Editing...

Is not my favourite task, for one thing I can't do it onscreen as I usually need to refer back and forth - and yes, I do know I can use the 'Find' or 'Go To' menu - so I end up printing it all out and then doing the red pen. The other trick is that you need to read the thing backwards - that way you aren't reading the story/text in sequence and spot all the repetitions and grammar errors. That's the theory anyway...

It's still hard work and time consuming. But, on a rainy day, it's a good break from my German Übungs ...

Conference on Islam in Germany

I am fascinated and annoyed by the current conference on the position of Islam in Germany currently underway in Bavaria. All the usual demands for "equity" with Christianity and "recognition of the 'right' to special treatment" are on the table. One political Party has, apparently withdrawn from the conference already.

I'm irritated by these demands and by the usual spineless crew of godless politicians who know so little about their own heritage and faith that they fail utterly to see the traps they are laying for the future every time they make some concession to those 'representing' the Islamic case. Where are the demands that Christianity be given equal status with Islam in Turkey, Albania and Kosovo? What about Syria, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia where practicing Christianity in 'public' - which can be your own home in the presence of a Muslim! - is a capital offence?

I am perfectly happy for those who follow Islam to be permitted to do so. What I am not happy about is the removal of Gideon's Bibles from hotel rooms, the banning of Christian symbols and even the discussion around dropping or renaming the Holocaust Memorial Day because the Islamic Leadership don't approve of it.

- Islam has declared that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is "Blasphemy." Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Sharia Law...

- Pakistan has a 'Blasphemy' Law that is regularly used to dispossess Christians of property and land, several have recently been stoned to death for supposed 'blasphemy' at the behest of Mullahs. Where is the Western politician demanding a cessation?

- Islam teaches that Christians are followers of a 'false' Faith, though their Prophet describes Christians and Jews as "People of the Book" - yet Christian Churches are now regularly attacked, worship prevented or disrupted and worshipers beaten and murdered - but western politicians say and do nothing.

- Christians may not hold positions of 'authority' over Muslims in almost every 'Muslim' country, yet in the UK, Islam is now being promoted as a 'truer religion' than Christianity and Muslims are being promoted ever higher in Government posts over Christians, Agnostics and Atheists alike.

- Turkey closed the last Seminary for the Armenian and Orthodox Churches in Turkey 40 years ago - and passed a law that only a 'native born' Turk may be the Patriarch. He must also have been trained in Turkey. The present Patriarch is likely to be the last, unless this law is changed.

It is time to insist on ground rules that are the same for everyone. If Islam wants to be accepted and allowed the freedoms of the west, then it must be compelled to grant them in the lands it dominates. There must be no compromise on this.

Carbon Free?

All the media and political hype and spin about CO2 has driven a lot of angry and intelligent people in to looking up the truth about CO2. One thing I noticed recently is that the politicians, Greenpeace, Fiends of the Earth and the rest of the fraudulent coterie promoting 'Green Tax' or 'Carbon Tax' and 'Carbon Trading' no longer refer to CO2 as Carbon Dioxide, but have morphed it into 'Carbon' and waffle on about a 'Carbon Free Future' or a Carbon Free Environment.

This just about does it as far as I am concerned. A 'Carbon Free' future is pure, unadulterated sewage. As any biologist or Organic Chemist will tell you, every living thing is Carbon Based. We breathe out CO2 every time we exhale - but it is still only 4% of what we exhale and that, in any given volume we occupy is so swiftly dissipated that you could just about measure it. So I'm making no apologies for posting this rant from Australia, where the people are waking up and starting to reject all the hype and pseudo science bandied about in the media and by the politicians and their 'Greenie' puppeteers.

Finally!!! Someone telling it like it is. We all need to learn about facts from Qualified people and that does not include POLITICIANS!!

What do you reckon about this?

All of you out there across the globe who have fought so hard to tackle the hideous enemy of our planet, namely carbon emissions, you know .......that bogus god you worship of "Climate Change" or "Global Warming"......well, I feel it is necessary to inform you of some bad news. It really does pain me to have to bring you this disappointing information.

