Joe's Jottings

Category: Personal Stuff

  • And there’s one more thing…

    My guilty secret for today – I love ‘Columbo’.  No, not Colombo, capital city of Sri Lanka, but Columbo, dishevelled Los Angeles murder squad detective in the 1970s TV detective series of the same name.  I’ve just watched an episode this afternoon – it’s sort of comfort TV for me, I have to admit.  No matter how smart the villain, how heinous the crime, you know that Columbo will eventually get his man (or woman) – you even get to see, in the first 15 minutes or so, the murder take place, who did it and how he did it.  The trick for Columbo, and the entertainment for the viewers, is trying to work out what tiny error the villain of the piece has made that will eventually be spotted by our scruffy and (at first glance) slow-witted hero and that will lead to their downfall.

    Yes, it’s a derivative and predictable formula – and I think that that’s what makes it such wonderful ‘comfort TV’ – you know roughly what you’re going to get, how it’ll be paced, etc.  Classic ‘cliche’ Westerns were known as ‘horse operas’ – they had the same predictability of structure as did theatrical operas.  The 1930s and 1940s saw the rise of the ‘space opera’ in science fiction – similarly stylised stories based on mainstream adventures, and of course we’re all aware of the soap opera – the less said about that particular genre, the better! 🙂

    Columbo is undeniably ‘crime opera’ – it grew out of a series called ‘Mystery Movie’ that used to run on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings on, I think, ITV in the 1970s – it featured a number of different crime investigation based series – Macmillan and Wife and Banacek were two others I particularly remember.  They were staples of TV consumption in the Pritchard household in my adolescence, and I have particular memories of them being on TV whilst I was doing homework or dashing in and out of the garden!  Just like an opera which, by tradition, isn’t over until the fat lady has sung, an episode of Columbo isn’t anywhere near over until he’s turned to teh murderer when leaving a room, asked ‘Sir…just one more thing?’ and then asked the question that will eventually break the case. 

    One of the things I love about Columbo – and I think a lot of the actors who took part also loved it – is that you get the chance to see a lot of stars play murderers or  victims.  Two of my personal favourites are Johnny Cash – playing a murderous musician – and Patrick McGoohan.  McGoohan turns up a couple of times as a murderer – in one episode he plays the commander of a military academy, and in a second episode he’s the campaign manager for a politician.  I doubt that this sort of casting would be possible today, and it’s a shame.

    The ongoing ‘in jokes’ in Columbo – his rather elderly Peugeot car, his habit of getting mistaken for a delivery man or (worse still) tramp due to his dress, his apparent forgetfulness and rambling anecdotes – all contribute to the charm of the show.  And it IS a charming show – it’s gentle, mannered and definitely reflects a different age of TV entertainment as far as TV cop shows are concerned.  For me it provides happy memories of a time when my life was certainly simpler, and a reflection back on a world that seems much further away in history than 30 years.  And the stories and writing – there’s no post modernism, no ‘knowing nods’ to the audience.  It takes itself, on the whole, seriously and it works.

    Now…how on Earth would he get on with Gene Hunt?

  • Happy Customers – banks should have us stuffed and mounted!

    It’s 1943 and we’re in Stalag Luft XXIIIb, a prison camp for allied prisoners of war, somewhere in the centre of Germany.  In the centre of a hut, allied prisoners sit around a table which has a reasonable amount of food on it.  In the corner of the room, a couple of German guards, the Camp Commandant and two Swiss Civilians from the International Red Cross are asking questions.

    “So, Flight Sergeant,” begins one of the Swiss,”are you being well treated?  I can see from the food here that you’ve been receiving the red Cross food parcels….”

    “Well….yes……” the Sergeant looks nervously at the Commandant, who is staring at him with an intense expression normally seen before he utters the words ‘Solitary Confinement, 21 days.’. “Very well, thank you, sir.  The Germans are a great bunch and feed us well….”

    “Excellent…excellent….now, Commandant, can we see another hut please?”

