Work Of My Own Fiction

Lisbeth Salander and Feminism

2012-01-20T22:49:00.000Z

I’ve come across Nick Cohen’s Guardian piece “Stieg Larsson was an extremist, not a feminist” too late to leave a comment, so I’ll leave one here. This is what made me want to make one – Cohen’s closing paragraph:

I do not go to actors for political advice. But when Rooney Mara said that she did not think that Larsson's Salander was a feminist, she was not the empty-headed celebrity she seemed.

Salander is not Erika Berger; she wouldn’t call herself a feminist. She’s not really keen on labelling herself as anything. One of the most important things to understand about Salander is the likelihood that she has a high functioning form of autism. Blomkvist thinks she has Asperger’s. Her way of relating to herself and everyone and everything around her is affected by her psychological make-up. It’s not enough to quote Eva Gabrielsson saying that Salander’s "entire being represents a resistance, an active resistance to the mechanisms that mean women don't advance in this world and in worst-case scenarios are abused like she was" without mentioning the probablity that she also has Asperger’s. It’s key to a reader’s understanding of how Salander thinks and how Larsson drew her as a character.

From Russia With Love

2011-11-30T15:10:00.003Z

I’ve been immersing myself in Raymond Chandler novels recently, which probably accounts for this short blog post on the story about Ekaterina Zatuliveter who proved to a tribunal that she was not a honeytrapping spy from Russia sent to access defence secrets in the UK.

This is from the end of an article in Daily Mail online:

Their (the tribunal’s) ruling states: 'The picture painted by the diary entries is inconsistent with the Security Service's assessment that she was, most likely, tasked actively to pursue the offer of a relationship with Mr Hancock.

'The most likely explanation, and one which we find to be proved on the balance of probabilities, is that, however odd it might seem, she fell for him.'

Last night security officials insisted they were not in any way 'embarrassed' by the ruling and insisted their identification of Miss Zatuliveter as a potential threat to national security was correct.

The ruling said: 'We are satisfied that it is significantly more likely than not that she was and is not a Russian agent.'

However, it added: 'We cannot exclude the possibility that we have been gulled – but, if we have been, it has been by a supremely competent and rigorously trained operative.'

Right, so: “We don’t think you’re bluffing, but if you are we’ve called you on it anyway.”

Tori Amos; Cultural Olympiad; Review Show

2011-11-04T16:49:00.010Z

Back from a pre-record of the Review Show for the Premier Radio Drive Time slot due to be aired at 4pm on 14 November. This followed a morning at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane for a press conference about the Cultural Olympiad (The Guardian was concerned about the cost of free cultural events during a time of recession; The Times wanted to know more about a major art installation by the Manhattan artists' collective YesYesNo which will span the length of Hadrian's Wall and The Telegraph wondered whether actors spouting Shakespeare along the walk from Westminster to the Southbank might be a bit too much for "grumpy Londoners" to take) - and an evening at the Hammersmith Apollo being blown away by Tori Amos (Suede; A Sorta Fairytale).

On the Review Show we discussed:

1) Film: Amélie (10 year anniversary dvd)
2) Book: Just Want To Be Loved for Me.
3) CD: Kingsway triple pack.

And here is a picture from inside the Theatre Royal today:

Quite.

Jack Clemo Poetry Awards

2011-10-28T14:42:00.000+01:00

A poorly taken picture of Tony Jasper and Lady Mary Holborow at The Society of Authors yesterday:

The Arts Centre Group held their annual Jack Clemo Poetry Awards there.

House of Commons

2011-10-21T10:55:00.000+01:00

Labour MP Meg Munn hosted an afternoon tea in celebration of the Methodist Recorder’s 150th anniversary year in the House of Commons yesterday. Here is a snap from inside Dining Room A:

Charles Dickens was writing Great Expectations and Queen Victoria was on the thrown when the first edition of the Recorder was published in 1861. After the Daily Telegraph, the paper was the oldest in Fleet Street and also one of the last to move out. The Methodist Recorder is now taking on the challenge of a digital age (I heard yesterday that its website will be revamped... soon).

Greenbelt 2011

2011-09-02T15:02:00.001+01:00

I’ve experienced a kind of Greenbelt overload since last week. I think this is because it was the first time I'd been and also because of what I was doing there: reporting for the Methodist Recorder and compiling a podcast for Methodist Web Radio. The podcast is here and the Recorder piece will be out next week.

Here are a few photos from the festival:

The Mainstage at Greenbelt

Debate on poverty in the UK

George Luke, DJ and gig organiser for the Performance Cafe

The Performance Cafe

Writer and performer, Stella Duffy

Me in front of Mainstage in between rain showers, looking no way near as stylish as Stella.

Isreali Philharmonic Orchestra targeted by Protesters

2011-09-02T10:45:00.000+01:00

I feel for the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra this morning after a small group of protesters wrecked their performance at The Royal Albert Hall last night. The concert had to be pulled live off air from BBC Radio 3. You can hear the protesters shouting: “Off, off, off,” on a recording featured on The Telegraph online today. What got me was that Communications Minister Ed Vaizey, who was in the audience, tweeted: “Demonstrators seemed to have turned the entire audience pro-Israel.”

I’ll say it again: Being Pro-Israel does not mean that you are anti-Palestinian or that you endorse every policy that the Israeli Government makes. I am pro-Israel. That doesn’t mean I support the denial of human rights. For all the protesters know, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra doesn’t support oppression either. And yet they get booed off the stage purely because they are Israelis. No one equates the statement: “I am pro-American” with the same logic; that is: “I support all American foreign policy.” Why does this happen with Israel? Now it seems that anyone from Israel, whether that someone be a musician, an athlete, an artist or a writer, is a controversial figure merely for being Israeli. I remember meeting a tourist from Tel Aviv in a London pub. She hadn’t said anything more than where she came from, but it was enough for a couple of people around her not to want to have anything more to do with her.

Ed Vaizey’s final tweet last night was a link to this blog post, which is worth reading.

Comprehensive Schools

2011-08-17T11:45:00.001+01:00

Melissa Benn has written a lengthy piece in G2 today about the disparities between private and state school education in the UK. In it she quotes Tory MP Oliver Letwin who reportedly said that he would rather “beg on the street” than let his child go to a school like Lilian Baylis Technology School in Kennington. Aside from the fact that the atmosphere “could not present a greater contrast with schools such as Wellington”; that “75 per cent of the children are on free school meals” and that the school has “a far higher percentage of children with special educational needs”, we don’t learn why Oliver Letwin is so horrified. There’s no mention of the curriculum. We’re told that “successful learning" at the school depends on a “range of support and mentoring” but we are not told what they learning. Perhaps the needs of the students at Lilian Baylis mean that this school doesn’t reflect the range of subjects on offer at the average state school. What is the range of subjects on offer at the average state school? How many comprehensive schools, for example, teach French, German and Spanish? How many offer politics and economics at GCSE? Are there any state schools (excluding grammar schools) that teach Greek and Latin? Or is it that the kids who want to learn have to hope to come across books like Primo Latino in order to teach it to themselves.

Drive Time - Premier Radio

2011-08-16T10:44:00.002+01:00

I'll be on Premier Radio today just after 4pm for the Review Show. We'll be talking about:

1) Ishmael's Songs and Hymns.
2) Soul Food For Mums - Lucinda van der Hart and Anna France-Williams.
3) Soul Survivor - live worship from Kingsway.

Nijinsky and Diaghilev

2011-07-21T12:46:00.004+01:00

How exciting: A new play about Nijinsky and Diaghilev called Rattigan’s Nijinsky. Rattigan is said to have described the dancer and impresario as "the two most famous lovers since Romeo and Juliet”. According to the piece in yesterday's Indie, Rattigan was blackmailed by Nijinsky's widow, Romala Nikinsky, into withdrawing a screenplay commissioned by the BBC in 1974 and Nicholas Wright’s new play explores this. Journalist Paul Taylor wonders why Rattigan, who had never written openly about gay male relationships before, decided he would write about Nijinsky and Diaghilev when Romala was still alive, adding (in brackets) that “(since her husband's death, Romola had somehow managed to become both intensely homophobic and a practising lesbian)”. I wonder if Rattigan knew that (it’s not that uncommon an occurrence) and, if so, exactly what it was that he knew about her and how she would react to his script?

La Teta Asustada

2011-07-17T17:45:00.008+01:00

Ha qualcuno visto il film La Teta Asustada ? Non avevo mai sentito di questo film fino alla settimana scorsa quando lo vedevo in un cinema tedesco. In tedesco si chiama Eine Perle Ewigkeit ed in inglese The Milk Of Sorrow (non sono traduzioni l’uno dell’ altro).

Che fortissimo questo film. Claudia Llosa (il direttore) rende una bellezza triste di un pease che non conosco - Peru. E Magaly Solier (chi interpreta Fausta – la protagonista) e’ meravigliosa. Un film profondo. C’era una donna nel cinema che doveva uscire perche non poteva risparare bene dopo comincava la storia trista di Fausta – una ragazza che fosse nato dopo il stupro della sua mamma durante il terrismo all’inzio degli anni ottanta. Pensando di proteggersi contro lo stesso destino, Fausta porta una patata dentro il suo sesso che le causa tanti problemi medicali e psicologici. La trama del film riguarda la morta della mamma di Fausta e la determinazione di Fausta a pagare per la sua sepoltura e portarla al suo villaggio ancestrale. Fausta prende un lavoro come domestica per una pianista chi ha abbastanza soldi e abbastanza collera a gettare un pianoforte fuori della sua finestra se le cose non vanno come vuole. Quando la pianista sente Fausta cantando, le dice che possa avere una perla dalla sua collana ogni volta che canti. Ma la pianista rompa quest’ accordo con Fausta. Lei esegue una canzone di Fausta davanti un teatro pieno di gente, senza chiedando Fausta per la sua permissione. « Tutto Lima era li, » la pianista dice nel tassi dopo la rappresentazione. Fausta, viso orgoglioso, dice, « Te e’ piacuto, no?» La pianista ordina Fausta di uscire della macchina.

Da questo punto, succedono alcune cose inspiegabili.

Fausta ritorna alla casa della pianista e trova le sue parle nella sua camera di letto. Le trova per terra. Ma perche erano li ? Dove era la pianista ? E cosa succede quando la pianista vedeva che non c’erano piu’?

