks less cluttered.


We lift them up to the Lord.

Another autumn morning

October 1st, 9.30 a.m. And the vicarage garden is a delight.

Autumn days ...

... with morning mists and unseasonably hot days ...

No Anglican Covenant

It's no secret that I am not in favour of the moves to bring in the Anglican Covenant. Maybe this post helps explain some of the reasons why.

I think I've died ...

... and gone to heaven ....

I've just found this page with the Penguin SF covers .....

I need to go back to my shelves and look at what I've got!

Another cover

In response to the comment in the previous post, I have delved into my bookshelves and found my copy of "The Wind from Nowehre" by J G Ballard, and as I expected, the cover illustration is by Alan Aldridge. The book was published in 1967, and it's a picture that screams that decade. These were the days when London's Post Office Tower was still open to visitors and the revolving restaurant at the top still operational. London, Paris and New York are all graphically represented here, with the boiling sea reminiscent of the 19th centuiry woodcut "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" by the Japanese artist Hokusai. Since I first saw this book cover I've loved the image, and it was partly why I bought the book in the first place.

Carl Wilton - book artist

I have recently been looking at the work of Carl Wilton who was a cover artist for Pan and Great Pan paperbacks in the 1950's, especially his illustrations for their series of WWII memoirs. I find them very evocative images, and I have now posted up a page showing the volumes that I own. More will be added as I discover (and buy) them!

Carl Wilton

Back to the usual

A week off duty ... and so ..

No rest for the earth

We haven't started our Harvest festival services yet, and Plough Sunday is not until January !!!!

Off the boil

I haven't ventured into public print with my rant. Instead what is needed is clearer written directions for those wanting to celebrate their marriages in our Benefice churches as to what they may and may not do in regard to moving furniture, hassocks, seat cushions, lecterns, bibles, small wall pictures, bookcases, carpets, tables and large calor gas heaters and accompanying bottles, to make the place "look nice".

The kettle's boiling

I'm building up to a rant ..... which may well be dissipated by the time I come to write the "Tailpiece" for our September Benefice magazine.

And then again it may not ......

It's on the cards

Have been to a rather spiffing Postcrad Fair today over at Godmanchester, near Huntingdon. Spent much less than I anticipated, so that made the day even better!

It's alive

My main PC is back, and having uploaded over 238 Windows updates (aaagh!) it's still running. All that was changed was the SATA cable. We keep fingers and other limbs crossed.......

Lammas Sunday

The First Sunday of August and the opportunity to celebrate the agriculturl feast of Lammas - not to be confused with the Wiccan or New Age variety. The morning services will include a blessing of bread, and be followed by a bread and cheese lunch here at the Parsonage. Three different types of bread and about seven varities of cheese, plus chutney. Mmmmmmmnn.

Immaculate? I think not.

The new hard disk is installed and it's all restored to factory settings.

It would be even better if it had solved the problem of the intermittent loss of display and response from the pc itself, but shortly after it had started running there was a click and the whole system crashed again.

The choice of culprit seems to be narrowing down to a fault on the motherboard.

And that requires a trip to someone with a more professional computer knowledge.

Feast of the nativity

A new hard drive is installed, and is presently being uploaded with the "Restore to factory settings" disk.

We have yet to see if the infant lives and breathes and starts to run about.

Ad mortem

It's not the graphics card ......

....


....


It's the hard drive.

Death is black

My main computer is now in the process of being "rebuilt" after having re-set it to the original factory settings. These contain a lot of dross that is unwanted, time-limited demo programs which were never used, and old versions of those I need, and which have all had to be updated and re-registered. There were also over 130 important Microsoft updates to download and install.

Which should mean that all is getting back to normal.

Except ....

I think the graphics card is now falling over. Every so often the monitor goes black and I can't see a thing. The computer is whirring away as it should but there is just no visual output. I've tried another monitor and this has the same result. I've taken the graphics card out and blown off the dust, but it's still happening, with no warning, and with no pattern. Last night it worked fine for 5 hours until shut-down. This morning on boot-up it died immediately I logged on. Re-booting and it's working at the moment .....

