Technically speaking I don't live here - photos from an older Exeter

Courtesy of the website Old UK Photos

Exeter High Street in the 1890s

Bedford Crescent in the 1930s

Stepford Lane, similarly in the 1930s

For a bonus, some photos of where I used to live

Ascot Sunday, Boulters Lock, 1900s

1 hour to the Cricket

'We all have moments of revelation. Perhaps once, when we were children, we did not believe at all. Perhaps we were too busy with our homework, or just engaging in the random cruelty and violence that customarily dominates the lives of small boys. Then one day we were playing tip-and-run in the playground, or maybe even watching a one-day match on television, when a blinding light suddenly enveloped the land, and a male voice did speak, and it was pregnant with authority, and it was probably Richie Benaud, and he said 'Morning, everyone', and life was never the same again'.

pp. 10-11, Rain Men; Marcus Berkmann, Abacus (1996).

Come on England.

So what's this 'normative' thing about anyway?

Something's just been pointed out to me that I found quite interesting/amusing. In a discussion about work my house-mate argued that if you summarise modern 'banking' as a system as objectively as possible it makes little to no sense. Her description ran as follows:

'You give the money you have earned to a group of people, a few of whom you might actually know by sight, but rarely personally. These people will then take your money, store some of it in a manner that they alone control access to (though they give you a means of access that money). You cannot retrieve all of your money at any one point. They will take some more of your money and use it to make more money for themselves. They will charge you for this entire process and for several other services along the way'.

That is, I believe, a fairly accurate summary of how storing your money in a building society or savings bank works. We haven't even touched on issues of credit and merchantile banking, and it already sounds slightly insane.

It's an interesting thought isn't it? What sounds normative to us and what may not be to others.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

An odd little post, full of happiness and joy

A while ago I posted up a pitying piece on 'How am I' (anyone wanting to read my silly ramblings can find it here). Well, the good ladies at Purposeful Purity have written up a similar post. Only they've done it far better than I and in a far more Biblical manner. Can I recommend you all get a read of this?:

http://purposefulpurity.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-banner.html

The attitude those two encapsulate brings me to my second post, from Nick Gowers' blog. At Shower Theology (nice name, isn't it?), Nick has written a post that's quite near something I've been spending some time on recently: the gap in my life between enthusing for the Gospel and enacting on it. In this particular case, he's done a good piece on acknowledging that sometimes we forget the actual poor, so wrapped up are we in the idea of the spiritual poor. Christianity is an active religion. 

http://nickgowers.blogspot.com/2010/11/poor-in-lukes-gospel.html

Lastly, if you can stand it, Mike Reeves on the 'problem' of the Trinity. If you can make further than 14 minutes in while still following, you're a better man than I Gunga Din:

http://www.theologynetwork.org/christian-beliefs/doctrine-of-god/getting-stuck-in/trinity-1--why-we-have-problems-with-trinity.htm

And lastly....a new post from Archbishop Cranmer

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2010/11/on-conversion-anglican-bishops-to-rome.html

The Archbishop writes eloquently and inquiringly in relation to the Anglican bishops who have announced their intent to join the Catholic Ordinate.

Also from the Guardian today - Simon Schama on History in Schools

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/09/future-history-schools

Well worth a read. The most depressing moment is the account of one teacher determined to expand his student's historical knowledge up to the point when he realised the huge amount of work that would entail of both he and his charges. They lapsed back onto 'Hitler and the Henries'.

Comic Books are trash #1.5

Naomi Alderman, writing in today's Guardian, celebrates Marvel Comics' new 'Spider-Girl', Anya Corazon. Certainly the picture Alderman paints is of a multi-faceted superhero who lacks what TV Tropes refers to as the 'Most Common Superpower' for female comic book superheroes. Let me give you a clue = it's not super-strength. Or super-speed, x-ray vision, invulnerability, levitation, weather control,  walking through objects, telepathy, telekinesis, healing factor, shape-shifting, heightened intelligence, super-stamina or enhanced senses. Although it does involve a series of physical attributes not normally found on the average woman.

I applaud the sentiments of Paul Tobin, 'Spider-Girl's writer, who Alderman quotes as saying:  "When I was growing up there were so few well-written female characters in comics. It definitely was all about the sexuality, rather than the individuality....a lot of writers, both male and female, are putting those old one-dimensional writing styles to rest". I sincerely hope he, and a great many other creators aim for this. The situation that led Gail Simone to create her (in)famous Women in Refrigerators website (listing the frankly shockingly long list of female characters abused within comic books) has to stop.