Dopo questo, Fausta sveine nella strada a causa della sua maladia (la patata). Il giardinere di casa della pianista (un amico di Fausta) la trova per strada. Ma come sapeva che era la? Lei stava seguendo o qualcuno gli diceva ? Una coincidenza?

Alla fine del film Fausta ha l’operazione di togliere la patata dal suo sesso e vediamola nel carro di suo zio, portando il corpo della sua mamma fuori Lima al suo paese ancestrale. Quando Fausta vede il mare nella distanza, scende dallo carro e porta il cadavere della sua mamma al di la’ del deserto verso il mare. Benche il suo cadavere sia stato imbalsamato e coperto, dovesse stato scomodissimo per Fausta a portarla cosi dopo al meno un mese di decomporre. Per me questo era la giustapposizione ultima del film – l’imagine cinematografica del deserto, del mare, di Fausta e il suo fagotto sulla sua schiena (tutto quello che porta una bellezza triste) contro la realta’ (che non spieghero’ qua ma che potresti immaginare).

Literary Cliches

2011-06-10T13:44:00.010+01:00

Since yesterday literary clichés have been bugging me. After reading Philip Hensher in the Telegraph today and listening to Martin Amis in the Guardian Book’s podcast yesterday, it seems that writing in a straightforward fashion risks being cliché. (Martin Amis: “Whenever a novelist writes ‘she rummaged in her handbag,’ this is dead freight.” Zadie Smith’s makes the same point, which I’ll return to in a minute.)

Here is Philip Hensher in the Telegraph (tweeted today) reviewing Tea Obreht’s novel The Tigger’s Wife:

And it suffers slightly from banality in the writing. The literary novel has its own dreaded clichés by now – “These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life” – to which Ms Obreht adds universal clichés – “Dobravka was a woman possessed”. Her editor might have told her not to use the expression “I thought to myself,” too.

I wonder if it will become cliché to write, for example, that she sat down and drank a cup of coffee? It’s an activity that many people do often. How else should writers describe it? One of the reasons Stieg Larsson’s books work so well is that the picture is clear: “He put down his coffee. He got up from the chair. He opened the door. He walked down the street.” (Those are paraphrases.)

Going back to Zadie Smith and her 2007 essay "Fail Better":

“With a cliche you have pandered to a shared understanding, you have taken a short-cut, you have re-presented what was pleasing and familiar rather than risked what was true and strange. It is an aesthetic and an ethical failure: to put it very simply, you have not told the truth. When writers admit to failures they like to admit to the smallest ones - for example, in each of my novels somebody "rummages in their purse" for something because I was too lazy and thoughtless and unawake to separate "purse" from its old, persistent friend "rummage". To rummage through a purse is to sleepwalk through a sentence.”

Alternatives are not suggested. Perhaps there is a fear that they too might become clichés? The key here is “true and strange”. A writer might be describing a scene that is true and strange, but reaching for the thesaurus won’t necessarily help a writer to communicate the event’s truthfulness or strangeness. I am not arguing for novels full of aphorisms and empty clichés; I am questioning whether we will see writers dressing up trite scenes or ideas with fancy language.

Are we far away from reading that “he said” has become a literary cliché?

The Review

2011-05-31T08:00:00.001+01:00

I’ll be on Premier Radio Drive Time Review today at 4pm. We’ll be reviewing:

1) Novel: Blue Freedom by Sandra Peut. (But don’t read that: read this – The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe.)

2) Album: Love Shines Through by Tim Hughes.

3) Social Media: Hisbook.

No self-help books this time. Phew.

Middle East - Objective Reporting?

2011-05-16T11:30:00.000+01:00

Well done to the BBC for its objective reporting of the border clashes in the Middle East on Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning. John Humphrys reported that there was great anger among Palestinians in the Middle East over how Israel reacted when Palestinian demonstrators massed on Israel’s borders yesterday: twelve were shot dead and many more were injured. The demonstrations were timed to mark the 63rd anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel. Some of the demonstrators crossed the border into Israel and some of the demonstrators were throwing stones. We also learned from an interview included in the BBC’s report that Lebanese forces also opened fire.

By comparison, other reports have referred only to Nakba Day with no mention Yom Ha'atzmaut.

This is the Guardian:

Demonstrators commemorating Nakba day, marking the 1948 war in which hundreds of thousands of people became refugees after being forced out of their homes, were met with live gunfire, rubber bullets, stun grenades and teargas.

And here is how it should have been done (from The Times):

During protests to mark the 63rd anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, described by Palestinians as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, unprecedented numbers turned out at the three hostile frontiers in scenes that quickly turned to carnage.

Gay and Lesbian Farmers

2011-05-10T12:26:00.004+01:00

I've written an article about gay farmers for Guardian CIF. If you are a gay or lesbian farmer, you might be interested in this:

Christians are not generally known for breaking new ground when it comes to gay rights; they're usually struggling to catch up. Take a look back at this year for example: Christian B&B owners discriminating against a gay couple, Pentecostal foster parents insisting on being allowed to teach that homosexuality is morally wrong and continuing Christian resistance to gay marriage. Who would have thought that a helpline set up to support gay farmers was run by a Christian chaplain? But that's exactly what's happened.

Keith Ineson is an ex-farmer who now works as a chaplain for Churches Together in Cheshire. He extended the remit of his chaplaincy after handling more than one case of a farmer suffering from suicidal thoughts because he felt unable to come out as gay. Within six months of launching the dedicated helpline at the end of 2009, Ineson had received 52 calls – mostly from gay farmers over 50, some of whom were single, and all of whom felt imprisoned, thinking that they were the only gay farmer around. The concern is that if Ineson stopped work tomorrow, the helpline would stop with him: there is a need for Christians with rural knowledge and an understanding of gay issues to get involved in the work Keith is doing.

For the full article, see here.

Video Art

2011-04-10T21:27:00.009+01:00

Spring is in the air:

Film theorist/artist Paul Taberham and myself captured a gorgeous April day in a short piece of video art this weekend. Stan Brakhage was a strong influence. I hope you enjoy. Double click on the image below for the full screen (otherwise you'll only see the left half of the picture):

Speaker's House and Rose Hudson-Wilkin

2011-04-01T18:33:00.000+01:00

I was in the Speaker’s bedroom this afternoon:

There isn’t a sheet under the bedspread (maybe it’s with Sally). And it’s polyester (in case you thought it was satin).

Anyhow, the reason we were there was to hear Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the speaker’s chaplain, talk about her work. She’s the first woman - and the first black woman - to be appointed since the role was created (she’s the 79th person in post).

She talked about how she wanted to give young black people positive role models, just as she had wanted her children to see positive images of themselves when they were growing up. When her husband (a Geordie vicar) was offered a job as a priest in rural Oxfordshire some years ago, Rose personally told her husband’s boss that they weren’t able to move to rural Oxfordshire because it wasn’t a multi-ethnic area. Her husband’s boss turned around and said: “But there are lots of black people in the prisons.” I reckon that’s what Jackie Kay would call casual racism.

She also said that her work in Parliament had not stopped her being active in her church in Hackney and that when someone invites you into their home and lets you love them, then that’s a great privilege. I thought that was profound.

Elizabeth Taylor

2011-03-24T10:53:00.000Z

Glamour icon Elizabeth Taylor is all over the press today hailed as “the last goddess” who marks the “end of an era” that will “never, ever return”.

Some great Elizabeth Taylor quotes in today’s Daily Mail.

The Today programme this morning featured Elizabeth Taylor’s co-star Angela Lansbury who said this to Sarah Montague:

“We will never, ever see those days again. The world has done a complete roundabout turn. Never, never will it be like that…
“I did like (Elizabeth) because I felt she was a good egg, do you know what I mean by that?”

Things haven’t changed so much that we don’t know what that means.

AV Referendum on May 5th

2011-03-16T10:37:00.002Z

Oh dear, oh dear. This is what Ed Milliband wants us to ask ourselves on May 5th:

"Are you happy with the state of British politics? If the answer is no, then seize this opportunity for change."

This is not the question that voters are being asked.

Here is a more chilling point to consider:

“(Under an AV system) Supporters of fringe parties, such as the far-right BNP, are likely to have their second, and perhaps third, preferences counted, while those backing mainstream parties may be counted only once.
In an open letter yesterday historians warned that the proposed changes would undermine ‘the principle that each person’s vote is equal, regardless of wealth, gender, race or creed... a principle upon which reform of our parliamentary democracy still stands’.
They added: ‘For the first time in centuries we face the unfair idea that one citizen’s vote might be worth six times that of another. It will be a tragic consequence if those votes belong to supporters of extremist and non-serious parties.’

Self-Help Books

2011-02-28T16:50:00.005Z

I’ll be on Premier’s Drive Time Review panel tomorrow at 3pm with George Luke and (I guess) one other person. We’ll be reviewing:

1) You Can’t Play The Game If You Don’t Know The Rules by Dr Irene Alexander.

2) Beyond The Gates of Splendor (documentary).

3) Hillsong Tour Collection (after four CDs of Hillsong, you may need to hear some minor chords).

We’re still in February and I’ve already read two self-help books this year. Help!

Luise Rainer

2011-02-23T11:43:00.001Z

A wonderful interview with the gorgeous Hollywood legend, Luise Rainer, on BBC Radio 4. At the age of 101 she is the oldest living Academy Award winner. John Humphrys, on the Today programme this morning, said that she describes her friendship with Greta Garbo during the interview. She doesn’t. But what she does do is talk about Garbo as a kind of concept.

Lost Daphne du Maurier story found after 70 years

2011-02-21T10:14:00.003Z

I love stories like this one: a literary gem unearthed after so many years. Over the past year I have been collecting newspaper cuttings of similar stories: an 1848 Emily Bronte letter going on display at the Parsonage Museum in Haworth; letters by Ted Hughes being bought by the British Library; a postcard written by a Titanic passenger auctioned at Henry Aldridge and Son; etc. I imagine it was just as thrilling for Ann Willmore to find the lost Daphne du Maurier story in an online publication as it would have been for her to find it in a cemetery of forgotten books.

