Spelling competition

It's a late arrival, but just in time for the worst spelling mistake of 2008 contest. Regular readers will have seen my pictures of spelling and grammar errors around where we live - most within a mile. The easiest way to view them is to enter "spelling" in the search blog box to the left on the top of this page.

Well, for this one I had to travel about a mile and a half, but it was worth it! Click on the photograph to obtain a larger image.

I have to say I think it wins the prize!

Carolling away

In my previous entry (below), I mentioned the lack of carol singing. I must admit, however, that there are some carols I dislike. Take Once in royal David's city which, to me, goes on rather with six verses. And then with lines like:


Christian children all should be,
Mild, obedient, good as He.


- my reaction inside is "yuk!" Sorry if that offends anyone.


It ends with:


When like stars His children crowned,
All in white shall be around.

- my reaction is these are the last two things you do with children - dress them in white (because they'll get filthy immediately) and then get them to "wait around"; I can hear the "I'm bored" protests getting louder by the second!

Then there's another stalwart, The first nowell. Again, it goes on rather with six verses (although there was at least nine originally). But it says, concerning the shepherds:


They looked up and saw a star
Shining in the east, beyond them far;

- no they didn't! The angels appeared to them (as the first verse says) and the magi followed the star (as the third verse says). When our carols actually get the story wrong, I tend to shy away from choosing them!

And, by the way, why is noel spelt nowell only in this carol?

And then, Away in a manger (attributed to Martin Luther) tells us that the baby Jesus wakes up but "no crying he makes". Why not? In my experience all healthy babies cry! And Scripture says that Jesus was like us in every way, except that he didn't sin. And I don't rate a baby crying as sin!



Well, that's my commentary on some Christmas carols. But they are great tunes and somehow they make Christmas. So, next year, let's hear them all again (but if we can cut down the verses of the six plus ones, I would appreciate it!).

Christmas comes ... and goes

From a spiritual point of view, it was an odd Christmas. By lunchtime Christmas Day I'm usually "carolled out" as I've sung the most popular ones a number of times by then. But this year, with a combination of not being in a pastorate and having a cold that lasted two and a half weeks, I felt I had hardly celebrated Christmas at all. For the first time in 23 years I was not taking part in Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services; instead, we went over to my sister-in-law's. Now we thought we would go to a late night service on the Eve, but listed locally were only Anglican churches, plus the Methodist church which was doing communion.

Now I've led Christmas Eve communions and I know they can be special times (in Barnet, it was always by candlelight). However, I'm afraid the Methodist service was just as Anglican as C of E churches, if not more so! I realise this is just our preference, but it didn't do a lot for us. Especially as it seemed to be 'karaoke' carols, as we think the organ music was being played from a CD, rather than the organ keyboard. It was a case of keep up or else! Plus, of course, a carol that we didn't know, but it was by Charles Wesley, so that's alright then!

So a slightly odd Christmas for us. I hope next year I will have a church and I promise I will be grateful, even when I've sung "O come all ye faithful" for the sixth time!

Creating about creation

On Christmas Eve eve (i.e. Tuesday), there was an article in the paper reporting on a survey that said 73% of science teachers agreed creationism should be discussed alongside evolution in science classes. Of course we immediately got some arrogant blustering from dear old Richard Dawkins, who is reported to have said it is a "national disgrace" and that we are "failing to in our duty to children if we staff our schools with teachers who are this ignorant - or this stupid."

First of all it is shades of emperor's new clothes, in that anyone who disagrees with Prof. Dawkins is either ignorant or stupid. Secondly, it really does illustrate that people like him are running scared of those who actually believe in a God who created the universe. If this notion is so ridiculous, as he would have us believe, then let it fade away by itself,as surely it must.

But then again, maybe there is something in it. And that's why he's so against open discussion in schools - people might realise there is a reasonable alternative worldview to his.

I got for Christmas the book Creation or Evolution - Do we have to choose? by Denis Alexander, a senior scientist. I'll let you know what he says.

Christmas Eve

To all my blog readers:

A Joyful Christmas and a peaceful New Year!

We remember at this time of year, "When the right time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, ... to redeem us." (Galatians 4:4) That's the good news we hold on to. The Hope of the World has come - and that must bring hope to all who believe in Jesus as the Son of God become a human being for us.

At the present time I am still unemployed but I know the Lord has something up His sleeve. In the meantime I intend to enjoy celebrating Christ's birth with the family. And then in the New Year - well, we trust God for that.

Revealed - Santa has a false beard!

In our local paper, more Santa mayhem! It was reported that whilst children were waiting to see Father Christmas, the very man came out of his grotto, took his beard off and said he'd be back in a few minutes! Children were, apparently, 'shocked' at this behaviour!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will already know my thoughts about Father Christmas, although I see no harm in going to see one of the father Christmas's around if the children want to. Just don't be too disappointed if his beard comes off!

Another local news item of non-joy at Christmas is that EDF have scheduled a power cut around the High Street this Sunday morning. They are reported to have said they timed it for a Sunday given the number of business premises in the area. Presumably no-one twigged that many of them were shops, and the Sunday one and half weeks before Christmas is probably one of the few Sundays most of them will be open.

Still where would we be without our wonderful privatised utility companies?

I should add that the power cut will not affect us - Sunday trading and all that!

More news on the whereabouts (or not) of Father Christmas

A few days ago I blogged about why I thought we shouldn't bring up our children to believe in Father Christmas. I find it is quite a hot topic. In The Guardian Annalisa Barbieri defends the stance of encouraging this belief. One of my three arguments against is that it is lying to our children. Annalisa defends this by quoting a psychotherapist who suggests we should not think of it as lying, but "about stimulating the imagination, creating fantasy and not always making the world concrete. We all need to know how to do this in order to have an imagination and to explore our own creativity." That's great! Kids must do this. They will catch on quickly. When they deny hitting their sibling or taking sweets from the shop, and are found out, when they say, "I wasn't lying, I was just using my imagination and exploring my creativity," that will be OK then.

Actually I think many grown-ups have difficulty telling the difference between reality and imagination. So just as a help, concerning television:

Eastenders is not reality.

I'm a Celebrity... is reality, but not as we know it.

The News is reality mixed with confrontational interviews and opinions of the reporters.

In the Night Garden - well, I can't make head nor tail of this on the few occasions I've watched it with my two year old granddaughter. Why does the roundabout go round and bits grow up out of it? What is the point of the Pontipine family (have I spelt that right?). Why does that little train shoot round every so often? Why does Maccapacca have a zimmer frame? And how did they persuade Derek Jacobi to do the voice over?

Maybe this is reality and somewhere in darkest rural England is a wood where it all actually happens. If anyone is wandering in a wood and sees the airship, do let me know.

Credit Crunch bites

My newspaper says Tesco's have issued "an unusually gloomy quarterly trading update". You see, horror of horrors, their trading for the last quarter was only up by 2%! That didn't include gains from new stores - so I assume to include them would mean their sales up more than 2%.

So let me get this right - we're in a recession, but their profits are still UP! And that's 'gloomy'?

A bit of reality here would be nice ...

More attempts at Humour ...

When our Bible Study group met, someone asked, "If a tin whistle is made out of tin, what is a fog horn made out of?" All I could say was that the answer was not at all clear.

What's that got to do with Bible study, you may ask. Probably nothing. But we did get to looking at those maps at the back of one's Bible. And the same person found "Well of Harod" on one map. This caused various questions to be asked, like, "Is it near to Al-Fayed?" Last week I said there's another place. Previously it was Harod's Well, this week it's "Woolworth's Ill".

We do also do Bible study when we meet, honest!