7th January 2015

Christmas 2014 was A' OK.

We had a 'cool yule'.

The grandchildren enjoyed the pantomime.

Lovely gifts were exchanged.

Christmas Lunch was fabulous with Roast Beef the preferred alternative to Turkey.

The Christmas Pudding flambe'ed marvellously and the nontraditional Bailey's Cream was a great alternative to cream or Cumberland Rum Butter.

But what made it sad was that somewhere along the way the indoor critic lost her wedding ring.

The ring was Victorian or more likely Edwardian, 22 Carat Gold and I bought it in Shudehill in Manchester in 1968 for £5 00, a pretty good investment to capture the girl of my dreams.

I rang my lawyer immediately but apparently losing a wedding ring does not mean the automatic end of the marriage, it is apparently only a sign of the marriage, which is still there in both reality and in practise.

Obviously the loss was felt by both parties and a certain sadness descended on the post Christmas festivities.

Eventually we reported the loss to the insurance company.

They asked had we contacted the police?

Well no we hadn't, so we did!

THE PHONE NUMBER IS 101!!!!!!!!!!

101, is of course the number of the room in George Orwell's 1984.

Irony?

Sign of a humour by-pass?

Indication that nobody made the connection not only with George Orwell's dystopian vision or even the TV series of the same name?

To recap: Room 101 is the torture chamber in the Ministry of Love, in which the Party attempts to subject a prisoner to his or her own nightmare, fear or phobia, with the object of breaking down their resistance.

Well, they certainly broke down mine.

Law Enforcement after 5 years of the Con-Dems is simply, breathtakingly, hopeless.

The 'phone rang and a recorded voice gave me options.

One of which was reporting Lost or Stolen Property.

I pressed the relevant button on my telephone key pad.

Only to be told that the Police in Cumbria no longer record lost property.

They do however encourage people finding lost property to return to the owner?

If your insurance company wants either a report or a number then you have to go onto the web-site and download a letter which says that the force is no longer with you!

Then I tried to speak to an operator to be told that the 'phone is answered between the hours of 9 00 and 12 00 and if I need further assistance (sic) then I should dial:

101!

So this is Law Enforcement and Community Policing at the end of five years of a Con-Dem administration.

Try Health? They have their own Room 101!

Try Education, Room 101!

Try DWP, Room 101 is where the sanctions are invented and imposed!

Orwell was wrong of course.

Simply imagining the future by transposing the last two digits of the year he published his book, '48 to '84 wasn't sufficient to capture the enormity of what has happened to  the post war settlement gradually over time and dramatically over the past five years.

In the late fifties I watched a TV series, before Z Cars, which featured an elderly genial policeman called George Dixon who arrested ne'er do wells, helped the elderly to cross the village green safely and always ended with: 'Evenin' all'.

I watched it in Black and White but it was called Dixon of Dock Green, a hint that before too long you would be able to not only imagine it, but actually see it, in colour.

My recent experience suggests to me that we have gone right back to Dixon of Dock Grey.

If this reverse thrust continues back to the smaller state and less Government it won't be too long before we leave Orwell's vision behind and continue back to the future, back to a society that yearns for the good times as described by Dickens in his social commentary.

The Ghost of Christmas Past is coming!

2nd January 2015

It is often commented that we get the Government we deserve.

Certainly my inbox has become very overcrowded with emails from the left of me and emails from the right as it becomes clear that the Party's planning and scheming for this election includes social media and crowd funding.

It seems that both left and right want to take a leaf out of the Obama "How to win elections' primer.

Who do they think 'they' are?

Certainly if 'they' think that they are Obama then the days and weeks and months leading to this election will seem very long indeed.

I suppose the thing is I don't mind receiving emails from the Labour Party, even the one telling me how many Geoff's there were on their data base, although what that had to do with anything I don't know? Perhaps they think that Geoff is a dangerously exciting militant sounding name but ,I think that they'd be better off emailing all the Vladimir's or Karl's

(Unless its like the speed signs on Motorways which are directed at me personally because no-one else takes any notice as I dutifully slow down knowing that the average speed monitors know my registration, my name and where I live).