Love Letters

2011-02-14T10:40:00.005Z

A sub editor has asked, “Have we lost the art of writing love letters?” in today’s Independent. If the headline had been, “Why we ditched the art of writing love letters” then John Walsh’s piece provides an explaination:

Another favourite approach was the whine of masochism, as the lover suffers torments that his lady love may leave him, and receiving her letters becomes a form of torture. As Denis Diderot, the French encyclopaedia compiler, pointed out in his letter to Sophie Volland in 1759: "How impatiently I waited for it! I am sure my hands trembled when opening it. My countenance changed; my voice altered; and unless he were a fool, he who handed it to me would have said – 'That man receives news from his father or mother, or someone else he loves.' I was just at that minute about to send you a letter expressing my great uneasiness. While you are amusing yourself, you forget how much my heart suffers."

Diana Souhami on Edith Cavell

2011-02-09T14:22:00.003Z

Whitbread award-winning writer Diana Souhami talked to me about her latest book on Edith Cavell for a podcast that you can listen to here.

Edith Cavell got around. The French singer Edith Piaf was named after her, as was a car park in Peterborough, a bridge over the Shotover River near Queenstown and a feature on the planet Venus. I wonder if anyone has ever confused Edith Cavell with Mata Hari? Hmm. Probably not.

The Secret of Chanel Number Five

2011-01-24T09:37:00.001Z

Review of Tilar J. Mazzeo's book - The Secret of Chanel Number Five - posted on the U.S. version of Amazon:

An ancient Medici manuscript, the Knights Templar, a fortune teller and the coveted jasmine of Grasse - Tilar Mazzeo's fascinating biography of a western cultural monument weaves the threads together in the tableau behind The Secret of Chanel Number Five. And it is an incredible story. The careful balance of two fragrances - jasmine and aldehydes - inside bottles shaped like whisky flasks has endured its creator's anti-semiticism, seen American Second World War soldiers queuing up for sales in the snow along the icy rue Cambon and survived a series of dangerous gambles by the Wertheimer brothers who owned 70 per cent of Les Parfums Chanel in 1940 and who fled to New York just in time.

There's movie material here. When Chanel was arrested in her hotel room at The Ritz after the war as a suspected collabo, it was Churchill (so one rumour goes) who negotiated her freedom: "A decade later, people in Paris also speculated that Churchill - Coco Chanel's next-door neighbour during summers on the Riviera - had sent a chauffeured limousine to police headquarters personally to fetch her, and the driver headed straight for the Swiss border." It's also believed that Chanel's fascist lover, Hans Guenther von Dincklage, was in that car with her.

How Chanel Number Five came into being is just as intriguing. Even if Coco's purchase of Marie de Medici's "cologne" manuscript did not directly lead to the perfume's creation, it was a crucial preliminary stage. The history of perfume-making in France began during the reign of Catherine de Medici in the sixteenth century. Reading this, I wondered how much of an influence Henri II's mistress, Diane de Poitiers, might have had on Chanel's fashion designs given that Henri II's older lover was famous for her black and white simplicity.

Read this book for the lively style, for the facts you haven't yet seen in the Coco movies and for an insight into why Chanel Number Five has seduced so many women for so many years.

Drive Time

2011-01-11T11:07:00.000Z

I am going to be on Premier Radio's Drive Time review panel today. I think I’ll be on with Nick Battle and The Watchman. We’ll be talking about:

Miss HIV

Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married

The Lion Book of 1000 Prayers for Children

The last time I was on Premier's Drive Time I went in with the intention of talking about Lisbeth Salander’s work ethic (in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) in relation to Ian Coffey’s philosophy in his self-help book Working It Out: God, You and The Work You Do. But in the end I spared everyone.

Pumeza Matshikiza

2011-01-07T19:27:00.004Z

Pumeza Matshikiza is wonderful. Missed her at the Samling Showcase at Wigmore Hall on December 10... but Sarah-Jane Brandon was very good...as was Sir Thomas Allen...

Black Swan

2011-01-06T10:47:00.000Z

Tamara Rojo, principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, has given a cutting review of Natalie Portman in Black Swan in today’s Guardian. She wants to know why they didn’t use a professional dancer for the role. But then Elena Glurdjidze, principal dancer with English National Ballet, seems to think that Natalie had a body double and it was hard to tell when she was being used...

Jason Wallace Wins Costa Literary Award

2011-01-05T10:10:00.002Z

Now here is someone who won't take “no” for an answer: writer Jason Wallace finally got his novel recognised after being turned down by ONE HUNDRED literary agents. One hundred! He could use those rejection letters as wall paper. Amazing. I think I am going to cut out that article and stick it on the wall - or keep it filed away somewhere at least.

Wikileaks

2010-12-20T10:10:00.002Z

How funny! Columnist Melanie Phillips has not said anything about Wikileaks until today and she's come out with a swoop at the Left which, she suggests in today’s Mail, is represented by a group of luvvies.

Here is a couple of articles I have linked to on Twitter:

The New York Times

The Guardian

High Tide

2010-12-17T18:54:00.001Z

I just got hold of a film I haven’t seen since I was a kid: High Tide. It’s an underrated Gillian Armstrong film that no one remembers. You can’t even get it on dvd. The Radio Times says it almost drowned at the time it was released in 1987. Well, I think it would make a great Christmas re-run with all those shots of the Australian sunshine.

Student Protests

2010-12-09T13:44:00.000Z

I just passed a student demo along Baker Street. Also today, I discovered at least two Oxford University libraries are now closed at the weekend because it’s no longer term time. What’s the bet that when students are paying £9,000 a year to go there, those libraries will still be closed at the weekend outside of term time? Term time at Oxford is just eight weeks. And the last time I was in the Bodleian, one light fixture was buzzing so loudly it was like trying to read with an alarm bell activating overhead, another light fixture was flashing on and off continuously and one reading room was freezing cold. I hope someone else complained too.

Caprice and Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T16:50:00.006Z

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was at Elgood House today in Bell Street, Marylebone, with folks from the Marylebone Project – the largest shelter for homeless women in London. The women were celebrating Thanksgiving because the American Intercontinental University teamed up with the Church Army to cook the tradional American dinner for everyone at Elgood House. Supermodel Caprice Bourret was there too:

The interview is here:

Caprice was joined by Brix Smith-Start from Gok's Fashion Fix. Brix brought her two puppies with her...(mother and daughter, apparently):

I love the beret:

Kate Middleton (or "Catherine")

2010-11-17T11:43:00.001Z

The only reference in the nationals to Kate Middleton’s spinsterhood is byThe Daily Telegraph:

At the age of 29, as she will be by the time she marries, Kate Middleton will be the oldest spinster ever to marry a future king.

Bachelorettes have more fun than spinsters, DT.

Dame Helen and The Queen

2010-11-16T12:05:00.001Z

Peter McKay on Dame Helen Mirren in the Daily Mail yesterday:

She considers Britain an ‘angry’ and ‘cruel’ society that no longer cherishes old-fashioned values.

But I wonder if Dame Helen, 65, is also disappointed in the Queen, whom she played in the eponymous film about HM during the Diana crisis.

She wrote to the monarch saying she’d researched her role carefully, adding that ‘day after day my respect for her was growing enormously. She hasn’t replied, but her secretary wrote to me on her behalf, explaining: “We have read your letter with interest.” ’

That’s what I reply to readers who say I should be shot.

I imagine Dame Helen gets interesting letters she doesn’t reply to either.

National Ethical Investment Week

2010-11-08T12:35:00.001Z

Can we invest ethically?

CIF Belief piece on cooperation in the world of ethical investment:

Picture this: India. Delhi. 2005. A multinational company is looking for skilled employees for five vacancies. It outsources recruitment to a local firm that asks candidates a standard set of questions. One question is "What do your parents do for a living?" The answer reveals where the candidate sits in the caste hierarchy.

Fast forward a year to 2006: A HSBC shareholder attends his bank's AGM in London. He raises the problem of caste discrimination occurring across multinational corporations in India. The chairman agrees this is an issue that needs tackling. HSBC meets with the Dalit Solidarity Network to discuss strategies. Proactive policy follows.

What has the church got to do with any of this? Well, churches in the UK have combined assets of £12bn. That is a sum that wields some power in the investment world. The Methodist church's Central Finance Board (CFB) looks after £1.1bn of those assets. The Ministers Pension Fund accounts for just over a quarter with a further £140m managed for non Methodist bodies under the Epworth name. In June 2010, CFB published its ethical policy on caste discrimination. It stated that companies "should be able to report to shareholders the progress made in enhancing the employment opportunities of scheduled castes within the context of recruitment and in career development". That's just one example. There are many more.

For the whole thing see here

Stephen Fry On Women And Sex

2010-11-01T09:19:00.004Z

It seems to have come to light over the weekend that Stephen Fry doesn’t like women very much. Remember Stephen Fry in America? He couldn’t even look at a shed full of cows without grossing out about their genitalia. I think his comments are more of a reflection of the fact that Stephen Fry doesn’t want to have sex with women. Perhaps the men he hangs out with don’t really like women all that much either? And as for women not wanting to have sex with “total strangers” – discretion is something that women do very well.

Churches Call Osborne To Account For Welfare Fraud Exaggeration

2010-10-29T15:44:00.000+01:00

CIF Belief piece on The Chancellor's Comprehensive Spending Review.

Here is the first paragraph:

It may be more than a week since the chancellor's spending review speech, but we are still wading through the fallout of what he said. Public service spending cuts will be the deepest since April 1975, according to Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis, with councils losing around 100,000 jobs. And that's not all. George Osborne got his numbers wrong in one of the most important speeches of the new coalition government. He exaggerated the figure for benefit fraud and failed to address the HMRC figure for uncollected tax revenue. If we are "all in this together", as he concluded, then surely he has got to get this right.

Click this hyperlink to read the rest.

Julie Burchill On The Trinity

2010-10-27T10:13:00.013+01:00

After a skim of today's papers, I fancy having a poke at Julie Burchill who has written this in the Indie today:

Last year I took the first steps towards converting to Judaism; also last year, I abandoned my attempt. It was partly that I find it hard to stick at any discipline, being bone-idle and highly hedonistic (for instance, I was only a lesbian for six months), and I realised that Judaism was such an extraordinarily complex and rich religion that I would really have to commit to do it properly. As I can't even commit to Lost or any of those long American television shows, this seemed unlikely.