Are you sitting down?

Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you.

Of course you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress - it's that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesise into oxygen for us humans and all animal life.

I know, I know.... (group hug)...it's very disheartening to realise that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of: driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of Bali, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your $1 light bulbs with $10 light bulbs ....well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes - FOUR DAYS ONLY by that volcano in Iceland, has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud any one time - EVERY DAY.

Oh, I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in its entire 40 MILLION YEARS on earth. Yes folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over one year - think about it.

Of course I shouldn't spoil this touchy-feely tree-hugging moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognised 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keep happening, despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.

I'm so sorry. And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate all your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year?.

Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you on the basis of the bogus "human-caused" climate change scenario. No mention of a Tax on all the emissions caused by Prescribed Bush Fire Burning?

The Prescribed forest burning in Victoria alone puts more c02 into the atmosphere that all power generation in Australia in one year?

Hey, isn't it interesting how they don't mention "Global Warming" any more, but just "Climate Change" - you know why? It's because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bullshit artists got caught with their pants down.

And just keep in mind that now the same government is in control, you will have an Emissions Trading Scheme - that whopping new tax - imposed on you, that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer. It won't stop any volcanoes from erupting, that's for sure!

Please pass this on so’ everyone can know the truth on the “Global Warming - Climate Change” CON by Governments to introduce a new TAX

Elections ...

The elections yesterday have certainly proved interesting. I'm not speaking of the outcome, that was pretty clearly going to deliver some changes, what I don't think the main parties here welcomed was the "Green Bounce" I suspect the fear and uncertainlty the nuclear disaster in Japan has induced.

It was a very interesting experience for me, as a first time voter in the German system - yes, as an EU citizen I have a vote in the local elections, more than one as it turns out. I found myself wrestling with several ballot papers, one of which was as large as a Bradsheet newspaper. On this one I had a choice to make for 61 candidates from six Parties and a group of Independents. While this may sound a ridiculously large number of votes to those used to the One Cross and first past the post system in the UK, the Germans actually prepare you pretty well for it. A dummy ballot paper was sent to me four weeks ago and the various Parties all sent their candidate biographies and their manifesto outlines well in advance so I went into the Polling Station actually with a fairly good idea of who I would be voting for.

A second large ballot paper also had the several parties candidates in columns, and on this one I had to select 45 candidates - again with a good idea of who I wanted and why. Another, for the local Community Council was much simpler and again I had a wide choice against which to make five crosses.

OK, it took me a while to fill in my forms, but for the first time in a long while I had the feeling that I - and every other voter - was getting a chance to actually make some informed and useful choices. Under this system I can select several candidates across the parties. It isn't a case of voting for the one candidate the one party has selected, take it or leave it. Most of the Parties here have something I agree with so my choices are based on what I think the individulas standing for election might be able to contribute that will benefit the community they wish to represent.

Yes, there is still an element of ignorance and voting for one party only no matter what here, but what is absent is the lurching from left to right and back again as one Party dominates another and the ideology swings with the change. Because this system produces coalitions rather than majorities, the lurches tend to be smoothed out - and the system means that every vote actually counts, not just those who voted for the winner.

The CO2 Debate - Fact and Fantasy ...

The survey I published yesterday got the following responses from the people questioned. The initial sample was over 100 people. It was conducted in Australia (In case you were wondering) and the responses I have had from friends I sent it to confirm the original findings. I think these will astonish you ...

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

Q1. What % of the air is CO2?

Respondent’s Answers: nearly all were 20% - 40%, the highest was 75% while the lowest were 10%- 2%.

The Correct Answer: CO2 is less than a mere four 100ths of 1%! As a decimal it is 0.038%. As a fraction it is 1/27th of 1%. (Measurements for CO2 vary from one source to another from 0.036%- 0.039% due to the difficulty in measuring such a small quantity and due to changes in wind direction e.g. whether the air flow is from an industrialized region or a volcanic emission etc) Nitrogen is just over 78%, Oxygen is just under 21% and Argon is almost 1%. CO2 is a minute trace gas at 0.038%. We all learnt the composition of the air in both primary and high school but because most people don’t use science in their day to day living, they have forgotten this. Also, the vast bulk of the population have very little knowledge of science so they find it impossible to make judgements about even basic scientific issues let alone ones as complex as climate. This makes it easy for those with agendas to deceive us by using emotive statements rather than facts. For a detailed breakup of the atmosphere go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Composition

Q2. Have you seen a percentage for CO2 given in the media?

