Good Friday

As I was thinking about what I might say in church today, I was reading through the passion story in the Bible. I got to the point where Pilate sees no reason to have Jesus executed and wants to release him. As it was Passover time, a prisoner was allowed to go free. He thought he'd release Jesus, but the crowd shouted for Barabbas who was in prison for plotting against the Romans and for murder. So that's what happened.

It struck me that the guilty party (Barabbas) went free, and the innocent party (Jesus) was put to death. Yet that's exactly what Jesus' death is all about. Christians believe Jesus to be the Son of God who never did anything wrong, yet he willingly went to the cross, not for his misdemeanours but for ours, so that we can be reconciled back to God, our heavenly Father.

The idea that Barabbas was an 'illustration' of what Christ's death means is not, needless to say, an original thought. I was talking to someone in our church who had just come from doing a school assembly on this very topic. Details for the assembly can be found on http://www.hope08.com/ website. So, guess what? We had a "school assembly" in our Good Friday service! No point in re-inventing the wheel!

Let's hear it for the apostrophe!

I'm a fan of Lynne Truss who wrote "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", subtitled "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation". This is a guide to proper use of punctuation, with plenty of examples of its misuse! She tells that she found out some time ago there is an Apostrophe Protection Society. However, they are too courteous for her. She says she would be a member of their militant wing if they had one!


I, too am one of those people who want to preserve the correct use of English. So I tend to spot signs that are grammatically incorrect, or in some other way offend my sensibilities!



I suddenly realised that within the space of under a mile I had spotted five errors! Admittedly one was chalked up on a pub blackboard - "potatoe". Ouch! But now they've changed the menu, thank goodness! I've taken some photos, as you can see, and you may like to try to spot where the incorrect use of the Queen's English has taken place (click on a photo to see a larger image).


Let me say that I haven't included the sign at our local Somerfields which tells us that at the one checkout the maximum in your basket must be "6 item's".

In case you need explanations, here they are. First of all, of course, the apostrophe. It should be "Members' Car Park" (unless it only has one member, then the apostrophe is before the 's'.)

Next up, oh dear! "License" is the verb form, i.e. "to license" but "Licence" is the noun and should be used here. Unless, that is you are in America, then either will do.

Next is an interesting one. CCTV stands for "closed circuit television". The circuit isn't close as opposed to far away, but closed as opposed to open.





Admittedly the antique shop has been closed for quite some time and I'm sure it didn't close because of the incorrect use of quotation marks! However, suffice it to say that "bric-a-brac" actually uses dashes.


Finally, let us end on the famous "greengrocer's apostrophe"! Perhaps they did it on purpose to encourage people to go in. Can I say that it's a brilliant shop and you should go in!



Well, there we are. I'm sure I will find more devastating debasements of English. If I have my camera with me, I might even take a picture!

Carbon fast again

Some of you may have been missing my carbon fast missives. Well, nothing very exciting to report. Many of the things suggested we do already. For instance day 22 says re-use an old envelope or print double sided. As to the former, we have a stock of 10 used padded envelopes and about 50 used envelopes (I stopped counting after 20). As to the latter, I regularly use the 'other' side of A4 sheets as scrap paper and have quite a hoard of that.

Day 24 was "counsel your local council" about recycling facilities. Good old Essex County Council obliged with a questionnaire to fill in about their recycling in their free magazine! The rest of the magazine got recycled!

Oh yes! Day 25 was to de-ice the fridge ... Must do that!

Are you alright there?

Why has the phrase "Are you alright there?" become fashionable? In particular, when it was used on me recently. There I was queueing up at a well known bakers for a cheese and onion pasty. The queue was long and it moved slowly. Two assistants were serving. When I got to the front and one assistant had finished serving the previous customer, she looked at me and said, "Are you alright there?" I wanted to reply, "No I'm not! I've been queueing up for ages! I'm far from alright!" But of course, I didn't. I just politely ordered my pasty.

But whatever happened to phrases like "Can I help you?"