I also began to feel a tiny bit ridiculous trotting to shul every Saturday, in a way that I didn't feel going to church on a Sunday, even though I found the Jewish idea of one deity far more sensible than the Father, Son and Holy Ghost free-for-all. I'm well aware that everyone who isn't a complete self-deluding fool finds themselves preposterous at times, but I didn't want this to happen because of a culture that I have such respect for.

This reveals Julie has spent about two minutes studying Christianity. The “Father, Son and Holy Ghost free-for-all” indeed. (Maybe that is a deliberate pun: “free for all/three for all”?) The idea is three persons in one Godhead: The Trinity – together but separate. It’s a classic idea.

And every poet will tell you the story about the three women – the silent one always having the last word. Read Gilles Deleuze.

Anne Rice quits being Catholic

2010-10-25T11:37:00.005+01:00

I've just learned about Anne Rice’s dramatic quit from Catholicism in Guardian’s G2 today. There is an interview with Emma Brockes about her new novel, Of Love and Evil, and a picture of Anne sitting in the grounds of her balmy estate in Palm Springs.

The statement she posted on Facebook (reprinted in today’s G2) only really says that she has left the Catholic Church; not necessarily her faith:

"I quit," she wrote. "In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

The question Emma asks is: what took her so long? Well, there are Catholics who don’t follow the dogma and who are able to live with the contradiction. I guess Anne felt she couldn’t.

When I was doing some research in Berlin a couple of months ago, the curator assisting me told me that the daughter of one of the subjects I was studying lives in Palm Springs. I asked what she had said about the place. The curator said she had been told that it was a great place to live because nothing ever happens there.

Green Brigade

2010-10-13T10:14:00.002+01:00

Anyone looking for a fun read in the papers today should check out Julie Burchill in the Indie.

In a week of exposure to hard-core green brigade philosophy (don’t eat meat, live in a cold house, don’t fly, find exploding children funny, etc), Burchill provides an alternative to sanctimony.

Coco Chanel

2010-09-23T10:31:00.001+01:00

Interesting stuff going on with Coco Chanel right now: HarperCollins is launching two books by two women at the same time. The Daily Mail has done a spread on Justine Picardie’s book today. Tilar Mazzeo’s book, The Secret of Chanel No. 5, is out in November. Will both reveal Coco’s war record? The movies haven’t.

Culture Watch - Tamara Karsavina

2010-09-22T11:02:00.006+01:00

A painting of Tamara Karsavina revealed at London’s Wellcome Library after years of being wrongly identified:

See here for the painting.

(And you can see the likeness of the painting to the person here.)

Tamara decided to learn English after achieving the position of Prima Ballerina Assoluta in Corsair in 1909, and so perhaps the pages in her hand are by Swinburne or Robert Lewis Stevenson – two authors she read to help her learn. Or maybe she is reading a letter from home.

Tamara Karsavina lived in Frognal, Hampstead in the early 1960s. Many Hampstead houses declare the names of people who lived between their walls, but there isn’t a plaque on Tamara’s house.

Hawking on God

2010-09-05T16:25:00.003+01:00

Following the media hype surrounding Professor Stephen Hawking’s new book, there seems to be two conclusions emerging:

1) If you want to call the laws of physics God, then go ahead.

2) We are never really going to know why the laws of physics are as they are.

The Papal Visit

2010-09-02T11:17:00.008+01:00

You won’t be hearing it here first but Pope Benedict XVI is coming to town. Last night Conway Hall in Red Lion Square was packed with people debating whether or not his visit should be a State Visit (estimated cost to the tax payer - £12 million). The Central London Humanist Group in partnership with the British Humanist Association and the South Place London Ethical Society hosted the event that Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee chaired. Philosophy professor A.C. Grayling and gay activist Peter Tatchell were for the motion - “The Papal Visit should not be a State Visit” - and Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh and Friar Christopher Jamison argued against. Then it opened to the floor.

I noticed Austen Ivereigh start the evening a mild shade of pale that simmered to pink and boiled over red by the end of the night (this picture was taken at the start of the evening). When he said The Pope was right about condoms – that they don’t prevent the spread of HIV – the floor went wild.

But there was also a strong pro-Pope crowd. I’d say heckling was almost even on both sides.

A.C. Grayling said he was pretty sure The Queen would give him a short answer if he rang her up and asked whether he could have a £12 million four day holiday on account of the fairies living at the bottom of his back garden that he'd privatised and turned into a republic. Someone from the floor said that she might give a different answer if 178 states had officially recognised his “fairy garden”. He replied that if that were the case he would tell Her Majesty that she was using the argumentum ad populum - a fallacious argument that concludes X must be true because Y number of people believe it is: just because millions of people believe something, doesn’t make it true. Later on, when he brought up a similar point on the subject of belief, a heckler pointed out he was straying from the motion.

One girl from the floor said that she found Catholicism empowering; that it enabled her to live out her femininity in a real way. What on earth does that mean? I didn’t get to ask her. Austen Ivereigh said women have power in the Catholic Church – they run schools, abbeys… (The heckling drowned out the rest).

A great evening.

Tweeting God

2010-08-16T12:44:00.000+01:00

CIF Belief piece on faith and the net.

Michel Houellebecq

2010-08-11T12:12:00.002+01:00

The Independent reports today that French writer Michel Houellebecq has a new book out. Perhaps the only difference about this satire is that he actually uses his own name.

I first became interested in Michel Houellebecq’s work through his mother, Lucie Ceccaldi. It was after I read an article about their feud. I was stunned by the things that she said about him, the fact that she looks like the type of woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly and that they were both going for each other in the press.

It was a case of curiosity for the work of a writer labelled a "liar, an imposter and a parasite" by his own mother.

Olympic Fever

2010-08-10T16:32:00.001+01:00

I have just written a piece bigging up the 2012 Games in the hope of slicing through the cynicism. The Bishop of Barking reckons that cynicism could rise up until two weeks before the opening ceremony. That’s a little less than two years of increased negativity! I’ve given it a shot in less than 300 words. It's only going out through pro-Olympic networks, so I'm probably only raving to the converted.

FYI: This is what you’ll now see if you pass through Stratford station:

(Minus the reflection.)

Lynn Barber on Men

2010-07-27T10:45:00.001+01:00

Did anyone else here Lynn Barber on Radio 4 on Sunday? I was only half listening and I didn’t hear the whole thing because I turned it off. But I did hear this bit quoted in the Telegraph today:

“My thinking after that was that I must get a boyfriend immediately and that I haven’t got time to waste going punting or to dinner with them. Why don’t I just go to bed with them first, eliminate them if they are no good and not waste time.”

I was left with the impression that Lynn was so desperate to have a boy from Oxford lined up to marry before the three years were through that there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do nail one - she wasn’t going to bed for love or pleasure. Hearing what she said just before and what said just after (about her relationship with her husband) sealed that impression.

This seems to confirm my point:

“ (Lynn said) ‘I would criticise more what I call the Elizabeth Taylor syndrome, where highly sexed women feel they have to marry the man they sleep with. Then they get divorced and do the same thing over and over again. This seems to be happening in America now.’ (Byrony Gordon writes) Given that Barber went on to marry a fellow student, David Cardiff, with whom she stayed until his death seven years ago, you have to concede that she has a rather good point.”

Were all the 50 boys studying at Oxford?

Kafka's Legacy

2010-07-20T10:19:00.001+01:00

I don't think there is anything missing in this story ran in The Independent and The Guardian today. It has all the parts for an epic.

Tori Amos at Victoria Apollo

2010-07-19T10:11:00.005+01:00

The Victoria Apollo became the best piano bar in town last night – for one night only. Tori Amos performed solo. No band, just the piano and keyboard. That’s the third time I have seen her live now; the second time up close. She really is a gifted artist; luminous, like a ray of sunlight pouring through the window of a forgotten medieval chapel somewhere in the mountains. She radiates so many visions and emotions when she performs – some of them earthly, some of them mythical – that I think she’s close to the peak of her ability as an aesthetic conduit in performance. There’s much more to an Amos show than the creation of sonic shapes and part of that “much more” is an element of reaching for the “sacred” sphere. It was difficult to tell, last night, whether she was actually highly sensitive to the moment or whether everything she did was controlled, contained and mastered: probably a bit of both. Every now and again, she’d “drink” from the audience and there was a kind of “chalice” transference, but she’d never get “drunk” on it. It’s probably taken some years to get that balance.

Highlights for me last night were Northern Lad, Space Dog, Hey Jupiter, Take To The Sky and – (the best) – Tori’s version of Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode in the encore. Wonderful (Can't match being there, though, whoever got it on camera.)

Victoria Beckham

2010-07-14T09:32:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I was sitting at the table in the silverware section in Selfridges waiting for the chap assisting me to return when a regal Spanish-looking woman of a certain age stopped, looked at me and said: “Are you a customer?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Are you getting married... or do you want to get married?”

“Yes,” I said. “But that's not why I am here.”

“You want my advice?” she asked. “Don't bother. Everyone who gets married these days - six months later: divorced. The only one who is still married is Victoria Beckham. And I am just waiting to see what happens.”

Israel and Palestine

2010-07-02T14:26:00.004+01:00

I have not long returned from an intense week in Portsmouth covering media relations for the Methodist Church’s annual Conference. The Conference had such pulling power this year that we even had Ruth Gledhill (The Times’ Religious Correspondent) working in the Conference press office with us on Tuesday :) (she was there for the Archbishop’s address).

I have written a piece for CIF Belief on the incredibly painful decision the Conference took to boycott Israeli produce from Israeli settlements.

Snoop Dogg

2010-06-28T10:45:00.003+01:00

Wow. Julie Bindel has just realised she is not the only feminist who likes Snoop Dogg. I heard Julie speak earlier this year and she was still scratching her head over the idea of feminists who wear make-up and don’t have short hair. Snoop Dogg has made some great tracks, sexy videos and appeared in the L Word. Odd she doesn’t mention that.

Church and media conference 2010

2010-06-14T14:57:00.000+01:00

Is religion sidelined by the media? Broadcasters, church folk and humanists gathered last week to thrash things out. See here: CIF Belief in The Guardian Online.

