24th March 2011

I was ordained in 1968. A friend of mine from the the same theological college was ordained into the same Diocese of Sheffield.

After a week or two we met up to compare notes. The usual stories about the odd people, the crazy questions and the parish meetings. Then my friend told me that on the previous Sunday he had been laying Lino in his bathroom when he suddenly realised that he was late for the evening service.

So grabbing his robes he rushed across to the Church, as he was processing in for the start of the service his Vicar asked what he was preaching on.

He spent the next forty minutes desperately trying to think of something to say. When the hymn before the sermon was announced he stepped into the pulpit and began his sermon. It was when he heard the words 'let Jesus help you iron out the bumps in the lino of life' that he realised he needed to put more time and effort into sermon preparation.

Today as I was riding across Caldbeck Commons on the Harley, as a contemporary horseback rider in a gasoline age, I found myself recalling that story whilst watching out for pot holes.

Pot holes are almost as dangerous to a motorcyclist as car drivers and white vans, they are all life threatening to one degree or the another.

As I negotiated the village of Hesket Newmarket with it's famous brewery and on under the shadow of Skiddaw and Blencathra, the combination of scenery, weather, the thump of the V twin and the winding road were unbeatable.

But the pot holes were to be avoided if a spill and a buckled wheel were to be avoided so at least part of the time I had to look at the road ahead and negotiate a safe path past the pot holes and the loose gravel.

Then I thought about yesterdays budget and for the life of me couldn't think what had been agreed or offered to me or anyone I knew that would make my life any better. The promise seemed to be that fuel had been put into the nations tank and the heir of an Anglo-Irish Baronetcy had offered to iron out the pot holes in the tarmac of life.

And how, I thought, can the Sherriff of Nottingham announce a 'Robin Hood' Budget?

So, with one eye open for pot holes, they hadn't all been filled in by six the previous evening, unlike fuel prices which went down and which will go up again, I began to wonder what, apart from Pot Holes, the budget had been about?

The commentariat seem to have developed an opinion overnight.

It was, apparently, about making sure that the Tories win the next election, well like the growth which hasn't happened yet, you can only observe, we'll see, either they will or they won't.

The other memory, borne out by reading the text, is that it was a valedictory address to Gordon Brown, who, whilst not named specifically 'gambled on a debt-fuelled model of growth that failed'.

It will be for others to comment on the technical details but we seem now to have embarked on another gamble, that the new austerity will result in growth. So far the evidence suggests that if there is to be growth then it is still some way off as the figures keep being revised.

Meanwhile as the Beatles sang in 1967:

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire

Well the good citizens of Blackburn have only had to wait forty four years but those holes are about to be filled in, but wait .... What? A campaign? Potholes? A national treasure? Historic? Really ..........?