I suppose in practise I know where they got my name and email from.

I gave it to them!

Probably when I bought my Grayson Perry, vote labour shopping bag, which has a mysterious design which could be a pig (in a poke? Perhaps that's the joke?)

Although it could be Ed Balls impersonating a hedgehog (it certainly looks prickly enough).

Still if all the Geoff's and all the Gordon's and all the Tony's and Cherie's and Peter's vote for them who knows things might start to look promising.

But what I find difficult to accept rationally is the steady stream of emails from David Cameron who assures  me that he is relying on my vote to return him to Downing Street.

Well I do hope that he is relying on it because that could mean that the chances of him getting the key back in May will be pretty remote.

I have little doubt that whatever I vote Penrith and the Borders will remain Tory which affords  me the opportunity of voting for the Co-op Party Candidate or the Green Party Candidate knowing that I cannot unseat the sitting candidate (assuming that he's standing).

I certainly won't unseat him by using my Grayson Perry shopping bag when I pop down to the Co-op for milk and bread.

But if social  media and email are going to be the weapons of choice in the coming election what else will happen?

Thousands of young volunteers manning the telephones to get the vote out?

Crowd funding as we all chip in with our donations to help the various party efforts.

I am expecting that it won't be too long  before I get an email from Danny Alexander explaining that Nick Clegg needs my vote so that he can become Deputy Leader in whatever Coalition can be cobbled together out of the wreckage he has helped to create by supporting a party who weren't elected last time round.

And then it all starts to get silly (or reductio ad absurdum) as the philosophers might say.

My computer, smart phone, iPad pings or beeps or burps or buzzes or chimes to tell me: You've Got Mail.

I check to find an email from Nigel inviting me for a pint at my local, The Haywain.

(Known locally as The Hawaiian which is about as Obama as its possible to get of course).

Well as we are not a coastal town in Kent or Essex its unlikely that I will get that call so I don't have to worry overmuch about offending Nigel by refusing and I'm certainly making no plans.

But up until now the Obama lite, social media, crowd funding approach has been pretty low key but come the  end of March as Parliament is dissolved and as we move towards May 7th it will inevitably increase, in-boxes will start to fill up with emails from all and sundry as they try to seize the electoral initiative and convince you that the only place to put your cross is against their candidates name.

Of course we are not electing a President so whether Milliballs looks sufficiently Presidential compared with Camosborne is really of no consequence.

What is of consequence is that we get the Government we need not the Government we deserve.

22nd December 2014

How should Christmas feel?

Tinselly?

Sprucey?

Flashing lighty?

Carolly?

Even Richard Dawkins apparently enjoys singing Carols but as a FB friend of mine commented recently singing Carols is OK.

It's when you deconstruct the stories that the narrative collapses.

In my fifty odd years as a Vicar I have seen my main role as deconstructing the stories in order to rebuild them as believable narratives.

Of course the first story to be deconstructed is the story about Santa Claus.

You start believing as the gifts appear miraculously overnight, certainly in the days before Amazon, eBay, Yodel, Hermes and DPD, parcels did not appear moments after you had clicked a mouse or tapped a keyboard.

So Santa was a good bet.

Then one year as a young adult you wait all night and wake up with no presents and so you come to the sad conclusion that there is no Santa.

But then before you can sing Jingle Bells, having meanwhile married and begotten children, you realise that being Santa is now your responsibility, you have become Santa.

But there are Good Santa's and Bad Santa's, one year wrapping presents and filling pillow cases at two in the morning after Midnight Mass, the indoor critic and I put the wrong presents in the wrong sacks and spent the following morning correcting our mistakes with the words, what a Silly Santa .....

In Italy at Christmas one year we had a last minute shopping expedition to a special seasonal Christmas Market in order to be sure that we had local food for our visitors.

One stall was selling Salami.

We asked which was best, the stall holder held out a Salami saying Asino, uncertain for a moment as to the exact meaning and context of this reply, I pointed to the nearby scene of a Stable, a Manger complete with lowing animals and pointed to the affable looking Donkey in its straw filled pen?