Question Time

2010-05-14T17:13:00.001+01:00

My eyelids were cementing over at about 10.30pm last night but peeled back to watch a highly entertaining performance by Melanie Phillips on Question Time. I think Melanie should be on TV more often. Watching her say that it is only a matter of time before the Liberal Democrats disappear into the irrelevance to which history once consigned them is more amusing than just hearing her say it. I have given Melanie the time of day in the past with All Must Have Prizes and The Sex-Change Society and I am not sure how many people are able to get away with peppering the word “thus” into their sentences without sounding farcical.

Liberal Democrat is not an oxymoron. Melanie’s argument last night that you can’t support equality and market principles simultaneously because neither one is coherent with the other is an incoherent argument. The Liberal Democrats are not in Government through “guile” or “stitch up”. They are in Government because it's the best option that there was – for them, for the Conservatives and for the country – given the result of the Election.

Ilford North and Ilford South Constituencies

2010-05-07T17:49:00.001+01:00

Two shots of adrenaline rush fired with the announcement of the results for Ilford North and Ilford South constituencies during the early hours of this morning in the press pack race for accurate and speedy reporting. The press pack at Redbridge Town Hall included the local papers, The Muslim Paper and BBC and ITN stringers. No TV – they weren’t contentious seats.

Here are a couple of snaps from the press balcony overlooking the count, which were taken just before midnight; way before the announcements.

In the bottom right hand corner of this pic (above) you can see Mike Gapes, Labour MP for Ilford South, in his red rosette – he easily retained his seat.

In the top left hand corner (above), those who know him will be able to make out Lee Scott, Conservative MP for Ilford North, who also easily retained his seat.

Election

2010-05-05T09:46:00.001+01:00

The day before the Election and the papers show their colours:

The Guardian: Lib Dem
The Independent: Lib Dem
The Times: Labour (for a Tory-Lib Dem pact)
The Telegraph: Conservative
The Daily Mail: Conservative
The Express: Conservative
The Sun: Conservative
The Mirror: Labour

Ekklesia

2010-04-28T10:47:00.003+01:00

The Christian think-tank Ekklesia got a mention in a string of nationals today. They have run the story about Jonathan Bartley’s confrontation with David Cameron on the campaign trail yesterday.

Ekklesia’s profile in the world outside the Christian one is probably a little lower than Theos’s – another Christian think-tank which sits in a different place along the political spectrum to Ekklesia. This may be down to the fact that Theos puts on debates. There were some great ones last year. The last one they did got national coverage. In fact, their next one is: How much religious liberty can a liberal society afford? Joshua Rozenberg is chairing. If I were not going to be in the States at the time, I would be there (it’s an invite only event, though).

UKIP

2010-04-22T16:17:00.000+01:00

UKIP death wish. Watch Lord Pearson here.

No, it's not a spoof.

Trident

2010-04-21T12:33:00.001+01:00

The Times wins on best front page of the day (with the Telegraph’s splash on the prolonged flight ban finishing a close second). It has run with the Trident question, which cuts clear divides between the three main parties’ politics. Inside, they have printed a letter from four army generals asking whether the Cold War missile is actually value for money.

The generals question: ““Is the UK’s security best served by going ahead with business as usual; reducing our nuclear arsenal; adjusting our nuclear posture or eliminating our nuclear weapons?”

And they make the point: “It may well be that money spent on new nuclear weapons will be money that is not available to support our frontline troops, or for crucial counterterrorism work; money not available for buying helicopters, armoured vehicles, frigates or even for paying for more manpower.”

It does seem like an obvious way to reduce the country’s deficit. But the Times’ leader column cautions: “The only real alternative would be, therefore, to abandon our nuclear capability — and with it our nuclear expertise. That decision would be irreversible. It should not be taken lightly in a flurry of cost-saving, nor because it seems like an easy option in a politically charged debate. The generals are right to argue that Trident should be included in the Strategic Defence Review. The detail would surely make the case for its retention.”

Surely, there would be ways around Britain retaining its nuclear expertise if Trident were scrapped: strategic partnerships between states with experts working collaboratively, for instance. Besides, it is not as there isn't any talk of viable alternatives:

(From the Times' article): “General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank added his weight to the debate last night, saying that a cheaper option to Trident should be considered, particularly as Britain strives for a world without nuclear bombs.

“Do we really need the kind of effective weapon we had in the Cold War? There is quite an argument to say we do not,” he told The Times. He suggested that nuclear-tipped missiles launched from the land or by air were possible alternatives.”

Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill

2010-04-09T16:42:00.000+01:00

So, vulture funds are now illegal. The Debt Relief Bill passed in the wash-up on Wednesday. The Guardian reported today.

I have had a quick skim through Hansard to see if there were any good moral hazard arguments put forward by the Conservatives. Mr David Gauke (Cons MP) defended the sunset clause, which will mean the Bill being reviewed after 12 months.

“It is important that its provisions are carefully calibrated, because if we prevent creditors from enforcing debts against developing countries, there is a risk that they will not lend to developing countries in future. The law of unintended consequences could apply and we could make things worse for developing countries. Nobody wants to do that, which is why the Bill is carefully calibrated to apply only to heavily indebted poor countries. It relates only to past debt and not to future contracts. Future lending agreements can be enforced unaffected by the Bill.”

He goes on: “Concern was frequently expressed by industry bodies during the Treasury consultation that the Bill might send the message that creditors in the UK could not enforce debts against developing countries and that that could be applied more broadly. As part of the consultation, it was pointed out that those possible spill-over costs would be difficult to assess. For example, would a risk premium be applied to developing countries that would make it harder for them to obtain credit?”

He rounds up: “Let me say why I think this debate is helpful. Parliament is dealing with the matter sensibly, recognising the potential dangers and treading carefully. That is a good message to send out. The concern about the risk premium centres not on the Bill itself, but on the possibility that it will become a precedent for a future Bill that prevents the enforcement of future debts. No doubt some in this House would argue that that would be a great thing to do, but it would pose significant dangers for developing countries.”

The responsibility doesn’t just lie with the developing country; it also lies with the creditor.

Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes

2010-03-30T10:01:00.004+01:00

A Guardian article today on the forthcoming Ballet Russes exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum that doesn’t mention Tamara Karsavina!

Tamara Karsavina was the grace of the three graces (Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Olga Spessivtzeva) during the time of Diaghilev. Serge Lifar will tell you. He will also argue that Karsavina's name is inseparable from Diaghilev's (in his book, The Three Graces). I think I will faint if the Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929 exhibition doesn’t include a reference to her.

Vulture Funds (continued)

2010-03-22T11:26:00.000Z

What is happening on the Vulture Funds front?

TheyWorkForYou.com quotes Harriet Harman in the House of Commons on Thursday:

“I appreciate my hon. Friend's support for the Bill. I share in that support, as do the Government and hon. Members from across the House. He will recognise that we need to make progress on that Bill and on the "vulture fund" Bill not only in this House, but in the House of Lords. The House of Lords does not have the same timetabling arrangements as this place and we do not have the same Government majority in the House of Lords. This is private Members' business, not Government business, so in order for progress to be made the Opposition need to ensure that they will not block it and will ensure that it can progress. This is really a question for the Opposition: will they withdraw their opposition so that these Bills can make progress?”

Political football but no time mentioned for the debate.

Vulture Funds

2010-03-15T11:33:00.002Z

An article in The Independent today reports that David Cameron has hit a "glass ceiling" in support and needs to do more to convince liberal voters to back his rebranded Tory party. Ken Clarke, the shadow Business Secretary, reportedly told Andrew Marr: "So many seats have to change hands. We have got to get through the glass ceiling by winning over more liberals."

Well, they aren’t going to do it by blocking the Debt Relief Bill.

The Independent explains: "A landmark move to protect the world's poorest countries from debt sharks was blocked yesterday by a single Conservative MP during extraordinary scenes in the House of Commons. Vulture fund investment companies buy up defaulted third world debt and sue for immediate repayment. The Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill was designed to curb their activities, ensuring that creditors cannot pursue debt repayment beyond the level assessed as fair and sustainable by the World Bank.”

Who would want to block this legislation?

The Tories don’t want to tell us: “One lone voice piped up: "Object!" Three Conservatives were in the chamber – Christopher Chope, Andrew Robathan and Simon Burns – but it was not clear at the time who had intervened.”

Mr Chope?

Mr Chope told The Independent: "If you are concerned about this Bill making progress, you should be asking why the Government hasn't given it extra time. As far as today's proceedings are concerned, there's a big Government spin operation to shift the blame to other people."

If Hansard doesn’t keep a log of objectors, then it should.

But the bottom line is that if this Bill is not given the Royal Assent before the General Election, it won’t get through.

James Delingpole

2010-03-08T09:45:00.000Z

It's happened. I can't resist. I am writing a (very short) blogpost on James Delingpole. A highly entertaining article in The Spectator did it. Reading James (almost) always leaves me in high spirits. He has a wicked sense of humour and I just keep coming back for more.

But he needs to know that having a Liberal political philosophy does not automatically align one with Ken Livingstone or Gerry Healy or, God forbid, George Galloway. Where does he get that from? Liberals do not loathe success. They don't despise capitalism and they don't want everyone to walk at the pace of the slowest person. Liberalism is not a euphemism for Socialism or Communism. When James writes a sentence like "Pinko,Commie, Liberal" one imagines a long fishing rod with a big piece of bait at the end of it.

Reason, Fiction and Faith

2010-03-05T17:02:00.007Z

Cognitive theorist, Steven Pinker, drew me to the RSA this lunch time. I was wooed by the title of the debate: “Reason, Fiction and Faith – Are any of the arguments for the existence of God any good?” as well as the chance to see a fellow Romantic in the flesh. However, it wasn’t Steven who was doing the talking. He was there to give his wife, the philosopher and novelist Rebecca Goldstein, a boost by sharing a platform with her and acting as her interviewer. A powerful partnership.

But it was by no means disappointing to listen to Rebecca (with Steven at her side). I was particularly interested in the way she described Plato’s influence on her work. She went as far as to say: “I write novels and short stories he would approve of. He is the father figure whose approval I want.” In the Q&A after the 35 minute interview, I asked her whether she saw Plato as her superego or as her muse. If she answered superego, then I would have wondered where her inspiration came from. If she answered muse, then I would have been inclined to alter my understanding of the role of the muse: not only called upon to inspire, but also to grant approval. Her answer was “both” so, in my understanding, the literary and psychoanalytic definitions remain distinct friends.