Cheap meals taste better!

After our trip up to London yesterday (see previous blog) we went to a local restaurant for a celebratory meal! The main reason was that we'd got vouchers to spend there from Tesco's. Let me explain.

When we've received our club card points, up to now we've always changed them into cash off our next shop. I've always viewed with suspicion some of the so-called special offers you could exchange them for. But here was one that seemed straightforward. Exchange a £5 voucher for £20's worth of vouchers for the restaurant! Can't be bad, we thought, and it wasn't bad at all! It enabled the both of us to have a nice meal out without breaking the bank. I don't say this very often, but thank you Mr. Tesco!

The Terracotta Army

Today we went up to London to see the Terracotta Army exhibition at the British Museum. In spite of the gales and torrential rain, we went. Well, we'd had to pay for the tickets in advance! It was well worth going to see. Although the museum has only a few of the 7,000 soldiers found, they are quite amazing. There are also many other exhibits to see and plenty to read about.

The king who had this incredible complex holding his terracotta army built around his tomb was ruler of the state of Qin. And when he had conquered the surrounding six states he declared himself the "First August Divine Emperor of the Qin".

On the other hand it was slightly sad to think he had this massive army built to protect him in the afterlife, so he could rule for ever. But as Jesus said, if we store up treasures on earth, moth and rust corrupt and thieves break in and steal. In fact, early on thieves had broken in to the underground complex and stolen much and the army pieces have deteriorated over time and many were smashed and are being put back together again. What the Emperor omitted to do was to "lay up treasure in heaven", which is what Jesus has exhorted us to do. That's the only way to be sure of a good afterlife!

At the Cutting Edge ...

Yesterday our evening service theme was Finding Balance in Wealth, one of our Living Today series. I spoke of the dangers of money, remembering Jesus' warning about not being able to serve both God and Money. He is saying that we can 'promote' wealth to godlike status in our lives and worship it. And when we do, we demote God because we can't serve both.

That was yesterday, and today I read that the Vatican has announced seven more 'deadly sins' of which "accumulating excessive wealth" is one. As far as I know, there were no Cardinals listening in to my sermon, but, hey, when Eric preaches, the Catholic Church responds!

Actually there were other interesting new sins in their list including social injustice and environmental pollution. Maybe some more topics in our Living Today series ...

I think, at least I think I do

In my sermon yesterday I quoted Rene Descartes' famous line, "I think, therefore I am". Then I went on to tell the following joke I heard on Terry Wogan last week.

Descartes is in a bar and has had a few drinks when he says he's going home. The barman says, "One for the road, Rene?" to which Rene replies, "I think not," and then disappears.

It took a few moments for some to get the joke and I even noticed someone explaining it to the person next to them! What interests me is, given that the Descartes' quote was not given as a preamble to the joke on Radio 2, how many listeners got the joke?

Monk is back!

The television detective Monk is back on BBC2 Saturday afternoons! This "defective detective" as he has been billed has OCD, but that helps him to solve crimes. It's been a great series (well, it appeals to us, anyway!), let's hope the latest run is as good.

It's normally on BBC2 at varying times on Saturday afternoons. But now we have a HD recorder we have set the "series link" so we won't miss any! What did we do before all this technology? Oh, I remember, we bought something called Radio Times each week.

Another proverb ...

IN my reading a proverb or two a day - from the book of the same name in the Bible, that is - I came across this one:
Disregarding another person's faults preserves love;
telling about them separates close friends.

It's interesting to read the idea that, instead of 'going on' about someone else's shortcomings, we're told to ignore them. It's what our American friends might call 'counter intuitive'. We think we ought to point out the other person's faults! "It's for their greater good!" we think. But is it? Is it rather to make us feel better?

We want to change those we love. Why? If we're honest, because it makes for an easier life for us! We don't have to live with those niggling faults! But disregarding them 'preserves love', rather than trying to change the other person. And maybe, if I disregard other people's faults, they might disregard mine!