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If you arrived here directly, then don't miss Holford Web Home of David's Mental Meanderings If you just want to find out who this strange bloke is, you'll need to go there as well. Your feedback about anything you read here is always welcome. Other blogs I enjoy reading: Doxos St. Stephen's Musings Robert's Cogitations This is Life Paradosis Natalie Solent Mere Comments Little Geneva Antioch Road The Edge of England's Sword flyingchair.net Samizdata Joshua Claybourn Between Heaven and Hell PC Watch Notes From a Hillside Farm Simeon's Hit and Miss of Filosofical Thought George Grant Lileks a conservative blog for peace You can also find me listed at Blogs4God Currently down from the bookshelf: Celtic Christianity in Early Medieval Wales: The Origins of the Welsh Spiritual Tradition by Oliver Davies Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium by Judith Herrin Recently finished: Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, The New York Eskimo by Kenn Harper John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life by Paul C. Nagel Lancaster & York: The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir Most recent acquisitions: John Major: The Autobiography Retreat from New Jerusalem: British Politics 1951-64 by Kevin Jefferys 
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Thursday, April 24, 2003
Dealing with a toddler is like trying to follow in the path of a tornado, tidying up as you go along. As much as we have tried to toddler-proof our flat, certain things have to be out to be used on a regular basis. Other things that are in use cannot be forgotten by momentary distractions in another part of the home. If we forget them, we can rest assured Aidan hasn�t and he has been waiting patiently to pounce on them. Given his fascination with beverage receptacles of any kind, it is open season on any glass, cup, mug, or bottle left less than three feet above floor level. That is, unless there is an adjacent climbing device, in which case we might as well be hanging things from the ceiling on a very short string. Though Aidie is getting very good a drinking without the aid of a sippy lid, he hasn�t mastered this skill to perfection. It seems this week has consisted of a series of spilled drinks and various mopping efforts, depending on the floor surface underneath at the time. And mopping efforts are not confined to the various drink offerings poured out. One of the major entertainments at bath time is the ritual throwing of the toys onto the adjoining floor. This is not some sort of tantrum. There is careful planning in how to throw the object past Daddy and get the best distance. He has even discovered the art of faking and feigning. Aidan may have a future scoring penalty kicks for one of the three national teams for which he is eligible to play. We have now gotten to the stage where the various parts of his favourite toy (the tug boat with three people, three lift rafts, a smokestack, and a raised deck that doubles as a second little boat) all exit the bathtub quickly to get down to the big prize: the washcloth. It doesn�t go far, but it splatters lots of water when it hits the tiles below. I only have one news item today, and as the parent of a toddler, this is a story to which I can readily relate and have included in full: PARIS (Reuters) - Two French three-year-old twin boys who disappeared from home then reappeared hours later without their clothes had been off wreaking havoc in a neighbour's empty house. Police initially feared an abduction by a paedophile when the missing boys were discovered late in the evening walking through their home town of Deols, western France, stark naked and holding a bedside lamp, newspapers said on Thursday. But a call from a neighbour to report a suspected burglary revealed the boys had broken into a nearby house and gone berserk, emptying out drawers, bouncing on beds, scribbling on walls and gobbling up orange-flavoured vitamin pills. The twins discarded their clothes after getting covered in shampoo and toothpaste after a rampage through the bathroom, squeezing out bottles and tubes. They grabbed a bedside light and took it away with them thinking it would help them find their way home in the dark. The boys' parents will compensate the house owners, daily Liberation said. It did not say how they would punish the twins. Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Following one of the themes of yesterday�s blog, the Tower of London is not the only place where important repairs have been delayed. Much closer to home, in the village of Llangattock Lingoed, very near Mrs Holford�s hometown, the church is awaiting the completion of repairs costing �100,000. It�s not the money that is the problem. It�s the bats. St Cadog�s Church has become the roosting place for lesser horseshoe bats. This is a rare species, so I guess shooting them is out of the question. Because the bats have been in the way, the rotten roof has not been replaced. Renovations on the church tower have been completed, and there are hopes the bats will move over there while the roof is being finished. Now they just have to find someone who can