Ho hum.

Major meltdown

A major crash on my main study computer has meant that I have had to restore it to the Factory Settings. Fortunately most of my files are stored on a separate drive and have remained intact. However some minor stuff has been lost, and I shall now have to re-install numerous programs and shortcuts. You can guess what I shall be doing most of tomorrow!

Dirty mac time

I came across this picture on the net which stirred memories. As I grew up in the eastern end of Brighton "The Continentale" cinema changed from showing "normal" films to those frequented by gentlemen in long raincoats, usually for the matinee showing. I went and saw the brilliant film "If" there soon after it first came out in 1968, but even by then this was a rare mainstream film to be screened in this establishment.


It was only a small cinema, and I seem to recall that the balcony was just 6 or 7 rows of seats deep. It was certainly intimate - in more ways than one. I often wish I had managed to get hold of the poster that advertised "The sexual adventures of Noddy" about this same time. (That's one title that hasn't made it onto the Internet Movie Database!)

If you stood in the side street and sheltered in the corrugated iron back porch, you could clearly hear the soundtrack of whatever film was showing, though with some of them there was precious little dialogue. It was a convenient place to stand and eat fishcake and chips from "Tony's" just down the road.

Happy days.

Thank you, Fraser

According to an article in today's "Guardian" which has been widely blogged, the Church of England is doomed since in 20 years time the ageing congregations will have died off and there'll be two little old ladies, a decrepit priest and an altar boy left.

What a load of tosh. When I was growing up in a poorly-attended Brighton church in the late 1950's and early 60's the cry was exactly the same. There were perhaps 10 of us youngsters in the choir and maybe another 2 in the congregation. Normal Sunday attendance was about 15 people in a church seating 1,500.

All these years later that church is well-supported with a mix of ages, and apart from one person, none of those former young choristers attend that particular place of worship. So the congregation of the future cannot be said to be dependent on the young congregation of today. In fact over my 27 years of ministry in the Church of England I've seen more people return to the church after a pastoral contact than I have due to involvement as a child.

Adults return following the baptism of their children, marriage, or death of a loved one. They come seeking connection with the holy, the numinous, the cloud of unknowing. They might arrive with some childhood knowledge of what we do, but it's not the reason they return.

So in 20 years I expect the make-up of our churches to be fairly similar to what they are now, for the Holy Spirit will continue to work in the lives of people as they reach a point of need. And that point is when they need the church, not when the church needs them.
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More from the V&A

Crucifixion, Resurrection, BVM, and St Margaret of Antioch.

The shin bone's connected to the ....

This last week I spent a couple of days down in London in order to visit this current exhibition at the British Museum.


It was well worth seeing, and if there are still indulgences to be obtained from viewing relics of the saints, then I must have gained a few more years off purgatory.

The reliquaries were mostly magnificent, and the exhibition was well laid out, taking you on a time-line from early Roman memorials through to the Reformation and beyond. There were numerous rock-crystal containers and gems each holding from one to several relics, some of which it was reasonable to suppose that they were the genuine article, such as skull fragments from Thomas Becket, as history records that such mementos were taken by the monks before his burial. Others though needed faith strong enough to move mountains, such as a hair from the Virgin Mary (her head, one is led to believe) or a shred of Christ's umbilical cord. And there were enough fragments of the True Cross to construct a small matchbox, as well as several thorns from the crown of thorns.

The same day was highly educational, for not only did I see this exhibition but I also called in at the Sir John Soane Museum in Lincoln Inn Fields.


This Regency collector was a hoarder of all things architectural, and the three adjoining houses in the square flow into each other in a warren of rooms filled with cornices and carvings.


In his Picture Room the wall panels are hinged so that more paintings can be displayed behind, and hidden from sight are two series of Hogarth oils, "An Election" and the better-known "Rake's Progress".