Respondent’s answers: All said ’No’.

Q3. What % of CO2 do humans produce?

Respondent’s answers ranged from as high as 100% with most estimating it to be between 75% to 25% and only four said they thought it was between 10% and 2 %.

The Correct Answer: Nature produces nearly all of it. Humans produce only 3%. As a decimal it is a miniscule 0.001% of the air. All of mankind produces only one molecule of CO2 in around every 90,000 air molecules! Yes, that’s all.

Q4. What % of man-made CO2 does Australia produce?

Respondent’s Answers ranged from 20% to 5%.

The Correct Answer is 1% of the 0.001% of man-made CO2. As a decimal it is an insignificant 0.00001% of the air. That’s one, one-hundredth thousandth of the air. That is what all the fuss is about! That’s one CO2 molecule from Australia in every 9,000,000 molecules of air. It has absolutely no affect at all.

We have been grossly misled to think there is tens of thousands of times as much CO2 as there is! Why has such important information been withheld from the public? If the public were aware that man-made CO2 is so incredibly small there would be very little belief in a climate disaster so the media would not be able to make a bonanza from years of high sales by selling doomsday stories. Governments and Green groups would not be able to justify a carbon tax that will greatly raise the cost of everything. Major international banks and the stock market would not make massive profits out of carbon trading and many in the science community would not be getting large research grants.

Q5. Is CO2 is a pollutant?

Respondent’s Answers: All thought it was a pollutant, at least to some degree.

The Correct Answer: CO2 is a harmless, trace gas. It is as necessary for life - just as oxygen and nitrogen
are. It is a natural gas that is clear, tasteless and odourless. It is in no way a pollutant.
Calling CO2 a ‘pollutant’ leads many to wrongly think of it as black, grey or white smoke. Because the media deceitfully show white or grey ‘smoke’ coming out of power station cooling towers, most think this is CO2. It is not: it’s just steam (water vapour) condensing in the air. CO2 is invisible: just breathe out and see. Look at it bubbling out of your soft drinks, beer or sparkling wine. No one considers that a pollutant - because it’s not. CO2 in its frozen state is commonly known as dry ice. It is used in camping eskys, in medical treatments and science experiments. No one considers that a pollutant either. CO2 is emitted from all plants. This ‘emission’ is not considered a pollutant even though this alone is 33 times more than man produces! Huge quantities of CO2 are dissolved naturally in the ocean and released from the warm surface. This is not considered a pollutant either.

Q6. Have you seen any evidence that CO2 causes a greenhouse effect?

Respondent’s Answers: Most did not know of any definite proof. Some said they thought the melting of the Arctic and glaciers was possibly proof.

The Correct Answer: There is no proof at all. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (the IPCC) has never produced any proof. There are, however the following proofs that it can’t cause a greenhouse effect.
• It is true that CO2 can absorb heat a little faster than nitrogen and oxygen but it becomes no hotter because it cannot absorb anymore heat than there is available to the other gases. This is against the laws of thermodynamics. All gases share their heat with the other gases. Gas molecules fly around and are constantly colliding with other gas molecules so they immediately lose any excess heat to other molecules during these collisions. That’s why the air is all one temperature in any limited volume.
• Even if CO2 levels were many times higher, radiative heating physics shows that it would make virtually no difference to temperature because it has a very limited heating ability. With CO2, the more there is, the less it heats because it quickly becomes saturated. For a detailed explanation go to: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

The following facts show that even high levels of CO2 can make almost no impact on heating the atmosphere.

1. Glasshouses with high levels of CO2 - hundreds of times higher than in the air to make plants grow faster – heat up during the day to the same temperature as glasshouses with air in them. This is also true for bottles of pure CO2 compared to ones with air.

