Parish Mag, December

Valiant readers in such far-away place as Hamilton (Scotland, not Bermuda) and Valparaiso (a parish a bit west of Betwys-y-Coed) are always complaining that our parish mag doesn't always reach them, and remind me that this blog was started to accommodate the stuff that tickled them under the kilt (or poncho) but which my (highly esteemed) editor frequently sees fit to spike, even though many parishioners claim it is only thing which helps them survive four sermons. (Well, OK then, two parishioners, but it's a start.)

Amazingly, this piece made it into the December mag, while other far more worthy pieces didn't.

By the time you read this I am going to be heartily sick of Christmas carols, or at least the sort of stuff that shops start blaring out at you from about the week after Easter. In fact the sooner someone invents a carol-cancelling ear-muff for shoppers the better, as far as I am concerned.

The reason you become a grumpy old git is that you’ve been around long enough for things to get on your wick, like for instance greengrocers apostrophe’s, income tax returns, anything to do with the NHS, the adulation of blokes who kick balls round fields for a living, and, worst of all, syrupy versions of Little perishing Donkey blasted out of tinny speakers in shop doorways when you are unfortunate enough to have had to to nip out to purchase a seasonal cabbage or something for your tea.

It is therefore always a joy (to this GOG, anyway) to discover a carol you haven’t already heard and sung 93 trillion times before, and so I have made it my life’s work to track down those elusive carols, or at least carols unknown in the English-speaking world, which don’t ever use the words Wenceslas, Herald, or Figgy Pudding.

The carols of a nation tell you something about the national character. Austrian carols sound like an oompah band. Scandinavian carols are extremely serious and can give you frostbite. French carols are un peu gamin and flirty, and I imagine carols as a genre are frooned on a wee bittie in the Ooter Hebrides. Heaven only knows if they have carols in Wales, but if they do they’ll be written in the style of Handel for a choir of a thousand (and there’ll be lots of repeats.)

My favourites, actually, are Polish carols. We sing one in England, Infant Holy, although the original is even more ambiguous about where the musical stresses should be, and the better for it.

In choirs in England we’re quite used to new harmonisations of traditional carols, and the melody is always left strictly alone. But the curious thing about Polish carols is that the tune is often changed as well as the harmony, though the essential character of every koleda is always retained. A friend at the University of Warsaw, who was very knowledgeable about the old language still used in the texts of some traditional Polish carols, warned me that these texts are pretty much untranslatable. They also use a couple of characters from old Church Slavonic which don’t appear in the fonts your home computer comes equipped with (even in Poland), so preparing performing editions for an English choir was a nightmare, but between us we did it. Two carols made their English debut at a service in West Yorkshire in 199-something, and I thought the choir made a pretty good job of the phonetic language Anna and I had worked out between us. A Polish lady in the congregation was greatly moved by the music of her familiar old carols. But she thought the choir had sung them in Welsh.

Oh, and but. As well as having the best carols in the world, Poland has the best strawberries. Or so lovely Anna says, in her impeccable English.

Intravenous positivism and other stories

It is always a joy, after a busy week being a member (baptised, confirmed, committed, and staying) of the Anglican communion of the Christian Church, to read Damian Thompson's Daily Telegraph blog, where his few but vociferous responders still evidently believe that camels pass through the eyes of needles and angels dance on points. Damian can't help being an intravenous Roman Catholic any more than DT readers can help being intravenous Tories, but you could never accuse him of being timid in the fray.

The divisions between the Christian churches have more to do with ecclesiology than with theology, as Dr Rowan Williams didn't quite say last week, and when the Vatican has to support its Anglicanorum coetibus with new translations of its law and doctrines that conveniently assert, even consolidate, its view of its own primacy, it is perhaps time to examine the ecclesiology of Rome more closely, as Charles Sherlock did in a piece which is almost guaranteed to summon the ironclads of the Inquisition to the palatial lawns of Bendigo.

As always in this age of spin, the detail is concealed in the small print.

3D calendar puzzles (again)

It has been great fun working again this summer and autumn with the only mildly eccentric ex-pedagogue Sirius, inventor of the 3D crossword and tireless fund-raiser for children with visual impairments. Sirius himself is partially sighted, which makes his 3D crossword website and his 3D crossword calendars even more remarkable. We have worked together for two years and we haven't met yet, but we have agreed that when we do meet at Coventry station I'll be the little bald bloke waving a CD of the Financial Times and Eric will be disguised as Patrick Moore.

This year there are two calendars, not one - a calendar of quickie 3D puzzles that we wrote between us, under the wise and knowledgeable guidance of the big bullies in the publications department of the RNIB, who know everything about design and typography and have no compunctions about telling you that your clues are too long, the rotters, and a second calendar of more challenging cryptic puzzles from a host of the best crossword compilers in the land, as well as me and Sirius himself.