explain this to the bats. And speaking of creature of the dark� If George Galloway is going to sue all the media sources which are publishing information about his dirty dealings, the docket is going to get quite long. After the Sun failed in their attempt to interview him at his �250,000 Portuguese hideaway (and �250,000 will get you a lot in Portugal), despite offering a fee of 50,000 Iraqi dinars, they made him the front page. Other papers, both tabloid and broadsheet followed suit. Looks like Gorgeous George is neck deep in guano. And keeping with the subterranean theme� The largest prehistoric man-made cavern in the world has been discovered in North Wales. It has been found adjacent to part of an elaborate complex of Bronze Age copper mines nearly 4,000 years old which was discovered in 1987. To quote the article appearing in The Times tomorrow, �Great Ormes copper mines are recognised as making up the largest Bronze Age mining complex in the world, with four miles of tunnels already excavated to depth of more than 200ft. Geological surveys suggest that there are probably about ten miles of tunnels in total. The copper was used to make axes and other implements at the start of the Bronze Age: prehistoric Britain had a far more advanced civilisation than previously thought.� The article also notes, �Some archaeologists rank the mines alongside Stonehenge in historic significance.� Something positive from the Turks You may remember that I had less than favourable things to say about the Turks recently. Well, I want you to know that I try to be fair. I have something positive to report. Not from Turkey itself, but from its client rogue state occupying the northern part of Cyprus. Turkish Cypriot officials have decided to allow day trips across the cease-fire line. This is the first time there has been free movement throughout the island in thirty years. Some residents of both Greek and Turkish backgrounds have not been able to visit their hometowns since they were uprooted in the wake of the Turkish invasion of 1974. Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Sorry there was no blog yesterday. Today I�m late getting this together, because once again Mrs Holford wanted to watch a film. Instead of trip to Blockbuster, this was the film we had ordered for my father-in-law for his birthday. In a family tradition that goes back as long as I can remember � probably three years or more � we watched the present before giving it away. We saw We Were Soldiers, the 2001 Vietnam War picture starring Mel Gibson. The blurb on the back says, �Makes Saving Private Ryan look like Dad�s Army�. [For the Americans, Dad�s Army is an old sitcom about mostly old men serving in the Home Guard in WWII.] I don�t know if it was that gorier or more intense, but it was not filmed for the faint of heart. However, it is a very good movie, and based upon a true story. Parts of it are quite tear jerking (says the man who has never required excessive force to produce an effusion of tears) and I recommend it. Now for something not Based on a True Story� It is reported in The Times today �Urgent repairs to medieval stonework at the Tower of London have been postponed while a mock dungeon has been created to display instruments of torture that were almost certainly never used at the Tower.� I hate when they do this. Not the delaying of repairs � though that is deplorable, too. I hate when they make up history. I despise and abhor when they do it to make a buck. Or a pound. Or bucks that have been converted into pounds at the airport. This new exhibition, called �Torture at the Tower� is set to be a permanent fixture, like the ravens, the beefeaters, and the Crown Jewels. The tourists are being suckered in with �promises that visitors will learn how �over the centuries, hundreds of prisoners suffered and died� and see �replicas of a range of torture instruments known to have been used on unfortunate traitors in the Tower�.� People want gore, and by golly they will get gore. There doesn�t seem to be any mention of the fact that torture was only ever used at the Tower, and then rarely, under the Tudors. Even then, in the 16th and 17th centuries there were only seven executions there. He says it�s not based on a true story� George Galloway, friend of the former Iraqi regime, is suing the Daily Telegraph. The Telegraph claims to have documents recovered from the looted Foreign Ministry showing that the member for Baghdad Central received at least �375,000 a year from oil earnings. According to the Daily Telegraph, �A confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his spy chief said that Mr Galloway asked an agent of the Mukhabarat secret service for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil for food programme.� This is not one little article, like the Hot Cross Buns story. The Daily Telegraph seems to have all it ducks in a row. They even printed the contents of the documents in question translated into English, with photos of the originals in Arabic. I would guess they anticipated that Galloway would sue, which he immediately announced he was doing. The Times reports that the allegations are being taken seriously by the Labour Party. They will be investigated by the general secretary of the party, who is already looking into comments made by Galloway before and during the recent hostilities, such as branding Tony Blair and George Bush �wolves� and encouraging British troops to disobey orders. Sunday, April 20, 2003