Other revelations Rebecca made on her insight into her own creative process included the reflection, “some issue compels me to write” alongside eulogistic anecdotes about how Plato awakened her when she was a girl. She made a valid criticism of Gertrude Stein: "Who wants to read Gertrude Stein? Fiction should be about enchantment." And she laid into Kingsley Amis: “I am not motivated by posers. I want to present characters for whom this is a life and death struggle”. Amen.

As for religion, Rebecca said it was much more than just belief. She said that, for her, religion was wrapped up in questions of self-identity, group identification, loyalty to a community and loyalty to historical narratives. She said she saw parallels within the academic world to the religious community in terms of its hierarchal structure. For example, a professor and his “disciples”; graduate students who hang on his every word, changing their opinion whenever he changes his. I can understand why an American academic might look to religion for examples of just about any working structure. Religion is so much more dominant in the US and is related to differently. In the UK, for instance, we can look to the monarchy for hierarchal parallels.

Then there was her argument that romantic delusion takes on from religious delusion. I am currently critical of clichés like “sex was her religion” or “romanticism was his religion”. It’s not really helpful to say, for instance, that “science is Dawkins’s religion”. It clearly isn’t or he wouldn’t attend an Anglican Church services.

I thought Rebecca’s observation that “philosophers are seen as heretics” was more interesting as it reminded me of Jonathan Sacks and his desertion of philosophy.

It was Steven, however, who made me rethink my attitude towards agnosticism’s present status as the comic fool. He retold a joke about how a Jewish couple consulted an agnostic chaplain for advice about their crumbling marriage. The husband goes to see the agnostic chaplain first. The chaplain listens to his point of view and his complaints about his wife. When the husband has finished his story, the chaplain says, “You know what, you’re right”. Then the wife comes to see him and he listens to her take on the situation. When she’s finished, he says to her, “You know what, you’re right.” The agnostic chaplain’s wife has been hiding in the wings and has heard the whole thing. She confronts her husband and says: “How can you say that?! How can you tell them they are both right? They can’t both be right!” And the agnostic chaplain says to her; “You know what, you’re right.”

I thought that was funny. Humour is a great peacemaker.

The Equality Bill

2010-03-04T10:17:00.001Z

The clergymen getting all hot under the collar over the fantastic events in the House of Lords yesterday should loosen up.

The amendment to the Equality Bill, which would enable gay couples to celebrate their partnership in a consenting religious place of worship, is a permissive piece of legislation. It will allow Churches and other religious groups the liberty to choose. The progress will be welcomed by the Quakers, the Liberal Jews and the Unitarians whose organisations already bless civil partnerships and want the freedom to be able to bless them in their places of worship. It’s a question of religious freedom, not enforcement, and there are still many legal issues to be addressed if the amendment forms part of the final Bill.

So, reading the front page of the Telegraph today that “clergymen could be sued if they refuse to carry out homosexual marriages in church” one wonders how the common good in this world might be furthered if traditionalists stopped knee jerking and started thinking.

Jose Mourinho

2010-02-22T10:54:00.003Z

There is something extremely attractive about Jose Mourinho's deep, dark, brooding look.

A Single Man

2010-02-20T15:26:00.003Z

My heart sank when I read Stephanie Thoebald's review of A Single Man in The Telegraph, yearning for life after the fashion of Julianne Moore's character, Charley, who works on nothing but her face and her booze all day long. If Stephanie is being ironic, then I can't quite hear her. I am writing this because I don't think she is.

Julianne Moore's character is the most vapid, irritating and pitiful figure in the whole movie. Why is it that the leading female in a film about the gay male aesthetic has to be a kind of stuffed doll who comes out with robotic lines simmering with self-hatred? It's cliche and it's dull. The great joke of the movie is an anti-lesbian jibe delivered by Charley: "You remember that time in London when that old lesbian poured a glass of wine over my head because I asked her if she was hung like a doughnut?" (or something along those lines). Charley and George (Colin Firth) roar with laughter. Charley looks as if she might fall backwards off her chair. Drum roll.

Charley is cut in the style of a dysfunctional fag hag. She comes nowhere near Ann Bancroft in The Graduate or Bette Davis in Dangerous (see Stephanie's review). And as for comparing Julianne's role in A Single Man to the one she played in Boogie Nights - there is no contest. In Boogie Nights, the off-camera suggestions of Julianne's character are exciting. In Single Man, they are dull, predictable and unerotic. Women who have gay male friends are tired of seeing themselves portrayed in this way.

The Death of Methodism - Not Quite

2010-02-16T09:50:00.001Z

I was asked by Guardian Comment Is Free to do a piece on Methodist self-immolation - or the idea that Methodists and Anglicans are in some kind of sado-masochistic relationship...

General Synod

2010-02-12T10:06:00.002Z

We heard that the press box was empty at General Synod yesterday so I drafted a press release to tell them what they were missing. Press Association (whose religious correspondent is always on the ball) picked it up and then it went crazy:

Wesley’s path to schism
The Times Comment

Methodists declare 'we're ready to merge' with Church of England
The Times Comment

Methodism offers to die, to rise again.
The Times

Church of England General Synod extends pension rights for gay partners
The Guardian (last paragraph)

General Synod: Methodists likely to merge with Church of England
The Telegraph

Leader signals end of Methodism
The Independent

Methodist Church prepared to go out of existence
The Daily Mail

Methodist Church ‘prepared to go out of existence’ for mission
Christian Today

Methodists affirm commitment to a covenant relationship with CofE

Inspire Magazine

God's kingdom more important than denominations, says Methodist President
Ekklesia

Ecumencial Relationships

2010-02-08T09:36:00.002Z

A course of events meant that I ended up at a small Catholic chapel in Hampstead half way through evening mass yesterday. When I walked through the door I was surprised to hear the Catholic priest talking about the Methodist Church. He was telling a story about a Methodist congregation that had forked out for a new carpet only to have two holes burnt in it by someone's misadventure with two candles a couple of weeks after the new carpet had been put in. When the Methodist minister heard what had happened, he reportedly said: “Don't worry, these things happen.” The Catholic priest reflected that he wasn't so sure he would have had the same reaction and it made him think about his own ability to forgive. I assume I was the only non-Catholic in the Church as only me - and two other people - didn't take Communion. My point is that, for me, the sermon was an example of ecumenical relationships working at the level that resonates the most.

David Cameron On Theology

2010-02-06T11:21:00.004Z

Ruth Gledhill (The Times) has done a fun breakdown of the David Cameron/Johann Hari interview, which was originally printed in Attitude magazine.

http://tinyurl.com/yaldzgq

I notice how David Cameron’s take on theology is rather, er, “traditional”. Take a look at this for instance:

(David Cameron) was asked if the Tory party still has a problem with homophobia in its ranks.

“Honestly, conservative parties do always include some people of very strong religious faith, and that is true in the Conservative party. I think it's also true in some parts of the Labour party too, actually. It's always been the case, but I think the idea now is that there is a shared consensus bedrock view that this is a party for equal rights whether you are male, female, black white urban rural straight or gay. Actually I could find you quite a lot of relatively religious conservatives who totally agree that we must never go back.”

So a person of “very strong religious faith” is meant to translate as “bible literalist”. By this rationale, a liberal believer is “relatively religious” and less of a believer in God. That’s nonsense. Just because someone is a liberal it does not mean that s/he is less of a believer than a creationist. And isn’t the Tory party supposed to uphold liberal values? Someone should have a quiet word with Mr Cameron.

Martin Amis Ad Nauseam

2010-02-05T11:50:00.004Z

Another day, another tiresome picture of Martin Amis on the front page of a national newspaper and another verbose interview.

Today's Independent: http://tinyurl.com/y97euqz

The digested Amis read: “Once upon a time I had a mind-blowing affair with a feminist. I have never got over it. It was the only time in my life that felt like a novel. See if you can guess who she was.”

This theme runs through Amis ad nauseam. I actually feel sorry for him.

David Cameron on Gay Rights

2010-02-04T10:34:00.004Z

A great PR coup for the Conservatives today: David Cameron grilled by Johann Hari in The Independent - and coming off well:

http://tinyurl.com/ykxc5md

But is he for real?

Martin Amis Overkill

2010-02-02T09:28:00.002Z

Could the press stop falling over backwards for Martin Amis just because he has a new novel out? I don’t see why he merits being plastered all over the front pages of the national press day in and day out. The Telegraph is so enamoured that it has printed a picture of him smouldering into the camera as a young man next to one of his recent quotes: “Have looks ever been more important? There’s a great tyranny of looks now.”

http://tinyurl.com/ykcpahs

Yesterday we had to suffer him in The Guardian saying that Gloria Steinem turned him into a feminist during one single day in New York: “It’s the rhetorical device she uses throughout, and it’s very effective.” He is never going to say Andrea Dworkin turned him into a feminist is he.

(Gloria Steinem: http://tinyurl.com/ycngjmk)
(Andrea Dworkin: http://tinyurl.com/2zq3gt)

The Afro

2010-02-01T11:35:00.004Z

Isn’t Jasmine Munting’s hair just absolutely fabulous:

http://tinyurl.com/yjapku8

I was delighted to see a model with an afro hailed as the next big thing when I opened The Daily Mail today. I have been working a huge brown-grey Russian hat this winter, partly because I think this is the closest I will ever get to having an afro myself, and I've been really pleased whenever someone has mistaken my hat for a wig.

There is just something so warm and magnetising about an afro hairstyle. Best of luck to Jasmine :)

Passage Through: A Ritual

2010-01-27T09:28:00.007Z

I have an idea for an antidote to present to those people who have been so seduced by James Cameron’s 3D Avatar that they would rather take their own lives than be denied a world where you get chased by killer rhinos, are subjected to the rule of a supreme leader, wear the same clothes every day and can never read a book or watch a movie.

I suggest nationwide screenings of Stan Brakhage’s Passage Through: A Ritual, which was screened in London for the first time ever last night thanks to Close-Up and The Dog Movement using Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club as a venue.