On the end wall are three paintings by Canaletto who must be one of my favourite artists, and it was a treat to be able to get up so close to the main picture of St. Mark's Square in Venice and see exactly how he created his figures with just small blobs of colours.

It's a truly unique place, but Soane must have been hell to live with. Perhaps it's no surprise that neither of his sons grew up to be supportive of his mania.

I also made another trip to the Victoria & Albert Museum to look at their new gallery of religious architecture and altar pieces. There are some magnificent examples here, and I was able to freely use my camera.





Then as I waited for my train at Liverpool Street Station I was reminded that there was an important event taking place in just a few short hours ...

The full light

This is the window of which the stonework was the gift of King Edward VII when he was still a young Prince of Wales. It was plain glass - the pictorial stained glass was given later.

Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist

"Put your hand there! He's kicking!"

(Part of the east window of our only Benefice church dedicated to John the Baptist)

Feast of Corpus Christi

That's the way to do it!

Now, where's the Benefice umbrellino?

I want some!

It will go with my white and gold chasuble as designed by Slabbinck for the visit of Pope to Belgium in May 1985.

My birthday is August 3rd !

Head in the clouds

On looking out of the window late on Sunday evening.

Hello Pot, meet Kettle.

Writing in the New Statesman, the archbishop of Canterbury has issued a broadside against the coalition government, claiming it is forcing through "radical policies for which no one voted".

Hmmm, a bit like the Anglican Covenant then? That's something to which he is dedicated forcing upon the Anglcan Communion whether we want it or not, and with no proper opportunity for the bums on the seats to actually make their voices heard. Note also that he occupies a position also for which no person voted.

I never realised before that part of the enthronement process of the Archbishop of Canterbury was the stapling onto his head of a huge pair of blinkers.

God is a donut?

A "friend" in Germany sent me this link. Pass the bucket, I think I'm going to be very very ill. (Apparently this young lad is now an attorney!)

Oh dear .....

On the Six o'clock BBC News this evening ....


Anyone care to buy the Children's Minister a dictionary so that she can educate whoever put up that display behind her?
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On the 50th anniversary ...

On Memorial Day 1994 I was fortunate enough to be part of a group from Beaminster in Dorset to attend the 50th anniversary celebrations of the D-Day landings at the town of St. James in Normandy. Beaminster and St. James were "twinned", and as a Team Vicar in that parish I was asked to be the church's representative at the event.

The main Act of Remembrance took place at the large American War Cemetery just outside St. James, and being the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the celebrations were somewhat more elaborate than usual.


One of the most telling moments was seeing a local schoolchild standing by each war grave, and who then planted small national flags in front of each stone, both the American Stars and Stripes and the French Tricoleur. Seventeen years on, all those children will now be older than many of those whom they were remembering that day.

I recall it was a blazing hot day, and I sought shelter within the Memorial chapel, and from its tower I was able to get a grandstand view across the cemetery to St. James and the land beyond which had been a battleground those few short years before.


It was good to be part of this, and on this trip we not only visited some of the D-Day landing beaches and the Pegasus bridge, but also a German War cemetery which was far more sombre in mood, and brought into sharp relief the differences between the memorials of the victor and the defeated.

67 years ago .... Thank you.

Up, up and awaaaaay !

Acts of the Apostles 1: 4-12.

4. And lo, He saith unto them, Stay put in the city, something not altogether insignificant is about to happen.
5. And behold, He seemed thereafter to change his mind and led them out of the city, unto Bethany, which is an high place indeed.
6. And the disciples did nod and wink at one another exceedingly, for they knew that strange and holy things alway happened unto them in high places.
7. For, indeed, these were places of exegesis, and deep in symbolism.
8. And verily, no sooner had they got there, He raisest up his arms, and lo, he was gone.
9. And there was no whoosh. Nay, not even a flash of light.
10. And two men in white robes suddenly appeared unto them and saith:
11. "Why standeth thee here? The show is over. Depart in peace."
12. And lo, they returned to the city and diligently went straightforward unto church thinking, What an odd Thursday. Shame there weren't more people there.

The Wenchoster Bible