The wild weather of the last few days hit our usual plans for Rogation Sunday today and the intermittent downpours meant we had to be contenbt with indoor processions. Rogation Sunday is traditionally a time for remarking the bounds and praying for calls to ministry. Well, we may not have marked the boundaries, but we did pray for everyone considering a call to ministry at this time.
It has been a packed weekend all in all, with the Archdeacon's Visitation on Friday, the Diocesan Confirmation Service yesterday presided over by +John of Tewkesbury (Suffragan to the Bishop of Gloucester) and todays festivities.
And now, I must be off to Evensong. Wonderful worship and some really wonderful music to accompany it.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Moving on
Last night I formally handed over the position of Church Warden to my successor. The Archdeacon's "Visitation" saw several hundred other Church Wardens, PCC members and Sidesmen make their "Declaration" and receive the Archdeacon's Charge. Unfortunately for some as yet unknown reason, the sound system failed to make this audible to everyone present and I can only put this down to the user and operator.
The irony is that they didn't use the pulpit microphone, instead choosing to use the lapel microphone, which I suspect was clipped to his robes on the side away from the direction he addressed. If you aren't speaking more or less across the mike - it is hardly fair to blame the equipment. The second problem is that the pulpit has a different acoustic to the floor level. For one thing you are roughly ten feet above the congregation and most visitors try to "speak up' - causing the operator to lower the microphone volume, which means that the echo and the speakers fight each other. And that raises another problem - looking at the average age of those whoc complained they couldn't hear the Archdeacon, and where they were sat, I would suspect that many of them are having hearing difficulties and don't want to admit it. You learn to recognse the symptoms, that slight turning of the head so the 'good' ear is toward the speaker, the watching of the speakers lips, the lean toward the speaker and the slightly raised voice. Wish we could hand out some sort of personal earpiece as they came in ....
The battle to edumacate the users and operators continues....
The Charge apart, the service went very well indeed, superb music, some good singing and good hymns. It always fascinates me to watch a group like this in the Abbey, some are obviously intimidated by the space, some obviously love it, the evangelicals do their thing irrespective and the rest try to follow whichever tradition they think is expected in such services. OK, so that's a bit naughty, I should focus on the service and not the people.
Being Church Warden has been a bit of an education in many ways, some things I have enjoyed and some not. I don't enjoy playing the political games that some people seem to live for. It irritates me to have some individuals on any committee who have entirely their own agenda and try to run it against everyone else. Frequently, when they don't get their way, they adopt tactics intended to undermine everyone and everything they regard as standing in the way of their objectives. And sometimes it gets quite unpleasant. On the upside, having access to the Abbey's hidden spaces and having charge of its maintenance has been a huge privilege, one I will miss. As I will miss the ability to meet visitors and show them some of the little hidden things that bring the past and the builders to life.
But its time to move on, to find a new ministry I can exercise in this place. I can't believe the last four years have passed so swiftly. Tempus does indeed fugit .....
The irony is that they didn't use the pulpit microphone, instead choosing to use the lapel microphone, which I suspect was clipped to his robes on the side away from the direction he addressed. If you aren't speaking more or less across the mike - it is hardly fair to blame the equipment. The second problem is that the pulpit has a different acoustic to the floor level. For one thing you are roughly ten feet above the congregation and most visitors try to "speak up' - causing the operator to lower the microphone volume, which means that the echo and the speakers fight each other. And that raises another problem - looking at the average age of those whoc complained they couldn't hear the Archdeacon, and where they were sat, I would suspect that many of them are having hearing difficulties and don't want to admit it. You learn to recognse the symptoms, that slight turning of the head so the 'good' ear is toward the speaker, the watching of the speakers lips, the lean toward the speaker and the slightly raised voice. Wish we could hand out some sort of personal earpiece as they came in ....
The battle to edumacate the users and operators continues....
The Charge apart, the service went very well indeed, superb music, some good singing and good hymns. It always fascinates me to watch a group like this in the Abbey, some are obviously intimidated by the space, some obviously love it, the evangelicals do their thing irrespective and the rest try to follow whichever tradition they think is expected in such services. OK, so that's a bit naughty, I should focus on the service and not the people.
Being Church Warden has been a bit of an education in many ways, some things I have enjoyed and some not. I don't enjoy playing the political games that some people seem to live for. It irritates me to have some individuals on any committee who have entirely their own agenda and try to run it against everyone else. Frequently, when they don't get their way, they adopt tactics intended to undermine everyone and everything they regard as standing in the way of their objectives. And sometimes it gets quite unpleasant. On the upside, having access to the Abbey's hidden spaces and having charge of its maintenance has been a huge privilege, one I will miss. As I will miss the ability to meet visitors and show them some of the little hidden things that bring the past and the builders to life.