Sirius's Milliganesque genius (and his refusal to take no for an answer) last year won over a highly significant moral partner in this venture, Sarah Montague, of Radio 4's Today programme, and the knot was tied with the BBC's Children in Need appeal. This year Sarah Montague took her personal support to a new practical level - she persuaded her Today colleagues to join her in making sound recordings of every crossword in the 'big' calendar to make life easier for solvers who are at a disadvantage by not being able to see very well. Sarah's name, and those of her colleagues, are on the front of the calendar, so I can name them here for a huge round of applause and a chorus of 'jolly good fellow' - Evan Davis, John Humphrys, Rory Morrison, Jenni Murray, James Naughtie, Paddy O'Connell, Susan Rae, Gary Richardson and John Waite.

So can you do anything to help build a grand new school?

Well, yes.

You could pass on the flier at the top of this post to someone you think might be interested (click it for a full-size jpg), either in buying a calendar as a present for a partially-sighted friend or just in spreading the word.

The RNIB calendar is best ordered by visiting Sirius's website and following the link to the RNIB website.

The RNIB calendar is £6.99; the 'big' cryptic one £9.99.

Ta. Locum.

Do we need a Doorstep Preference Scheme?

8:20pm, busy working. What I was doing involved a train of thought now lost for ever because of an uninvited intrusion into the peace and quiet of my home, this peace and quiet being something which my wise local authority tells me I am entitled to enjoy.

A knock on the door. Two young men with lapel badges being very earnest about premature babies. I didn't wait to find out where they were from, or what they wanted, but I did ask them what they thought they were up to knocking doors at this time of night, because I know that several of our neighbours are elderly women living alone whom these night-knockers probably frighten half to death. "We're licensed by the local authority until 8:30", one replied, defensively yet belligerently.

Oh, so that's OK then. They are licensed by the same local authority which says that we are entitled to enjoy the peace and quiet of our homes to frighten old ladies by banging on their doors until 20:30 hours.

And it isn't that I'm against premature babies - far from it. In 1968 the first of our two boys was born six weeks early, and it was a nerve-wracking time for both of us, particularly as the hospital in which our baby was in intensive care was 12 miles from where we lived, and his mother was at home recovering, and expressing milk twice a day for me to race off with to the hospital on my Lambretta. My wife didn't hold the baby until he was six weeks old.

So please don't tell me that I am prejudiced against premature babies, or, for that matter, Lambrettas.

But allow me to be prejudiced against any brace of tough-looking young men who bang on my door at 8:20pm when dark night is well advanced, whatever their excuse, and whatever their lapel badge might say. Heavens, I could make you a laminated lapel badge saying whatever you wanted it to say in five minutes, and so could anybody with a computer, a printer and a cheap laminater. They are no longer worth the plastic they're sealed in.

There is a particularly nasty form of moral blackmail that the outfits who send people to knock uninvited on people's doors use, and it's of the "have you stopped beating your wife?" variety. They play tricks with your fears, and they play tricks with your guilt. They make beggars out of perfectly decent young people with disabilities, and you give them money so that they will go away. If the cunning people who send people out on door-knocking missions were legitimate outfits, they would have more sense, because their tactics are inevitably counterproductive. These night-knockers taint what might be inherently a worthy cause with the stink of corruption, because people are inherently suspicious about causes which have to do their business skulking in the dark, whether or not such skulking is sanctioned by their local authority.

In our area residents are being advised by the police and, yes, the inevitable local authority, to put up signs saying "no carol singers." Funnily enough, I am actually solidly behind the police and the local authority on this one, but in the interests of the carol-singer, for if they dare to venture into this house with their squeaky two lines of figgy pudding, I promise you they will not emerge until they are capable of singing in the best Bach choir in the land. But I don't think that's quite what the police (and the local authority) have in mind.

It is quite obvious that if the authorities regard carol singers as a dangerous and threatening nuisance, they should also regard trick-or-treaters and opportunistic drive-renewers and collecting-tin wavers as inhabiting the same category. And while they're at it, political canvassers. After all, we can block rude intrusions into the peace and quiet of our homes by phone by signing up to the Telephone Preference Scheme, so why shouldn't we also be able to protect our front doors from intrusive knockers?

So here is something you can do for yourself, quite legally.

Made a small poster with something like the following words on:

THIS IS A SELF-EMPLOYED HOUSEHOLD

Cold-callers are welcome, but please have your ID and VAT registration number ready for checking.