It intensifies the film experience by taking away much of what you would expect, i.e. images. Five minutes will pass during which you’ll see nothing on the screen except the visual equivalent of white noise, like white fire flies dancing around a dark light. Then there’ll be an image – a haystack, a dandelion, a kitchen, a glow of red above black card – which disappears after a couple of seconds, and the fire flies start dancing again. All the while, Philip Corner’s music (Through the Mysterious Barricade, Lumen I - after F. Couperin) sustains the experience, but what’s stayed with me are the images.

Biologically Moral?

2010-01-22T13:46:00.014Z

Baroness Susan Greenfield was dragged through the press last week for knocking up debt at The Royal Institution through her ambitious renovation project. Reports said she was “escorted off the premises” and locked out of her grace-and-favour flat: http://gulfnews.com/news/world/uk/top-scientist-told-to-quit-her-job-1.566237

I have to say The Royal Institution is looking fabulous (I’ll admit I didn’t see it before its revamp) and I have never sat in such a conducive lecture hall as the one I sat in last night. They should build more lecture halls after the fashion of anatomy theatres, fit them with purple cushioned seats and allow for plenty of leg room. (I don't mean more anatomy theatres at The Royal Institution, though, but elsewhere.)

So, Dr Guy Kahane, Research Fellow at The Oxford Centre for Neurotics, gave a lecture on evidence supporting a neural basis for morality at The Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, London, last night. He argued that a radically different picture of morality has been emerging since 2001 and that it is still too early to determine whether ethics will be revolutionised by the findings of neuroscience.

Dr Kahane showed us images of activity occurring in different areas of the brain when people make moral decisions based on Utilitarian principles (Mills and Singer) and non-Utilitarian principles (Kant). To give an example: a Utilitarian would be interested in the consequences of an action; so a Utilitarian would lie if it were for the greater good, forming a decision based on counter-intuition. A non-Utilitarian would not lie under any circumstance; a non-Utilitarian’s morality is intuitive.

Dr Kahane said that neuroscience does not favour one way of thinking over another, but there was vocal support from some audience members for Utilitarian principles and James Crabtree, managing editor of Prospect Magazine, who chaired the lecture (and did a great job), added his magazine’s support to Utilitarianism.

I was interested to know what the work of neuroscience would mean for the subconscious. Dr Kahane asked me what I meant. I said I meant the subconscious in terms of its psychoanalytic definition. There was an immediate default to Freud (which irks me slightly as psychoanalysis has had mothers since Freud). “We are studying the subconscious, but it is not necessarily in the way Freud would approve,” Dr Kahane said. Hmm. I can’t see why he would disapprove. Freud worked on a scientific model for his theory. I am interested to know whether neuroscience will ignore it or not. I hope that the origins of emotions won’t be oversimplified in researchers’ pursuit to identify their neural locations.

Women Bishops - Where Does the Church of England Go From Here?

2010-01-19T09:44:00.001Z

I imagine the fight for women to be accepted as bishops across the entire scope of the Church of England attracts only a niche pool of interest in the wider world because it isn’t the sort of issue that concerns or affects many people - and those people may view a progressive result as ultimately meaningless anyway. But I still find it amazing what reactions a relatively uncontroversial question can spark among a distinguished theological panel debating: Women Bishops – Where Does The Church of England Go From Here?

Bishop John Gladwin, Bishop Martyn Jarrett, Revd Dr Michael Ovey and Revd Lucy Winkett were at Westminster Abbey last night discussing the question in a debate chaired by Revd Dr Jane Hedges.

During the debate, audience members were invited to flag down a steward for a piece of paper and a pen to write a question for the panel to answer at the end. There was no request for questioners to identify themselves so I remained anonymous.

The anti-women bishop debaters used the word “traditionalist” a lot in their arguments, but didn’t push the lingo further than that. So, my question led on from Revd Dr Michael Ovey’s fear that liberals and conservatives may not be able to find a fabric to hold their fellowship together. I asked whether conservative evangelicals were worried – not just that fellowship would be jeopardised – but that patriarchy in the Church is in danger.

Revd Dr Ovey turned to the audience and asked whether the questioner could help define what they meant by patriarchy. I kept silent because I think patriarchy has a definition that is pretty much self-explanatory. When no one said anything, Revd Dr Overy raised a laugh by saying, “Ok, I’ll just waffle”. But his answer got me a bit closer to the lingo. He said that 1 Timothy 2 was an “inconvenient text” and conservative evangelicals fear disobedience to God.

Revd Winkett said that she dealt with 1 Timothy 2 through the story of Jesus telling Mary Magdalene to go and teach disciples. Revd Winkett also told us that she has experienced people telling her that she is “spoiling the church of my youth”. (Why is it that since time memorial, humans have always thought things were so much better when they were young?)

Bishop Gladwin said patriarchal cultures create matriarchal cultures and both are disrupted by the Gospel. I was hoping that someone might say something about the idea of women bishops reflecting the female face of God, but it wasn’t really that kind of debate.

I’ll leave you with the cold light of day from 1 Timothy 2:

1I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
5For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
6Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
7Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.
8I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
9In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
10But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
11Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
12But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
13For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
14And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

Greta Garbo Came To Donegal

2010-01-16T13:59:00.008Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jan/11/greta-garbo-donegal-frank-mcguinness

This is a great play, superbly acted and not "overly long" as some critics have charged.

But just one thing: If someone had wielded a gun anywhere near Greta Garbo, I don't think she would have stared at the weapon as if it were an obscure flower that could bring God down from the sky. I think she would have thought it was an omen of bad luck.

Romanticism

2010-01-12T10:04:00.009Z

Excitement at the British Library last night: All of a sudden the PA system went into overdrive and the same automated voice that booms “the reading rooms will soon be closing” repeatedly told the building manager to “report to reception immediately”. Then the fire alarm went on, then off, then on again and a security guard shouted “evacuate the building!” while the siren continued to scream. So we all got up and made for the front door of the reading room but another guard shouted “the backstairs!” and we were led down a hidden passageway. If a crook had been plotting to rip pages out of a valuable book and sell them on the black market, now would have been his golden moment.

Outside in the cold, library staff handed out thermal silver foil body wraps and we all huddled together.

I got talking to two academics from the States, one of whom was a professor with a special interest in romanticism. As Ayn Rand was on my mind from these blog posts I asked him his thoughts on the Romantic Manifesto. He said he thought Ayn was a fascist - or a phase you go through when you're a teenager. He said he and Ayn approached romanticism from opposite directions. So there you have it: Ayn Rand, the rational supremacist oozing contempt.
But just watch this clip of Ayn talking about her husband as interviewer Mike Wallace smokes his cigarette:

http://tinyurl.com/nzx479

Anyhow, the fire brigade arrived and after about 10 minutes another voice, a live one this time, came over the outdoor PA system and said we would soon be able to go back in. It turned out there was smoke issuing from a lift because of an electrical fault.

I kept the silver cape and took it home with me.

The Romantic Manifesto

2010-01-09T22:59:00.004Z

I have been asked to recommend a work by Ayn Rand, so I recommend The Romantic Manifesto, which would stimulate anyone with an interest in the arts.

It has a purist thrust and an intellectual vigour and integrity that is admirable. I do not agree with everything she argues, for instance, her disapproval of the historical novel, which she dismisses as a work by a writer who does not possess volition; a writer incapable of abstract projections and confined to "representations of concretes" because of his (she uses the male pronoun throughout) crippled intellect. This is not a universal truth that should be applied to a historical novelist, or playwright for that matter. Any historical figure acting as a muse becomes an abstract projection; it does not necessarily follow that a historical novel denotes a biographical or journalistic style that will diminish both its subject and the reader, offering only second rate metaphysics.

The Romantic Manifesto doesn’t discuss the make-up of the imagination at length, but Ayn does talk about a subconscious process of emotional abstraction that gives man his individual sense of life. If his value judgements develop in the integral, rational manner Ayn believes they should, then this sense of life reaches maturity in the form of a conscious philosophy where the mind leads and emotions follow. This should have happened by the end of adolescence. Sadly, Ayn believes only a few of us achieve a conscious integration of reason and emotions, of mind and values. All sorts of neurotic afflictions cloud the minds of those who don't. Many of us are walking around tortured by contradictions or guilt or delusions. An example of a work of art created by a man whose mind has not reached a normal, fully focused, mental state with a clear-cut identity is the recreation of a fog of feelings in which A is not A but any non-A one chooses; where nothing can be known with certainty and nothing is demanded of one’s consciousness.

I have challenged the idea that a rose is a rose is a rose, or A is A is A, in this blog before by pointing readers in the direction of Rachel Campbell-Johnston's review of this year's Turner prize winner (Ayn would have loathed Richard Wright’s work anyway because she despised all genres of modern art). Yet you can even find the building blocks of the “A is B” argument played out in The Romantic Manifesto. In an anecdote, Ayn writes that when she was 16 she attended an art class where she fell in love with the artistic style of her teacher who taught that every curve must be drawn, not as a curve, but as broken facets of intersecting straight lines. So, a curve is not a curve, but a tapestry of intersecting straight lines; A is B.

Read this book for its attack on mysticism, its insightful definitions of art forms, the images used to describe literary experiences, its love of America, but most of all for Ayn's definition of love.

Ayn Rand

2010-01-06T21:33:00.004Z

I have just discovered footage of Ayn Rand in conversation with American talk show hosts which I recommend watching because Ayn is charming and beguiling.

Aside from that: Ayn believes in the superiority of reason over every other faculty of the mind. So it would be evil, in her understanding, to place emotions and desire over what your mind actually knows (this would include the idea of God existing) or let yourself be guided by emotions. Would this mean, then, that imagination is governed by reason? Reason may act as a translator of the imagination, but, in my understanding, it is not the origin of the imagination. If it does precede the imagination, then it is in agitation.

Equally, it follows in Ayn’s philosophy that reason governs love. So we love someone based on our understanding of the value of that person. If we love someone at first sight, for example (Ayn was attracted to her husband by his looks in the first instance), then how does reason explain this? I can only think that reason would explain the psychological motivation for that aesthetic judgement.

Perhaps she has addressed this apparent conflict between creativity and reason and I have yet to come across it.