Yes I was told, Asino.

And it was delicious and the grandchildren who hadn't quite worked out how Santa had followed them to Italy quickly cottoned on and asked for more Donkey Sausage without a qualm.

Early in my career as a young clergyman I was invited to take part in a Christmas Nativity to be put on by a local young wives group.

Everything went well until in the dress rehearsal Mary turned on Joseph and threw him out of the stable, throwing the baby after him and screaming in quite unseasonal language, 'and take your bloody baby with you!'

Clearly the couple had been at odds long before the narrative collapsed around them.

One year in my first parish I had spent some time working with a young musician who had used some of my lyrics to write songs, one of the songs he performed to which he had written his own lyrics was called Little Child, so I persuaded him that he might perform it at the Midnight Mass and I would preach on the lyrics of the song.

As the service was due to start at 11 30 pm there was no sign of the singer or his guitar, then the door burst open and in he fell, drunk!

It'll be fine Geoff, It'll be OK .....

I managed to get two burly sidemen to sit on him and deconstructed my way through my sermon without the musical accompaniment.

But music and Christmas goes together well, as Richard Dawkins alleged love of Carols suggests.

In my time in Newcastle which had begun with a headline in the local paper announcing, Pin back yer lug holes Tyneside, here comes the Revd Punk! I worked with a group of local musicians to put on a show in Church that we called 'Rocking the Cradle'.

On Christmas Eve before they closed I pinched all the decorations from Habitat and hung them in Church, big silver baubles, giant snowflakes and a Santa Claus.

The whole band was plugged via extension cables into one 13 amp socket, Mikes, Guitars, Drums, Vocals, Keyboard and lights.

After two hours the evening ended with John Lennon's Imagine and the stage lights went down and the Church Lights were switched on and I heard a wistful sigh from one of the congraudience.

 'Oh! It's a boring old church again'.

Again the narrative was deconstructed.

From the Christmas card showing a radiant Mary announcing to a bewildered Joseph 'It's a Girl' to the jokes about wise men and their gifts and the difference if they had been wise women, the gifts would have been useful and they wouldn't have gotten lost on the way, Christmas needs to be deconstructed if only to remind us that this story of the Babe at Bethlehem is the story of the unconditional surrender of power and the triumph of the unconditional power of the story to change hearts and lives.

17th December 2014

According to my Dictionary compiled by Samuel Johnson and dated 1870:

Oats are 'generally given to horses'.

Under Porridge, which Johnson notes derives, 'from porrum, Latin for Leek, porridge is food made from boiling meat in water; broth'.

According to Baroness Jenkins porridge costs 4p and is 21p cheaper than sugary cereals.

Apparently in an earlier edition of my Dictionary Samuel Johnson completed his entry for oats by adding after the reference to horses, 'and which in Scotland supports the people.

Well now, after the Eton educated Archbishop of Canterbury's committee reported its findings on food poverty in the UK, it is apparently now recommended that oats also support the people in England.

It seems that if you had porridge every day of the week it would cost only marginally more than if you ate Cereal on one day.

In fact if you ate porridge every day instead of breaking your fast in the Cereal Cafe you might save even more.

This morning I made porridge.

The oats cost 39p and there were enough Oats in the packet to make porridge for myself and the indoor critic for five days which confirms the Baronesses view that a serving  costs 4p (although I confess to cheating by adding cream to my porridge which almost doubled the cost for my bowl).

Possibly the Archbishop and the Baroness being knowledgeable in Latin would be able to calculate what it might cost a poor family to boil their meat in water in order to create porrum or meaty broth.

I have in a previous blog retaled the story of the WEA Class held in a working class part of the North East.

As the lecturer arrived for his talk he noticed that there was a cookery class in session entitled 'Fish Head Soup'.

He immediately changed the title of his own talk to 'Who got the rest of the fish?'.