But its time to move on, to find a new ministry I can exercise in this place. I can't believe the last four years have passed so swiftly. Tempus does indeed fugit .....
Friday, 15 May 2009
Out of touch ....
Our politicians really have lost the plot. Westminster is now stuffed with professional politicians and their civil service stooges to the extent that they simply have no contact at all with the reality of how their machinations, taxes and perks impact on the rest of us. That much has become very obvious as each day brings new revelations from the expenses.
The supreme irony must be that the laws these same MPs have made regarding tax and the rest of us preclude us from claiming anything even approaching most of what they can. I have the HM Revenue quibbling about a docket for a £6 burger lunch taken on a motorway, yet an MP can whip though a claim for several thousand for wining and dining without batting and eye. I suppose the reason I get grilled by HMRC is that someone has to pay for the MPs expenses and the Civil Servants enormous salaries and perks. Rural England has become the retirement camp for the ex-Permanent Under Secretaries and their chums from Whitehall, one of whom is currently pursuing a a village cricket club through the courts to get them banned from playing on a cricket pitch they have used for 164 years - because he feels the risk of a cricket ball hitting him in his garden is too high. Considering that the cricketers are paying his pension along with every other worthless civil servants salary, I'd say he has a bl**dy cheek. I hope the courts send him packing.
I am pleased to see that there is a move now starting with a pressure group in favour of low taxation, to bring private prosecutions against some of the higher profile abusers of the "expenses" system in Westminster. I applaud their effort, it will at least make our so-called elected representatives sit up and take notice. But what are the odds they will now try to rush through legislation to give themselves immunity from prosecution? Pretty good I would think.
There's an election coming up soon, for the EU Parliament, just as big a drain on rescources and an even bigger gravy train or pig trough. I'm contemplating voting UKIP at present, if only to send a signal to the mainstream politicians that I have had enough. Doubling the tax on my miserable pension is one thing, ripping the backend out of everything I earn in secret taxes on top of it is too much.
The last week has shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that Westminster is now out of touch and out of control. Worse, it is an expensive and dangerous irrelevance. Time to call stumps and kick them out - all of them.
The supreme irony must be that the laws these same MPs have made regarding tax and the rest of us preclude us from claiming anything even approaching most of what they can. I have the HM Revenue quibbling about a docket for a £6 burger lunch taken on a motorway, yet an MP can whip though a claim for several thousand for wining and dining without batting and eye. I suppose the reason I get grilled by HMRC is that someone has to pay for the MPs expenses and the Civil Servants enormous salaries and perks. Rural England has become the retirement camp for the ex-Permanent Under Secretaries and their chums from Whitehall, one of whom is currently pursuing a a village cricket club through the courts to get them banned from playing on a cricket pitch they have used for 164 years - because he feels the risk of a cricket ball hitting him in his garden is too high. Considering that the cricketers are paying his pension along with every other worthless civil servants salary, I'd say he has a bl**dy cheek. I hope the courts send him packing.
I am pleased to see that there is a move now starting with a pressure group in favour of low taxation, to bring private prosecutions against some of the higher profile abusers of the "expenses" system in Westminster. I applaud their effort, it will at least make our so-called elected representatives sit up and take notice. But what are the odds they will now try to rush through legislation to give themselves immunity from prosecution? Pretty good I would think.
There's an election coming up soon, for the EU Parliament, just as big a drain on rescources and an even bigger gravy train or pig trough. I'm contemplating voting UKIP at present, if only to send a signal to the mainstream politicians that I have had enough. Doubling the tax on my miserable pension is one thing, ripping the backend out of everything I earn in secret taxes on top of it is too much.
The last week has shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that Westminster is now out of touch and out of control. Worse, it is an expensive and dangerous irrelevance. Time to call stumps and kick them out - all of them.
Left brain: Right brain?
Brain Lateralization Test Results |
| Right Brain (42%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain. Left Brain (42%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain |
Both equally.....
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Yes, Minister
Recently I got Mausi the complete "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" series, telling her that it explained the British Civil Service with Documentary accuracy. She has been watching it at home, treating herself to an episode per day and now tells me that it is not just the UK Civil Service but the German one as well.
Today she got an invitation from another Institute in her homeland inviting her to a seminar on "leadership in management" at which the principle speaker will be the very successful head of the BMW Corporation. Having studied the programme carefully she has decided it would be nice, but probably a waste of time. The problem is that she works in an organisation managed by Civil Servants...... The trouble is that she now daily sees the Sir Humphrey ethos at work in every department in which civil servants are located as "administrators" or "managers". To the frustration of the scientists who work there every request, every idea is met with obstruction and circular arguments to prevent anything happening which does not create more civil servants. It has to be a genetic defect in the human genome that produces these people.