Any official from Tower Hamlets Council would have felt most welcome at the meal after our Liturgy today. One of our parishioners brought hot cross buns, but having been made aware of the potential for trouble in race relations through the efforts of your faithful blogger, he marked through the words �Hot Cross� on the label and renamed them �Spring Festival� buns. I also learned through another source today that neither Tower Hamlets nor Liberal-controlled councils have a monopoly on idiocy. Another faithful reader informed me of something that occurred that while he was teaching in a northwest London borough in the early 1980s. The council, controlled by that other party beginning with letter �L�, had decided to hold a series of afternoon tea dances, ostensibly for retired residents. To promote this initiative, flyers were posted all around the borough. The posters naturally featured photos of older couples dancing. Someone employed by this council in a position to enforce political correctness had all of the posters removed. Why? There were no pictures of same-sex couples. And speaking of organizations that promote same-sex couples� The Sunday Times today published a report on a survey it conducted of forty Church of England clergy regarding the Gospel accounts of the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. I�d provide a link, but as The Times Online charges an annual subscription fee of �39.99 to overseas readers, I�d better just give you a synopsis. The Sunday Times was motivated to run this survey after an internal Church of England report last week criticised the standard of theological training for priests. To quote the article, �More than half the clergy contacted this weekend achieved a score of 50% or less in the quiz. Some were irritated to be stumped on details of the crucifixion and resurrection stories.� A curate in West London didn�t know the name of Barabbas, but he was trying to remember the details of Monty Python�s Life of Brian to help him recall it. A curate in Derby took a break from getting a tan to take the quiz, but only got 4 out of 10 correct. One Anglican priestess missed 7 out of the 10. The lack of knowledge was not confined to the ranks of the lower clergy. The former bishop of Durham scored only 50%. And speaking of Anglican bishops� According to the Sunday Telegraph �The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has been forced to apologise to Britain's 330,000 Freemasons after he said that their beliefs were incompatible with Christianity and that he had rejected them from senior posts in his diocese.� Apparently, Dr Williams used to believe that certain elements of Freemasonry were �satanically inspired�. Now after a private letter was leaked, in which he said he "had real misgivings about the compatibility of Masonry and Christian profession," he has written to the Grand Secretary of the United Grand Lodge of England, trying to explain it all away. In his letter of apology he said, "I have been sorry to learn of the distress of a considerable number of Freemasons . . . In replying to private correspondence, I had no intention of starting a public debate nor of questioning the good faith and generosity of individual Freemasons and I regret the tone and content of the media coverage." So maybe he still does believe that there are satanically inspired elements, because as the Sunday Telegraph notes, �Dr Williams does not, in his letter, deny that he has misgivings about the role of Freemasons within the Church.� But that�s not what is really important, obviously. The Sunday Telegraph may have missed this but it is clear to me that given the state of Church of England finances, the Archbishop cannot afford to lose any members who may be disposed toward generosity. And now for some good news� A Presbyterian church of 400 members has escaped the ravages of war. Among the entire congregation, only the windows of a few homes have been broken. Pastor Ikram Ibrahim Mehanni said, "The bombs made the church shake like it was in the middle of an earthquake but it never fell down. We feared we would be attacked by Muslim extremists, but they never came. So far, we have been kept safe from the looters. It is a miracle that God has protected us and we are all alive." Sometimes you have to be tough in Baghdad, even if you are Christian. The secretary of the parish council, Samir Aha said, "I hit a looter in the jaw and sent his spectacles flying, but I am not a bad man or an aggressive man. I hope Jesus will forgive me, because I was protecting this church. After that, I was firing my gun in the air every night.� The Easter Sunday service was guarded by two US Marines, who also brought the church the gift of an AK47 and two boxes of ammunition. Pastor Mehanni said, "We will be praying for peace. Next Easter, I would rather our church be given chocolate, not guns." But there�s no report that he turned down this year�s gift. |