However, I would point out that this was the promotional art for X-Men: Xenogenesis in May. Yes, that is meant to be a woman on the right. Her name is Emma Frost.

The 'Monotheistic' God is the most tempting idol for the Western Church

Discuss with reference to the following

http://www.theologynetwork.org/christian-beliefs/doctrine-of-god/getting-stuck-in/trinity-1--why-we-have-problems-with-trinity.htm

Some thoughts on denial

To paraphrase the song – it's not what you do, it's the way that you do it.

In a capitalist state, and one effectively integrated into a global economy at that, consumption of material has become a societal necessity. Our consumption is the engine that drives productivity, and, hopefully, helps raise the size of our economy and our general standard of living. Or something like that. 

Now the problems of excess consumption don't need to be noted here, only to say that on a day to day basis it is question of degree and consequence. There's nothing intrinsically wrong, for instance, with eating chocolate. There are even some health benefits. The problem is that too much and you end up looking like this lad here. Consequence not only for you but for society in general. In 2002 for example the NHS estimated that it spent between £945,000,000 and £1.075 billion treating the consequences of obesity (in addition to the £45.8 million and £49 million it spent on treating the direct causes of obesity). Those figures can be found here, under the 'Obesity' section. That page records obesity levels in the UK as, on the whole, rising significantly since the 1990s. 

By contrast, last year The Daily Telegraph reported that a series of Private Finance Initiative hospital schemes were being scrapped as a result of the Credit Crunch. Their cumulative cost was £2.5 billion. The largest scheme, at University Hospitals Leicester, was worth £711 million (i.e. £234 million less than the NHS's lowest estimate for what it paid to treat obesity 7 years earlier).

Well then, there's a reason to cut back on one area of our personal consumption. The Credit Crunch as a whole would seem to be another. Like it or not, as a nation we are significantly in debt. I'm not going to pretend that it's not possible to spend years outrunning your debts. The question is whether it's advisable. As demonstrated above, what is personally pleasing may not always be collectively rewarding. 

This harks back to the Prisoner's Dilemma, a hypothetical problem proposed in Game Theory. In short, two suspects to an armed robbery are arrested. The police have enough evidence to sentence them to six months for continued minor parking offences. They cannot though prove that these prisoners committed the robbery, for which they would receive 10 years. So they separate them, and propose to each prisoner a deal. They will release them free of charge if they testify against the other prisoner. 

From each prisoner's perspective it is in their interests to cooperate with the police. Collectively however, as we can see from our external perspective, it is in neither prisoner's interests. As far as they know cooperation means they walk free. We can see though that cooperation means 5 year prison terms each. 

We can see therefore that it comes down to perspective. I'm not trying to say that whenever we pick up a Twix we should be considering the NHS operational budget for this year in our thoughts (though it may help if we do it occasionally!). It is more keeping John Donne's maxim in mind: 'No man is an island'. Our actions have continued consequences for those around us. At the same time though, there's not much to be said for needless denial. 

Strangely enough this is all leading towards a Biblical end. Before I start on this part, can I credit David Harris and Nick Gowers, our ministers at St. Leonards, from whom I'm 'borrowing' (ahem!) much of this next section. I thoroughly recommend you listen to some of their sermons here if you haven't already. 

In 1 Timothy Paul writes to Timothy at Ephesus telling him, among others points, that the teachings at the Ephesian church are utterly un-Christian. They deny that Christians can marry, or consume certain foods (see 1 Timothy 4). Nick pointed out this morning that Paul has an unarguable point in mind. Christian teaching holds that Christ reunified us in proper relation with God, and with creation, with His Sacrifice. As such denial of God's gifts to us - marriage and food in this case - is a denial of the full power of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. 

Christianity does not deny you consumption. Unlike what I believe this lady to be saying here, for instance, the church has little problem with its members having sex. It has a problem with non-marital sex, or at least it should, as it believes that marriage is given to us by God to reflect the love among the Trinity, and as such sex should occur there. I may come back to that, as I'm not sure in what I've just written, but among other considerations there is the slight membership problem we may have if we did disapprove of sex itself. 

Ultimately though, where Christianity questions your consumption is in asking why you're consuming as you do. In 1 Corinthians 8, for example, Paul advises not eating foods offered to idols where you're eating them could cause doubts in fellow Christians. The foods themselves are not bad, but you eating them could harm others. What we have is God given, and we should consume those gifts as such. 

Defence #5: This week's Analysis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00vkwk8/Analysis_Defence_no_stomach_for_the_fight/

On British society and the British Army - are we living in a post-martial society.