2. The planets Venus and Mars have atmospheres that are almost entirely CO2 (97%) yet they have no ‘runaway’ greenhouse heating effect. Their temperatures are stable.

3. The geological record over hundreds of millions of years has shown that CO2 has had no affect whatsoever on climate. At times, CO2 was hundreds of times higher, yet there were ice ages.

4. In recent times when Earth was considerably warmer during the Roman Warming and the Medieval Warming, the higher temperatures then were totally natural because there was no industrialization back then.
• Water vapour is 4% of the air and that‘s 100 times as much as CO2. Water vapour absorbs 33 times as much heat as CO2 making CO2’s contribution insignificant. But like CO2, water vapour also gives this heat away to air molecules by contact (conduction) and radiation, thereby making the surrounding air the same temperature.
• The Earth’s atmosphere is very thin so its heat is continually being lost to the absolute coldness of outer space (-270 C). As there is no ‘ceiling’ to the atmosphere, surface heat cannot be retained. The Sun renews warmth every day.

Over the last few years Earth has had much colder winters due to very few magnetic storms on the Sun. These four increasingly colder winters have been particularly noticeable in the northern hemisphere where most of the land is. Because of this, the Arctic has re-frozen and glaciers that were receding are now surging due to the heavy snow falls. The Arctic showed some melting around its edges from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s due to the very high level of solar storm activity at that time. But as the Sun is now entering probably 2-4 decades of low solar activity, this is expected to cause global cooling. For more detail, see the following page.

The climate has always been naturally cyclic and variable due to numerous natural drivers of which CO2 is not one. Over millions of years the climate has shown far greater changes in the geological record than we have seen over the last 200 hundred years - and there was no industrialization back then. The very minor variations we have witnessed over the last 100 years have all occurred several times even in that short period. Today’s changes in climate are common and completely natural. There are now over 50 books that provide numerous reasons why man-made global warming is false.

The Effect of the Sun on Earth’s climate It has long been known that the Sun is by far the major driver of all weather on Earth because it is the source of all heat and energy. There is absolutely no real-world evidence that the temperature has continually risen as we were led to believe. The hottest records in the USA and Greenland were in the 1930s due to a strong solar cycle. It became cooler from 1940 to 1970. This was due to a weak solar cycle. It has again become increasingly colder since 2006 due to another weak solar cycle. The Sun’s magnetic storm activity has now moved to an extended minimum so the next 2-4 maximums are expected to be much weaker than the last few have been. By 2011 the solar cycle should have risen half way back to its 11 year maximum but it hasn’t! It’s only just started. The last time the Sun acted this way was during the Dalton Minimum from 1790 to 1830 which produced 40 years of very cold winters with subdued, wetter summers globally - just as we are expiring now. From 1450 -1750 a more intense Maunder Minimum occurred which caused the Little Ice Age. The next 2-4 solar cycles will very likely be low in solar activity causing noticeably cooler global temperatures for a few decades. For details see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/02/solar-cycle-24-update and http://www.climatechangedenier.com.au/climate-change/another-dalton-minimum/

The effect of the current Solar Minimum is particularly obvious in the northern hemisphere where increasingly colder winter temperatures have caused massive snow falls disrupting transportation across Europe, Asia and the US.

Despite more than a decade of continual doomsday predictions of increasing temperatures and never-ending drought globally, the opposite has happened. There have been lower temperatures globally with greatly increased rain and snows over much of the planet since 2006. This has caused floods across most of Australia and most other counties, as seen on the TV news. This ended the global 10 year drought conditions from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s. There has been no drop in CO2 to cause this: in fact, CO2 has risen. There is no correlation between CO2 levels and climate. The reason CO2 levels have gone up a little is most likely due to the surface of the oceans warming very slightly during the later half of the century and therefore releasing a little CO2. (The oceans are currently cooling very slightly.) Mankind’s contribution to CO2 is so small it’s not measurable.