Sir Humphrey's German equivalent is just as determined to prevent any change as their UK counterparts. Leadership is not something to be encouraged. Leaders may find themselves having to allow change or worse, to make decisions for which they could be held responsible and that clashes directly with the ethos of every civil servant.
Mausi assures me that she can now prove that Yes Minister is not fiction, it is a documentary and she now proposes to take it to the seminar and show it there so that she can explain why everyone is wasting their time devloping their leadership. In fact she suggests it should be compulsory viewing to anyone joining any organisation run by civil servants so that, from the start, they don't have any illusions about the aims and purposes of the Civil Service.
We have to find that civil servant gene and eradicate it or we are doomed!
Today she got an invitation from another Institute in her homeland inviting her to a seminar on "leadership in management" at which the principle speaker will be the very successful head of the BMW Corporation. Having studied the programme carefully she has decided it would be nice, but probably a waste of time. The problem is that she works in an organisation managed by Civil Servants...... The trouble is that she now daily sees the Sir Humphrey ethos at work in every department in which civil servants are located as "administrators" or "managers". To the frustration of the scientists who work there every request, every idea is met with obstruction and circular arguments to prevent anything happening which does not create more civil servants. It has to be a genetic defect in the human genome that produces these people.
Sir Humphrey's German equivalent is just as determined to prevent any change as their UK counterparts. Leadership is not something to be encouraged. Leaders may find themselves having to allow change or worse, to make decisions for which they could be held responsible and that clashes directly with the ethos of every civil servant.
Mausi assures me that she can now prove that Yes Minister is not fiction, it is a documentary and she now proposes to take it to the seminar and show it there so that she can explain why everyone is wasting their time devloping their leadership. In fact she suggests it should be compulsory viewing to anyone joining any organisation run by civil servants so that, from the start, they don't have any illusions about the aims and purposes of the Civil Service.
We have to find that civil servant gene and eradicate it or we are doomed!
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Westminster exposed
Well I suppose we should be grateful to the Torygraph, though I doubt our Lords and Masters in Westminster are. At least we now have some idea of just how deep the trough we, the over taxed taxpayers, are shelling out to keep the Westminster mafia in the manner to which they have become accustomed. I think I'd mind a little less if I wasn't having to work so damned hard just to pay my own bills without having to contribute over 40% of my earnings in direct and indirect taxes to keep that lot in a style I cannot even dream of. And since most of them are professional politicians who have never done a days real work in their lives I think we have a right to take exception.
Its all very well for the Party Leaders to be apologising and making noises about "it won't happen again" and "the system must change". Its a bit late for that, the damage is done and the rules were written by them in the first place (Actually by the Civil Servants who screw everything up!) and there isn't likely to be any change now. Do turkeys vote for Christmas (Thanksgiving in the US)? Not likely, and Westminster and Whitehall are unlikely to make any changes to a system which maximises their wealth at the expense of everyone else unless there is a real threat of public lynchings and hanging them from lamp posts. And even then, you'd only get a change of face at the front row on both sides of the House.
The "Damage Limitation" machines are now in full swing in all Party HQs so watch this space. Methinks the fight is abouyt to get very dirty and very underhand. Any bets on their trying to nail someone for the leak?
Its all very well for the Party Leaders to be apologising and making noises about "it won't happen again" and "the system must change". Its a bit late for that, the damage is done and the rules were written by them in the first place (Actually by the Civil Servants who screw everything up!) and there isn't likely to be any change now. Do turkeys vote for Christmas (Thanksgiving in the US)? Not likely, and Westminster and Whitehall are unlikely to make any changes to a system which maximises their wealth at the expense of everyone else unless there is a real threat of public lynchings and hanging them from lamp posts. And even then, you'd only get a change of face at the front row on both sides of the House.
The "Damage Limitation" machines are now in full swing in all Party HQs so watch this space. Methinks the fight is abouyt to get very dirty and very underhand. Any bets on their trying to nail someone for the leak?
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Publisher update
After a period of great uncertainty over the fate of my publisher, I am pleased to say that I have today spoken to the new owner and had the reassurance that all is in order, the company is afloat and will continue. In fact the book is selling, several more copies have gone to Amazon in the last few weeks and hopefully it will continue to sell steadily.
The link in my sidebar is still very much active and the book can be bought through it. I hope you'll enjoy it and the sequel which is now in an advanced stage.
The link in my sidebar is still very much active and the book can be bought through it. I hope you'll enjoy it and the sequel which is now in an advanced stage.
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