Licensed today: Pentre Ifan, a neolithic dolmen in Pembrokeshire, Wales…
Friday, 31 March 2023
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
Cricket on the green...
This quote from Krishnamurti arrived in my in-tray this morning. "All religions on this earth at this moment are based on repetition, rituals, authority and a hierarchical outlook. They sustain a morality which is not moral at all. Religions say one thing and do another: they say love your neighbour and sustain the machinery of war".
Licensed today, for a really good fee, which more than doubles the takings for the month of March: a game of cricket being played in the village of Hartley Wintney, Hampshire…
Tuesday, 28 March 2023
Another school shooting...
There have been 130 mass shootings in America this year, and we’re not even at the end of March (a mass shooting is defined as a violent event at which at least four people are killed). The latest shooting spree, at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, was by a female ex-student, aged 28, armed with two ‘assault-style' weapons and a handgun. After planning the massacre by drawing a detailed map and conducting surveillance of the building, she killed three pupils and three adults, before being killed herself.
David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said authorities sent “heartfelt prayers to the families … of these victims”. He added: “Now I know there’ll be people who want to criticise us for prayers. That’s the way we do that in the south. We believe in prayer and we believe in the power of prayer. So our prayers go out to these families”. As for the effectiveness of all those prayers… well, that’s a different matter.
This is last year's Christmas card from Andy Ogles, a Republican who represents the district the school is in...
Monday, 27 March 2023
Frank's funeral...
I went to a funeral on Friday. If he was looking down from heaven (a long shot, I’d say, for half a dozen different reasons), Frank might have been surprised to see me there. We were only ever ‘friends of friends’. But, hey, at my time of life a funeral is a day out, an opportunity to socialise. The short service, at Rawdon Crematorium, was almost over before I realised it was humanist.
There was no mention of God, or heaven (and even Christians baulk at mentioning ‘the other place’ at a funeral), though the humanist celebrant reminded us that we too would die some day. We were not asked to kneel, or mumble prayers to a taciturn and camera-shy deity. Instead of hymns, or the call-and-response of ancient invocations, we filed out to some raucous blues by George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Despite the sombre nature of the occasion, it felt grown-up. We can handle these occasions ourselves; we no longer need the infantilising delusions – or the contrived euphemisms – of religion.
Licensed today: another useage of the gardens at Great Dixter, Northiam, East Sussex…
Sunday, 26 March 2023
Saturday, 25 March 2023
Coronation...
Looks like May 7th is a date for my diary: a good opportuniity, perhaps, to put all my CDs into alphabetical order. A ‘royal-themed’ scarecrow festival? Could be a bit of confusion if Camilla turns up…
Friday, 24 March 2023
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