Polls on Climate Change

Polls in western countries now show that believers in man-made global warming are now in the minority with a sizable percentage of over 20% who “don’t know” if CO2 is causing any change. The obvious change to a cooler, wetter climate combined with the revelations of climate fraud shown by the Climategate emails has led to the change in public perception. Polls asking people what is the most important threat to them out of a list of 20 issues, place global warming at the bottom!

Popular beliefs are not fact

The bulk of the population of the western world believed that the 2000 Bug would destroy much of our technology on New Year’s Eve 2000 yet not one disaster occurred anywhere. We were told CFCs caused the Ozone ‘hole’ yet after billions of dollars were spent removing CFCs over 30 years, the slight depletion of Ozone at the South Pole has not changed. Scientists now think it is natural. Popular beliefs are often based on blind faith, ideology and profit rather than proven scientific evidence. History is littered with popular consensuses that were wrong.

A Carbon Tax

Taxing CO2 achieves nothing for the environment; in fact, it deprives real environmental issues from receiving funds. A carbon tax will have a disastrous impact on lower and middle income earners. Even if drastic measures were imposed equally on all countries around the world to reduce the total human CO2 contribution by as much as 30%, this would reduce total CO2 by an insignificant percentage. It would have no affect whatsoever on the climate but it would totally destroy the economies of every country and dramatically lower everyone’s living standards. Most people and politicians are making decisions emotively, not factually about a complex science they know virtually nothing about.

Gregg D Thompson

Climate Researcher Astronomer Environmentalist
Author of two science books
Business Manager and Director of 3 companies
Author of science magazine articles
Designer and project manager of special effects attractions
Nature photographer
Has a great interest in most sciences
Loves creating innovation in art

Perhaps the most appalling aspect of what this reveals is the extent to which the media have helped to mis-inform the public and the degree to which our political classes have seized on it as a means to achieving agendas and ideological goals they could never openly declare. Public ignorance of vast swathes of important things, partly through lack of education, but largely, I think, through misdirected study and misrepresented facts many are too lazy to challenge, is astonishing. The comedy duo, Penn and Teller launched a petition in California to get their legislature to outlaw the production of "di-hydrogen oxide" and almost succeeded in getting a serious movement going to ban water - that's right - from California...

It is said we get the government we deserve. As this research has shown media hysteria and public ignorance of the facts are a recipe for political chicanery. Greenpeace, Fiends of the Earth, Earth First and WWF all promote these myths, alongside various 'Research Scientists' and other bodies as they vie for bigger and bigger slices of tax money to further their own ideological agendas - and public fear and ignorance allows them to get away with it.

CO2, Facts and Fantasies ...

I got this fascinating survey from a friend and felt it ought to be shared here. In Fact, I think it should be splashed across the blogosphere since it blows up a lot of the mythology Greenpeace and others have poisoned the climate debate with.This is a study done by a scientist, and the results are astonishing ...

How Well Has The Media And Government Informed The Public About CO2 Levels In The Air?

Ask yourself, your friends, family and work associates if they know the answers to the following questions about Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Be sure to write your answers before looking at the following pages.

Question 1. What percentage of the atmosphere do you think is CO2?

Question 2. Have you ever seen the percentage given in any media?

Question 3. What percentage of the CO2 is man-made?

Question 4. What percentage of the man-made CO2 does Australia produce?

Question 5. Is CO2 is a pollutant?

Question 6. Have you ever seen any evidence that CO2 causes a greenhouse effect?

I have asked over 100 people these questions. Virtually everyone says they don’t know the answers so ask them to tell you what their perception is by what they have learnt from the media, the government and Green groups. Let them know there is no right or wrong answer as you are just doing a survey as to what people have perceived the answers to be from these sources.
The answers to these questions are fundamental to evaluating the global warming scare YET almost no one knows the facts. However, without this knowledge we can’t make an informed decision about whether Climate Change is natural or not.
On the following pages are respondent’s perceptions followed by the correct answers. The bulk of the respondents (over 100 to date) are educated fairly well to very well. They comprise business managers in a diversity of large and small companies, those in medical profession, accounting, law, sales, engineering as well as scientists and trades people.

The answers will appear tomorrow - and I can promise that readers of this Blog will be astonished, amazed and perhaps even enraged by them...