Dr Johnson not withstanding it seems to me that the real question here is not: Is a 4p bowl of porridge cheaper than a bowl of sugary cereal at 25p? But rather, how is that in this country to day hundreds if not thousands of families are reliant on food banks in order to feed themselves?

In his book Political Order and Political Decay, Frances Fukuyama poses the question: 'How do we get to Denmark?'.

Well if that is the Question then to quote another well known writer, today it seems: 'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark'.

The national conversation to which amongst others, bloggers seek to contribute, is currently confused by a major public aversion to politicians and political life and debate.

What is called 'pantomime politics' and which can be seen as evidence of the political decay that Fukuyama points toward.

But in addition to this the waters are muddied by a political false way which is opening up and which the leadership of can, in all seriousness, describe the problems experienced on a journey on the M4 as arising because of 'immigration'.

But it seems that a large swathe of the public are of the opinion that the only alternative to the major parties is a party that has no possibility of being elected to form a Government, no Programme to offer and no obvious way of financing its contradictory policies.

Austerity, which has proven to be a major tax on the poorest in our society but which it seems barely touches the wealthy is it seems to me almost directly responsible for the rise in food poverty and it is to the credit not only of customers in stores which hold collections for food for redistribution but also for churches and congregations which collect food and support food banks in their communities that the food is there, whether it is porridge for 4p or sugary cereals for a treat.

I generally avoid alumni gatherings and I am not an Eton Alumni but I imagine that both the Archbishop and The Prime Minister might possibly be, but whether or not I imagine that they afford each other opportunities to meet.

It would be hard to imagine what might be said on such occasions?

Maybe the conversation might start with breakfast.

I have in a previous life, had two invitations to breakfast at 10 Downing Street, on the first, the PM of the day instead of being there to greet his guests, sent a video message, so I breakfasted on fruit kebabs with a hologram rather than porridge and I imagine the fruit kebabs cost more than 4p?

Whatever might or might not be said, it is possible to hope that the Archbishop might just ask, given the commitment to austerity with tax cuts:

 Who benefits?

6th December 2014

I recently had occasion to drive down the A23 from the Elephant and Castle to Brighton.

The contrast with the quiet country roads of Cumbria could not be greater.

As I drive out of the street where I live onto the A69, I only rarely pause to let  traffic by.

As an American friend of mine once characterised his town in New Hampshire 'We only have one stop light'.

The drive down the A23 was the drive through hell.

Sally Sat-Nav tells me when there is a speed camera ahead, she practically dinged herself hoarse poor thing.

Additionally, about every 100 to 200 yards overhead cameras hovered watchfully to be sure that you didn't inadvertently stray into a bus lane.

Big Brother was watching us closely the whole way along the tortured route.

But the Bus Lanes were cunningly marked with confusing messages and contradictory signage, so for a hundred yards or so, you could enter the bus lane at the time we were travelling, then suddenly you were forbidden, 1 00pm until 7 00pm became 1 00pm until 4 00pm or 10 until 1 00pm or whenever, whenever.

It became clear that this was a no win situation.

We were going to get a ticket for something whatever we did no  matter how much care we took.

I am still watching the postman anxiously as he delivers my letters.

I was reminded of this journey during the Chancellor's autumn statement.

Not so much because of Bus Lanes and Speed Cameras and general surveillance but because every few minutes the Economic version of Sally Sat-Nav somewhere at the back of my tired seventy year old brain told me, hey! that's not true!

Then of course there was Mr Cable saying basically that whether you are the Chancellor or not you cannot have your cake and eat it.

There will either, be deep and savage cuts in public services or there will be tax rises, it's pretty simple really.

After all we know that the most of the jobs created have been low paid, temporary, zero hours contracts or self employment.

This is why tax receipts are down and no amount of jiggling the books will obscure the fact that the economy is not working in the interests of the majority of people who if they don't see that in the run up to Christmas will almost certainly notice when the credit card bills arrive early in the New Year.

Mr Cable sings from a different hymn sheet than his colleagues Mr Alexander, a fully signed up Tory-Lite Chief Secretary and Mr Clegg who appears to have gone AWOL.

