July 2008 – For the fainthearted . . .

Wrong numbers

“God looks after those who look after themselves”, my mother would say.

It made sense. There’s no record in the Bible of God getting up in the morning to find someone a job; no record of him balancing a budget; no record of him managing a home. When human being possess such faculties themselves, divine intervention seems superfluous.

My mother’s individualism is becoming rare. There is a shift from independence to dependence and if there is no-one available then someone must be to blame – the Government, the social services, …

More than noughts

Mathematics in Zimbabwe will be simpler – well, for a few days at least. The BBC reports

Zimbabwe’s central bank has said it will introduce a new currency on 1 August as part of efforts to fight the effects of hyperinflation.

The bank’s governor, Gideon Gono, has announced zeros will be lopped off the Zimbabwe dollar, making 10bn dollars one dollar.

Only last week, the government introduced the Z$100bn note.

The exchange rate today is 1.3 trillion dollars to £1 Sterling, that’s 1,300,000,000,000 to the Pound. The man responsible for …

Deaf ears

Alan’s name appeared on a mailing list that came in this morning. Fifteen or more years ago, does he still remember a Wednesday night in a studio in east Belfast?

It was decided that an interview with an African church leader who was in the Province might make an interesting piece for a programme on a local radio station. It was intended to be a ‘colour’ piece, an insight into the man’s life and ministry, some stories of his experiences. Alan was engineer for the recording.

Before going into the …

Descending into the banal

“Pat was a good man who said his beads and will go straight to heaven so we need have no worries and we’ll get on with the prayers.”

That was the homily at a funeral of a Catholic neighbour, some fifteen years ago or more. I had only attended because the family asked me to go and do some prayers. The priest told me that any prayers I did would have to be after he had finished the burial.

Maybe it was an attempt at a calculated insult, or maybe …

The last pipe

Tobacco pipes and baggy cardigans were the mark of old Anglican clergy for decades. Rectory studies would have a familiar smell; the pouch of tobacco being about the only luxury possible in straitened times.

Maybe it’s the association with avuncular old canons, who covered half a county on a Sunday morning to read seventeenth century prayers to a gathering of the faithful, but pipes always seemed benign.

Of course, tobacco smoke is dangerous, but so is driving at high speed and I see no banners at the bottom of advertisements …

Watching time

Tucked away in a little hamlet, at a point where the departments of the Gironde, Lot et Garonne and the Dordogne meet, the house was at a meeting place of councils and cultures. The car number plates bore evidence of the borderland nature of the place, 33s, 24s and 49s passed up and down the narrow road.

The house had been the farmhouse of a domaine with its own wine appellation; the wine was still produced, bottled and labelled in sheds on the far side of the road. The hamlet …