A martyr to truth and faith ...

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the Book of Common Prayer and to a large degree, of the Church of England, was martyred outside one of the Oxford Colleges now disgraced by its Atheist Faculty, four hundred and fifty-five years ago this week. Five years ago, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Doctor +Rowan Williams, preached a sermon in Cranmer's honour. Having managed to find a transcript of the Archbishop's address, I post it here in tribute to a great man, a man who had his failings and his weaknesses, but who, in the end, showed vast courage as he died a hideous death at the hands of a Queen as fanatical as any al Quaeda terrorist ....

Cranmer lived in the middle of controversies where striking for a kill was the aim of most debaters. Now of course we must beware of misunderstanding or modernising. He was not by any stretch of the imagination a man who had no care for the truth, a man who thought that any and every expression of Christian doctrine was equally valid; he could be fierce and lucidly uncompromising when up against an opponent like Bishop Gardiner. Yet even as a controversialist he shows signs of this penitent scrupulosity in language: yes, this is the truth, this is what obedience to the Word demands - but , when we have clarified what we must on no account say, we still have to come with patience and painstaking slowness to crafting what we do say. Our task is not to lay down some overwhelmingly simple formula but to suggest and guide, to build up the structure that will lead us from this angle and that towards the one luminous reality. 'Full, perfect and sufficient' - each word to the superficial ear capable of being replaced by either of the others, yet each with its own resonance, its own direction into the mystery, and, as we gradually realise, not one of them in fact dispensable.

And in his last days, this was Cranmer's curse. If there was no easy certainty enough to kill for, was there certainty enough to die for? That habit of mind which had always circled and hovered, tested words and set them to work against each other in fruitful tension, sought to embody in words the reality of penitence and self-scrutiny, condemned him, especially in the midst of isolation, confusion, threats and seductions of spirit, to a long agony, whose end came only in this church minutes before his last hurrying, stumbling walk through the rain to the stake. It is extraordinary to think of him drafting two contradictory versions of his final public confession, still not knowing what words should sum up his struggles. But at the last, it is as if he emerges from the cloud of words heaped up in balance and argument and counterpoint, knowing almost nothing except that he cannot bring himself to lie, in the face of death and judgement. What he has to say is that he has 'written many things untrue' and that he cannot face God without admitting this. He cannot find a formula that will conceal his heart from God, and he knows that his heart is, as it has long been, given to the God whom the Reformation had let him see, the God of free grace, never bound by the works or words of men and women. Just because he faces a God who can never be captured in one set of words, a God who is transcendently holy in a way that exacts from human language the most scrupulous scepticism and the most painstaking elaboration possible, he cannot pretend that words alone will save him. 'If we deny him, he also will deny us'. He must repent and show his repentance with life as well as lips; 'forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished'.

So Cranmer draws the terrible and proper conclusion from a lifetime of skill and balance, of 'rightly dividing the word of truth': what appears bit by bit in our words about God as they are prompted and fired by the Word Incarnate is the realisation of the God who is always in excess of what can be said...

It led Cranmer - as it led so many others in that nightmare age, as it led the martyrs of our own age - Bonhoeffer, Maria Skobtsova, Janani Luwum - to something more than a contemplative silence: to a real death. When we say that the word of God is not bound, we say that death itself can be the living speech of God, as the Word was uttered once and for all in the silence at the end of Good Friday. Cranmer speaks, not only in the controlled passion of those tight balances and repetitions in his Prayer Book, but in that chilling final quarter of an hour. He ran through the downpour to the town ditch and held out his right hand, his writing hand, for a final composition, a final liturgy. And, because the word of God is not bound, it is as if that hand in the flames becomes an icon of the right hand of Majesty stretched out to us for defence and mercy.

Cranmer's 'Collects', short prayers focused on specific themes or, in his words, 'conditions of men' are masterpieces of 'poetic prose' and even today address so many of the uncertainties and stresses of our lives, they remain a constant source of inspiration. A remarkable man, in remarkable times and faced with impossible choices.

May he rest in peace, and rise in glory.