So the Chancellor makes his statement, all that hardworking people stuff, all that our plan is working stuff, all that politicking over the Mansion Tax by fiddling around with Stamp Duty stuff.

But underlying all that, the great truth of it, we are being taken back to the future.

The Tory's with the support of the Lib-Dems are taking us back to a time when public investment was at its lowest as a share of GDP.

Back to the future.

Back to the thirties, back to the menfolk 'on the stones' and the womenfolk holding things together as best they can.

My father who remembered those times well used to tell a story, one of his many stories, about the man who, unable to afford to feed his dog, trained it to manage without food, just as he succeeded with the training, the dog died!

I imagine that if I tried in my imagination to drive backwards up the A23 from Brighton to the Elephant and Castle unwinding time as I did so, I might manage to unravel the complex nightmare that we have created for ourselves.

All that street furniture, all that Orwellian watching, all that imposing taxation in the form of fines for failing to understand the complex instructions give.

What I do not imagine will happen is that as the Chancellor and his Chief Secretary drive us backwards to the 1930"s that we will find ourselves in a kinder, more generous, more human place.

Rather we will find ourselves in a country we no longer recognise.

A country in which, it will become very clear, we have no desire to live.

28th November 2014

I have recently been receiving emails and text messages announcing that today will be, and indeed now is, Black Friday.

I know what Good Friday is but what on earth is Black Friday?

Where did the idea come from?

I guess that like most things it came from America.

Apparently the name originated from the fact that most retailers operate in the red for most of the year and only begin to see profits during the Christmas shopping period.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the start of the Christmas shopping period and the point at which for retailers red turns to black.

It is also a day when bargains are announced, shops open early and the rush to spend money overcomes common sense.

According to my newspaper one shopper interviewed leaving a store with a new vacuum cleaner commented that she had really wanted a TV but they had sold and as she had to have something she bought the vacuum cleaner, she didn't need it, but it was heavily discounted.

I guess when she gets it home she will switch it on only to be disappointed that there are no pictures just a loud humming noise.

Another entrepreneurial shopper with a number of TV's in a shopping trolley was seen offering them for sale along the queue outside the store.

Cost me £250, yours for £350, £300 for cash.

Of course the British don't celebrate thanksgiving, after all what America celebrates is independence ............. From us!

So not a lot to celebrate!

But inevitably what America does today will in time find its way over here so who knows maybe in a year or two we will start celebrating thanksgiving by deep frying a turkey in an oil drum?

Of course we won't know what we are celebrating but, hey! Any excuse for a party?

Maybe if UKIP has its way with Mr Cameron, or the Tories outflank him and Britain is persuaded to leave the EEC or Brexit's as the newspaper headlines have it, then we could make the Thursday before Black Friday, Thanksgiving,

Free, Free at last!

Of course it may be that leaving Europe plunges us into economic uncertainty, that European Markets collapse, business abandons the UK to headquarter in Europe and we experience financial meltdown, in which case we may not be so thankful after all and as the pound in our pocket shrinks, we may not have much to spend on Black Friday.

Indeed if retailers rely on it to kick start their profit surge then those without money to spend on TV's and vacuum cleaners might find that Black Friday rapidly becomes Red Friday when the credit card statements arrive.

Apparently church attendance on Sunday continues to decline although Cathedrals report increasing numbers attending mid week services. That is certainly true in Carlisle where I occasionally celebrate a mid week communion service.

It is interesting to see how the regular faces are joined by a group of those who attend because they are in town or just visiting the Cathedral and often by a larger group who stand outside the circle and observe, as though they were witnessing some strange arcane ceremony that they vaguely recall having heard about.

Which of course they are.

Of course attendances pick up at Easter and at Christmas.

Both are times of the year when not only do people need to shop, for chocolate eggs, for special celebratory meals and for presents, but they are times of the year when the shop's close for the religious holidays. As my old prayer book suggests these were Red Letter Days in the Churches year and in the Calendar the dates were often highlighted in Red to illustrate that these days were indeed high and holy.