Our rates are £50 for ID and VAT confirmation, then £25 for the first minute of doorstep consultation, and £10 per minute thereafter.

Please ensure that you have sufficient money (cash only) to meet your obligations before you ring the bell.

You never know, it might just work.

Anglicanorum coetibus - 4

While Pope Benedict and the Archbishop of Canterbury are skirmishing over the fine print of faith, a firm of solicitors in Ulverston appears to have outmanoeuvred them both and set up a direct line with the Almighty:

Words...

Came across this by chance on another blog:

Fascinating anecdote. Such people, while probably well-intentioned, give Christianity a bad name and alienate not only those whom they prosthelytise but mainstream Christians like me.

What's that then: to provide replacement body parts by preaching?

Anglicanorum coetibus - 3

It's perhaps a small matter, and someone more qualified than I is bound to mention it sooner or later, but why is a Roman Catholic priest who has converted to Anglicanism denied re-entry to Mother's bosom, while one who denies that 6,000,000 Jews died in in the Holocaust is welcomed home after a short period of exile?

Anglicanorum coetibus - 2

There are those in the fanatical fringes of a certain Church who still use words like "priestess" and "bishopess" as terms of scorn.

It would be an act of great charity if, say, Watch, would send them as a special Christmass present a copy of Dale Spender's Man Made Language.

They won't read it of course. When you know you're Lords of the Earth because you possess a willy, you go both blind and deaf.

Anglicanorum coetibus - 1

The Vatican has now published its Anglican Constitution, the 'Anglicanorum coetibus', which can be read here.

But this, from the press release accompanying the document*, caught my eye:

Contemporary Catholic worship leaves a lot to be desired. The current translation of the Latin Missal for much of the English-speaking world is a flat, awkward, unpoetical, and often inaccurate translation done in American English, which shows little love for the language and its nuances. Liturgical music nowadays is being driven by music publishers, who promote novelty for its own sake and who charge money for the right to perform their music during the Mass.

On the contrary, many versions of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer show a great command of the English language and a love for it in service of the Gospel; these no doubt can be adapted for Catholic worship. Likewise, the Anglicans' long experience with the use of the vernacular in liturgy leaves us a great body of works that are free of royalty payments to publishers.

Coeli! I had no idea that they read Choirstalls in Rome.

CORRECTION 12 Nov 2009

My error. The extract is from the website of a priest in Missouri to the Coetibus, not from the Vatican press release. And it's odd, but I have the distinct impression that a couple of days ago there was rather more there than there is now...

It hasn't been a good week if you're a dead soldier, because the new God, Retail, isn't interested in you, for obvious reasons, you being dead and no longer spending. The people who are unfortunate enough to have to work in Retail still have minds and consciences, however, and occasionally one of them does something highly offensive to this god, and wears a poppy at work to say that dead soldiers will never be forgotten, despite their failure to contribute to the corporate coffers

Causing offence to anybody is, of course, the new sin, and this new god is a jealous god, whose minions are instructed to seek out all infidels who threaten to reduce the annual profits by wickedly demonstrating their loyalty to a cause, whether that cause be Greenpeace, Michael Jackson, the Conservative Party or dead soldiers.

People don't give offence - offence is something which other people take because they happen not to live by the same set of values. The danger of trying not to "cause" offence is that you end up hiding your own beliefs instead of proclaiming them and letting them be tested in open debate.

It is for these reasons that I find quite repellent the squirming volte-face of a retail chain which found its profits threatened by a hostile public reaction when it banned one of its staff from wearing a poppy at work.

"We are happy to change our policy and allow our members of staff to continue wearing their poppies. As our policy has always been intended to ensure that we do not cause offence to anyone, we hope we have not done so and sincerely apologise if that has been the unintended effect."

So that's that, then, Bodycare. You can sit back now and watch the shekels rolling in, as before.

Or, of course, not.

Sorry, God, but we think we're doing our best

Yet another of those curious joint services for our three parishes this evening that are an absolute guarantee that a poorly maintained organ will survive for three bars of the first hymn, then die with an asthmatic wheeze and sigh (it did.) I know exactly how it felt.

We should drop the United Waterside Parishes label for these events and call them United Waterside Church Wardens and Choirs services, for apart from clergy that was virtually the entire ensemble.

Mind you, I can't blame people for staying at home. The prospect of listening to an (amplified) 'music group' trying to do American accents in stuff that even Moody & Sankey would have regarded as sentimental drivel, and then having to listen to a scratch robed choir attempting to sing something they'd never seen before, must be enough to put anyone off.

But the good thing for the CofE is that our congregations in the Waterside parishes will never go over to Rome.

They don't even go over the road to their own churches.