Missed a couple of days blogging this week.
I have been travelling. First by train down to Brighton and then up to London and finally to Genoa.
When we travel together the resident critic has to use a wheelchair and so this week was an exercise in testing current attitudes to disabled passengers on trains, planes buses and taxis.
We were generally delighted with the ease with which we were able to get about, as we usually use our own car it made quite a change, but it was not necessarily a change for the worse.
We had two trips through London at rush hour and the commuters were brilliant, courtesy and kindness all around.
The flight to Genoa was very comfortable and easy which was suprising given that when we arrived at Gatwick the departures board announced a two hour delay, which was then changed to the scheduled time when they found another plane.
Unfortunately a bit had fallen off the 'new' plane and had to be glued on again and so we had to sit on the tarmac waiting for the glue to dry!
We left an hour late after sitting in an increasingly uncomfortably warm cabin.
But once in the air the G&T certainly helped to cool us down.
In London I missed the campers in St Pauls churchyard but couldn't help wonder what on earth was going on.
The campers are campaigning to close, challenge, disrupt or just draw attention to the Stock Exchange?
The Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral asked the police to withdraw and appeared generally to welcome the campers, then the Dean announces that the Cathedral has closed for the first time since the Blitz and blames the campers' creating a risk to the public, the worshippers and the 'pilgrims' despite the fact that groups of a 'hundred' can still attend for weddings?
Having worked in a Cathedral myself I rather thought that this particular crisis had the marks of the Chinese word for crisis which, apparently, means both risk and opportunity.
I rather think the risk has been overstated, apparently the campers have been advised by the fire brigade and are taking their advice and anyway they are right next door to Black's camping shop so handily placed for everything from billy cans (if not Billy Bragg, who apparently is in Dublin) to sleeping bags.
But I obviously don't know all if indeed I know any of the facts and the Dean might be right, after all he used to be Bishop of the Isle of Man and knows a thing or two about risk, given the TT and Birching.
But the opportunity, it seems to me to provide sanctuary, an honourable and ancient tradition whereby anyone, simply by grasping the door of the Church, can claim protection is an excellent one being acted out here by the protesters and apparently the Cathedral did ask the Police to draw back and they did.
So sanctuary was offered and received.
Some years ago I ran a pilgrimage in Birmingham during Holy Week where the pilgrims visited the City and re-enacted some of the events of the first Holy Week.
One event was overturning the money lenders tables.
So to re-enact this event I arranged a visit to the Stock Exchange.
The LSX campaign is an extraordinarily focussed attempt to draw attention to the fact that, as Bill Clinton once famously explained, it's the economy.
If we want to know why our society is in such a mess, is, as the PM states, broken, then all you have to do is follow the money ......
I have been travelling. First by train down to Brighton and then up to London and finally to Genoa.
When we travel together the resident critic has to use a wheelchair and so this week was an exercise in testing current attitudes to disabled passengers on trains, planes buses and taxis.
We were generally delighted with the ease with which we were able to get about, as we usually use our own car it made quite a change, but it was not necessarily a change for the worse.
We had two trips through London at rush hour and the commuters were brilliant, courtesy and kindness all around.
The flight to Genoa was very comfortable and easy which was suprising given that when we arrived at Gatwick the departures board announced a two hour delay, which was then changed to the scheduled time when they found another plane.
Unfortunately a bit had fallen off the 'new' plane and had to be glued on again and so we had to sit on the tarmac waiting for the glue to dry!
We left an hour late after sitting in an increasingly uncomfortably warm cabin.
But once in the air the G&T certainly helped to cool us down.
In London I missed the campers in St Pauls churchyard but couldn't help wonder what on earth was going on.
The campers are campaigning to close, challenge, disrupt or just draw attention to the Stock Exchange?
The Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral asked the police to withdraw and appeared generally to welcome the campers, then the Dean announces that the Cathedral has closed for the first time since the Blitz and blames the campers' creating a risk to the public, the worshippers and the 'pilgrims' despite the fact that groups of a 'hundred' can still attend for weddings?
Having worked in a Cathedral myself I rather thought that this particular crisis had the marks of the Chinese word for crisis which, apparently, means both risk and opportunity.
I rather think the risk has been overstated, apparently the campers have been advised by the fire brigade and are taking their advice and anyway they are right next door to Black's camping shop so handily placed for everything from billy cans (if not Billy Bragg, who apparently is in Dublin) to sleeping bags.
But I obviously don't know all if indeed I know any of the facts and the Dean might be right, after all he used to be Bishop of the Isle of Man and knows a thing or two about risk, given the TT and Birching.
But the opportunity, it seems to me to provide sanctuary, an honourable and ancient tradition whereby anyone, simply by grasping the door of the Church, can claim protection is an excellent one being acted out here by the protesters and apparently the Cathedral did ask the Police to draw back and they did.
So sanctuary was offered and received.
Some years ago I ran a pilgrimage in Birmingham during Holy Week where the pilgrims visited the City and re-enacted some of the events of the first Holy Week.
One event was overturning the money lenders tables.
So to re-enact this event I arranged a visit to the Stock Exchange.
The LSX campaign is an extraordinarily focussed attempt to draw attention to the fact that, as Bill Clinton once famously explained, it's the economy.
If we want to know why our society is in such a mess, is, as the PM states, broken, then all you have to do is follow the money ......
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