So arcane rituals involving bread and wine recalling the beliefs and worship of previous generations change over time and are replaced by other arcane rituals, Good Friday becomes Black Friday and Red Letter days are announced monthly by the arrival of the credit card statement

23rd November 2014

There is something extremely sad and disturbing about the thought that people are turning to UKIP to give them back their country.

Which country is that exactly?

I was born before the NHS had been established.

Before the Kingdom of Bevan had been established.

I was born into a grey and forbidding country where there was rationing, privation and where my childhood sleep was disturbed by the sound of Mill Workers Clogs on the cobbles outside our house, as they headed to the Medlock Mill to begin their morning shift.

My old man was not a dustman, as Lonnie Donegan's was, but my Maternal Grandfather was.

My Paternal Grandfather had died before I was born, probably as a result of having been gassed in the trenches in France, meaning that my father had to leave school at 14 to become the family breadwinner, and that later his sister had to care for my Grandfather who ended her days in a bed in my Aunt's living room because ill and immobile as she was their was little or no public provision for the care of the elderly.

In my first school I was given sheets of scrap paper to write on and was told that I would be given an exercise book when my handwriting was good enough.

I left that school without ever receiving an exercise book.

Just a couple of personal examples which make me clear that that is a country I do not want back.

Not for myself and not for my children and grandchildren.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

But what are these nostalgic people recalling about the country of the past that makes them think that UKIP can return it to them?

When I walked home from school with friends we tried to imagine the future.

The jobs that we might have.

The income that we might earn.

In the 1950's we set the bar at £1000 a year.

If we could find a job paying £20 a week then we would surely have a comfortable life?

As I type this blog on a lap top, which corrects my spelling as I go along, I can reflect that I am fortunate that I don't need an exercise book.

If I order a book that I have seen reviewed and which I think I might like to read I can order it on-line, a concept unimaginable in the 1950's, and it will be delivered tomorrow.

If I want to listen to a particular piece of music I can listen to it immediately.

These are relatively simple, almost trivial, examples of the transformations that have happened in our social and community lives in the past seventy years, but there are countless other examples some more important, some essential.

Low cost air travel making for affordable holidays. Dramatic improvements in diet. The shelves of the supermarkets filled with goods. Health care provided free at the point of need.

Sadly of course we have it within our gift to ensure that each and every one of us can benefit from these improvements but choose not to do that.

Indeed the current Government continues to wage a war of attrition on those who rely on public support in the form of welfare whilst offering what appear to be unfunded tax cuts to those they choose to call 'hardworking'.

The rise and rise of Arturo Ui suggests that amongst some people nostalgia is mistaking the past for a pleasant land and decrying the achievements of the present.

What no-one appears able to explain is how UKIP will at one and the same time give people their country back whilst ensuring that all the benefits of life in the present are maintained.

UKIP will never form a Government, almost all of its policy proposals are either unfunded or unaffordable, whilst the policies themselves are contradictory.

And none of this is to mention the most significant achievement since 1945, the continued commitment of the nations of Europe to work together to ensure that the two wars which tore Europe apart in the past will never happen again, apart from its role as an economic community the EEC is a project for peace and as such is crucial to our continued well being as a community of nations.

The other issue which bedevils our public life and seems central to this myopic vision of the country of the past, immigration, has been addressed fairly and squarely in the USA by President Obama, in according residence rights to those who have settled without papers.

America of course was built on immigration.

In the past of course ours was a nation of emigration as the economically dispossessed or the convicted left to start new lives in New Worlds and as they did so the colours of the world map reflected British colonial expansion, now reflected in what we call a Commonwealth of Nations.

What UKIP cannot understand, it seems, is that immigration makes a powerful contribution to the continued 'commonwealth' of our developing and enriching way of life as our contemporary cultural and economic wealth continues to increase as we become renewed and energised reinventing  ourselves along the way as a Global Nation.

It has become a cliche but perhaps the best response to the challenge of UKIP and those who offer it comfort at the Ballot Box is a gentle reminder of the perils of nostalgia:

The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift that is why it's called the present.