GDP = Gloom, Doom & Pessimism

The good news is that the UK’s economy has grown in the last three months. The bad news is, apparently, the 0.2% growth isn’t enough. But there are extenuating circumstances, of course.

First up, there was a royal wedding. Forget the 'feel good' factor, what counts is it's bad for the economy! Presumably not enough commemorative mugs and union flags were sold.

Then there was the unseasonably warm weather. But that’s good, isn’t it? We’re always being told to conserve our energy. But that’s the problem; when we do, we spend less on gas and electricity! So come on everyone! Turn up the heat and give our GDP a boost! Forget the carbon emissions; after all, we all want Britain to be great again, don’t we?

Quote of the Week

According to the financial section of the paper, the company BG is drilling for oil and gas in Brazil and has recently doubled its estimate of the reserves there. Their CEO, Frank Chapman, explained it thus, “The reservoirs are really performing at the extreme upside end of the expectation spectrum.”

Oh dear!

Chocolate

Do you remember a certain brand of chocolate used to advertise "a glass and a half of milk in every bar"? Well, this lunchtime I ate one such bar, and happened to notice in small print on the wrapper:

"The equivalent of 426ml of fresh liquid milk in every 227g. of milk chocolate."

It may satisfy weights and measures but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

Birthday

It was my birthday on Saturday. First of all, thank you to all my Facebook 'friends' who wished me a happy birthday! I took the day off as I'd seen a kite festival advertised on Dunstable Downs, not far from where one of our daughters lives.

So we arranged with them to meet up there at noon, have a picnic lunch and enjoy the kites. However, this was Saturday, the day of the downpours. It's quite interesting six people having a picnic in one car, with the windows tight shut to keep the rain out! But it was a good day. It cleared up long enough to see some kite displays, including four kites 'dancing' to music. I never knew people did such things! There's a whole unexplored world out there...

Below is the card my wife sent me, which she made herself (as she does all the cards we send). I know it gives away my age, but I thought you'd like to see it. On the front it says:

And inside:

Grammar, the Bible and Translation

I was preparing my sermon on Psalm 23, ("The Lord is my shepherd ..."), and I found out the the New International Version of the Bible, which I use, has just completed a revision. Its last major revision was 1984. The new revision has been available on the web since last November and you should now be able to buy the books.

I also didn't realise that the Committee on Bible Translation meets on an ongoing basis to review the latest scholarship and also common English usage. Although they say 95% of the latest revision remains the same as the 1984 revision, I found that Psalm 23 had five changes!

My own opinion on why this is the case is that in previous revisions, they had not wanted to stray too far from the King James Version when it came to well known passages like Psalm 23. However, that seems to be no longer the case. So gone is "the valley of the shadow of death", replaced by "the darkest valley", which just about every other modern translation has. Also gone are the "paths of righteousness", replaced by "right paths", which is much clearer (or, to put it another way, what exactly are "paths of righteousness"?).

I think their latest translation of Psalm 23 is very good, and for your interest, here it is (italics indicate the changes I've noticed):

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³ he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Another aspect of English interested me as I read the translators' notes. It was the use of gender neutral 'them' to refer back to a singular noun or pronoun, rather than having to say, "him or her", or something similarly clumsy. We all do it in spoken English, for instance, you might say to a group of people, "If someone can give me a lift, I'll wait for them in the car park." The plural "them" refers back to "someone", which is singular. But this is now officially alright to use! I need no longer sweat about what to me is bad grammar.

In fact, in a recent blog below on political correctness I wrote,

For instance someone isn't deaf, he or she is hearing impaired.

But I could have said "someone isn't deaf, they are hearing impaired." Not only is it politically correct, it's now grammatically correct as well!

Posh crisps

We have a picnic basket- you know, the proper wicker type with cutlery, etc, inside. We hadn't used it for some years and as the Sunday School were going for a picnic up to Westley Heights on Whit Sunday, I said, "Let's take our picnic basket!"

So we did, and it poured with rain and having a picnic on the church hall floor wasn't quite how I'd imagined it ... But we did still use the basket and the picnic blanket!

So I said, one Monday off when it's fine, we must use it again! Well this last Monday was VERY fine, so down to Chalkwell we went with our picnic. Brilliant!

I offered to go out to buy some items for the picnic and my wife said to buy some crisps, but some 'nice' ones! So off I went to Lidl and bought their own brand 'Ideal' crisps, which were very nice and I can recommend them.

What amused me was the front of the packet. You can see they've done a tasteful arrangement of the ingredients: a sack of potatoes, a dish of sea salt and a stack of peppercorns. But the vertical writing on the left hand side reads, "Serving suggestion"!

Presumably this was to ensure no-one was expecting the bag to actually hold a sack of potatoes (a clue would have been its weight). But, actually, it's not a serving suggestion. I defy anyone to serve up crisps looking like a sack of potatoes!