A Word In Time

2010-01-04T12:20:00.004Z

My background is literature, not theology, but I have had a go:

http://tinyurl.com/yhpwurm

http://tinyurl.com/yz5g2gw

http://tinyurl.com/y8gv4p5

There's a week's worth of posts running from December 27 to January 2.

Rage Against The Machine

2009-12-18T16:57:00.007Z

Rage Against The Machine has my vote for Christmas number one. I haven’t heard that song (Killing In The Name Of) for years and I experienced a wave of joyful nostalgia for those grunge years when I listened to the song just now. I’d feel the same if it were Nirvana vying for number one.

Then I listened to The Climb by X-Factor’s Joe McElderry and almost fell asleep.

Peace: http://tinyurl.com/ydxg4yf

http://tinyurl.com/yzu7ojf

Aesthetica

2009-12-16T10:03:00.000Z

Helping out any aesthetes out there with a link to a piece on Grace Coddington in today's Times 2:

http://tinyurl.com/ycrln8m

In fact, as I am feeling in a generous aesthetic mood, I thought I would share a link to one of my favourite images this year, which happens to be of Katharine Whitehorn:

http://tinyurl.com/yalrrvt

Turner Prize Review

2009-12-08T10:40:00.000Z

A rose is a rose is a rose.

No no no.

Rachel Campbell-Johnston's Turner prize critique in today's Times is a joy to read: http://tinyurl.com/y8l8zll

Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and The Theos Lecture

2009-11-05T16:50:00.000Z

The Times has taken a bold line on Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks's lecture at the Theos debate last night:

“Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks: Europe is dying from secularism”

I didn’t see Ruth Gledhill there last night (but it doesn’t mean she wasn’t) – she must have downloaded the podcast online. (You can read her piece here: http://tinyurl.com/yfb5tpu)

Chief Rabbi Sacks didn’t say Europe was dying from secularism. What he actually said was: “It may not be religion that is dying. It may be liberal democratic secularism that is in danger.”

He argued that tolerant religiosity needed to be promoted over fundamentalism and that the problem that can occur with liberalism is its inability to defend its own values (i.e. cultural relativism). He also stressed that believers, atheists and agnostics were in this together and that religious people must be prepared to enter into respectful conversation with secular humanists over the nature of society. I didn’t have an argument with any of that. I admired the fact that he laid down some cards rather than holding them back and doing that liberal thing of asking lots of academic questions but never having a stab at the answers.

I also liked the fact that he defined faith as the courage to live with uncertainty. I was less enthused about the reason for his desertion of philosophy: “The search for meaning is in itself meaningless”. Religion is not the only space to discover meaning; love creates meaning, but Rabbi Sacks didn’t touch on that at all.

I also would have liked to have heard some unpacking of why he thought it was that a religious family was more likely to have more children than a secular family. The answer may not have been a pretty one. Also, if Rabbi Sacks was prepared to turn our attention to population decline in Europe and population growth in the world, I think it was a little feeble of him to steer clear of questions concerning immigration.

But, all in all, I really liked Jonathan Sacks and enjoyed his lecture.

Lord Tebbit and Thought For The Day

2009-11-05T11:01:00.000Z

Excellent response by Lord Tebbit this morning on the Today Programme when Sarah Montague asked him about David Cameron’s renegade on a Europe referendum.

He said: “I think we might all take home a transcript of the Thought For The Day this morning. Perhaps we have all got something to learn from that.”

This is what Rhidian Brook said on Thought For The Day this morning: “There's no question that we're creatures wired for communication but it can't just be about speed and immediacy, or even about words. Indeed, the monastic traditions saw self-control, listening and not speaking as essential for the kind of deep communication some believe we were created for. 'Be still and know that I am God', the psalmist wrote, or to paraphrase: switch off, dial down and tune into another kind of communication - the kind that allows the mind the experience of a deeper, uninterrupted level of thought where creativity and complex thinking can happen and where we may even hear a different voice. I once tried an experiment just before starting work of sitting in a chair for half an hour without doing anything, thinking anything or trying to communicate with anyone. It's an exquisitely difficult exercise and one I failed badly. But before I drop my laptop in the bath or ignore my daughter again, I'm going to give it another try and maybe, with God's help, I'll be able to sit there not sending messages - until I get the message.”

What about that for an idea! A Tory Government that sits in silence and meditates until it is time for the next election. Excellent.

Kristin Scott Thomas

2009-11-03T10:32:00.000Z

A bizarre angle to the reporting of Kristin Scott Thomas’s role in the film Partir taken by The Telegraph today:

“Kristin Scott Thomas's voice is no barrier in France,” the headline clips, “Received Pronunciation has been increasingly marginalised by Labour during its decade in power with the result that Kristin Scott Thomas, tired of being consigned to endless period dramas in her homeland, has taken her cut-glass accent to France.”

Kristin Scott Thomas has lived in France for years and done French films for ages. She has said before in interviews that she comes to England to do theatre and stays in France to do films. Anyone reading The Telegraph today would think that she only just moved to Paris yesterday. Basically, The Telegraph has dressed Kristin in its politics. We all know that The Telegraph’s top pin-ups are Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley and we all know why The Telegraph loves them (and I am not implying that it shouldn't).

Unfortunately, there is very little info in the article about the film itself:

http://tinyurl.com/ygkpwqc

Interfaith Relations

2009-11-02T16:48:00.000Z

Belated posting of my fifth report from India:

http://tinyurl.com/ydb6rph

News Talk (with Alison Ruoff)

2009-10-23T15:02:00.000+01:00

Another shot in the dark – for anyone interested:

I am going to be on Premier Radio’s Newstalk tomorrow at 11.30am talking about this week’s news stories: in London digitally on DAB radio, or 1305, 1332, 1413 MW, in the UK on Sky Digital 0123, Freeview 725 and also live online at http://www.premier.org.uk/

I was on with Alison Ruoff: http://tinyurl.com/yfb756b and, although she looked vaguely familiar, (the picture I had seen was this one: http://tinyurl.com/lktxgr) I wasn’t aware of her position on anything until we were recording (we recorded this morning). So, when I said, “the sooner the Church of England has women bishops, the better” I wasn’t expecting the outburst it provoked from Alison - her deep radio voice carrying the gravitas of her years. “Absolutely not,” she roared, “I will leave the Church of England if there are women bishops.”

Unfortunately the programme stopped there, so I didn’t get a chance to come back at her. I asked Alison afterwards whether she would become a Roman Catholic if the Church of England had women bishops. “No,” she said, “I will go to a Church that doesn’t have women bishops.” (I should have taken the opportunity here to point out that the Methodist Church in Britain does not have women bishops; its President and Vice-President next year will both be women.) Alison added that she didn’t have a problem with woman headship in the secular world, but not in the Church. Her role model? Margaret Thatcher.

I really do not understand the need to mystify the male position of authority within a spiritual context. It fractions rather than fosters our relationships with one another. It is divisive, deceitful and dishonest to cow-tow to an authority that is distinguished solely by the end in itself. All this does is depersonalise us and cripple our compassion rather than enrich our understanding.

Question Time

2009-10-20T14:00:00.000+01:00

There seems to be a growing assumption from the Right (http://jamesdelingpole.com/) that it’s only po-faced Liberals who are against the BNP appearing on this Thursday’s Question Time.

So, for those who didn’t spot it: Claire Fox wrote just as compelling a piece in yesterday’s Evening Standard (http://tinyurl.com/yjwv6p6) as Melanie Phillips did in yesterday's Daily Mail (http://tinyurl.com/ygod45p).

Let's hope the BBC Trust doesn't lose its nerve.

Overcoming Violence in India

2009-10-16T15:34:00.000+01:00

I am posting a link to a "sound bite" podcast I've put together following India.

http://tinyurl.com/ygb2eyr

It's called "Overcoming Violence in India" and it's dated October 16, 2009 (at the moment it is at the top of the page, but it will drop down the page over time).

The MP3 recorder I took with me was faulty. I didn't realise this until I was back in the UK. This has resulted in the loss of two of the six interviews I recorded (one of them with Bezwada Wilson, national convenor of Safai Karmachari Andolan - a movement for the elimination of manual scavenging). Three of the surviving interviews were only partially recorded and only one came out intact. So, I've just had to work around what was left and salvage all I could. This is why my voice comes in so abruptly at the "end" of three of the interviews (because the machine cut out half way through). Anyhow, maybe you wouldn't have even noticed all these problems if I hadn't pointed them out...

I reckon if I smoked 40 a day I could work up a sexy, deep radio voice. As it is, I am not exactly Charlotte Green...

Manual Scavenging

2009-10-16T09:20:00.000+01:00

Here is the forth piece I wrote following the India trip:

http://tinyurl.com/yzd8l38

I interviewed Bezwada Wilson in the dark on the balcony of a Delhi appartment. He suggested it would be quieter there then the living room where hosts and guests were socialising and tucking into food. I was so eager to interview him that I completely forgot I didn't have any insect repellent on and I was wearing open-toed shoes (er, with no socks). The mosquitoes were digging their fangs into our flesh and I started hopping from one foot to another, trying to ignore them. They got me twice on the same foot.

Women, Violence and The Law In India

2009-10-14T14:25:00.000+01:00

Third news story on India: http://tinyurl.com/yhvmlby

Free Thinking on Climate Change

2009-10-13T12:03:00.001+01:00

A great piece of free thinking by Martin Beckford in yesterday’s Telegraph online:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/debates/6308651/Why-does-the-Church-of-England-recycle-its-sermons.html

It's clear Martin would rather like the Church of England to talk about something else other than climate change (which he doesn’t dispute is happening, but which he thinks has become an own goal for the Church). He illustrates this by pointing out that Church of England press releases have mentioned climate change more than they have mentioned God and Jesus this year. What, then, would Martin want God and Jesus to be talking about in 2009 if not climate change?

Well, he gives a hint: “As I pointed out last time, almost all environmentalists agree on the need to reduce the global population, but while the Roman Catholic Church rejects this solution, the Church of England fails to address it.”

Population control. Hmmm... I wonder what women bishops would want to talk about, if the Church of England had them?

In The Beginning...

2009-10-09T16:28:00.000+01:00

Maybe the next thing that will come out of Bible scholarship is that mathematical possibility preceded God:

http://tinyurl.com/ylmotye