    The Germans and Swiss leave the hut, and after a few minutes a guard returns and sweeps the food in to a bag, removes the only working light-bulb and says “Vell, English-pigs, zat is ze visit of ze red Cross over for another 6 months – back to normal food for you!  Remember to cook ze food vell to kill ze weevils!”

    OK…it’s a cliche of popular fiction, but I was reminded of thsi today by a news item from the BBC – that most people seem happy with the service they get from their banks.  I admit that I was rather gob-smacked at this, especially the figure that about 90% of folks who’ve NOT shifted banks are happy with their current bank.  Then I read further and noted that 48% of people wouldn’t think of changing banks because it would cause too many problems, and that’s when I started thinking of the above scenario.  No doubt more folks would love to change banks if they thought that they could do so with ease, be guaranteed of finding another bank that would take them on as customers, and also not get any ‘comebacks’ from their bank in the meantime.

    It perhaps says a lot today about how cowed we are on the whole that we put up with the way our banks have played with our money and charged us for the privilege; anyone who’s been in debt knows that you are locked in to your existing financial service providers for a while after you have debt problems because your credit record is damaged, and often it’s only as ‘existing customers’ that you survive.  Coming to a new bank as a new customer would probably see you thrown back.

    I’d like to believe that the banks are starting to listen and making things easier for people; I have to say my own bank has recently been more reasonable than I’ve experienced for some years – which is great news – but I think that it’s going to be a long time before I can look at these sorts of surveys and take them at their word.

  • Social Search…waste of time?

    I’m a big user of search engines.  Despite my grumblings and pontifications on here about Google, I still use them the most because they’re still the best out there.  I hope that Bing – despite the daft name – will one day come to challenge Google, but until then, I just Google.  It’s been interesting recently to see Tweets start appearing in search results, and I’ve commented in this blog on the topic.  The most recent work being done by Google that they feel will improve the search experience for us all is explored in this piece from the BBC, and I’m particularly interested in the comments made about ‘Social Search’.

    First of all, what is Social Search? 

    My definition of a true Social Search tool is one that would give weight to a number of different aspects when searching.  These would include:

    • The normal search criteria as entered in to any search engine that you care to use.
    • Your location, intelligently applied to any searches that might be expected to have a geographical aspect to them.
    • A weighting applied to favour the results based upon material that meets the criteria you’re searching on that may have been placed on the Internet by people or organisations within your personal or professional network.

    To give an example – you do a search for restaurants.  The search engine makes a guess about your location based on previous searches, geocoding based on your IP address or, coming real soon, tagging provided with the search request specifying your location based on a GPS in the device that you’re using for the search.  The search engine then determines whether your ‘friends’ have done similar searches, whether they’ve done any reviews or blog posts about restaurants in the area, posted photos to Flickr, or are actually Tweeting FROM a restaurant as you search, whatever.  The results are then returned for you – and ideally would be tailored to your particular situation as understood by the search engine.

    And this is roughly what the Google Social Search folks are looking at.

    “….returns information posted by friends such as photos, blog posts and status updates on social networking sites.

    It is currently only available in the US and will be coming to the rest of the world soon.

    Maureen Heymans, technical lead at Google, said this kind of search means the information offered is personal to the user.

    “When I’m looking for a restaurant, I’ll probably find a bunch of reviews from experts and it’s really useful information.

    “But getting a review from a friend can be even better because I trust them and I know their tastes. Also I can contact them and ask for more information,” she said.

    In future users’ social circles could provide them with the answers they seek, as long as individuals are prepared to make those connections public.”

    Of course, the million (or multi-billion) dollar question is how far are people to go in terms of making their networks available to search engine companies in such a way that results can be cross referenced in this way.  Once upon a time I’d have said that folks wouldn’t, as they value their privacy, but today I’m not so sure.  Given that we have seen sites where people share details about credit card purchases, I’m not convinced that people value their privacy enough to not allow this sort of application to take off, at least amongst the ‘digital elites’.

    Of course, hopefully it will be up to us whether we participate in using Social Search – I guess all of us who blog or Tweet will find our musings being used as ‘search fodder’ unless we opt out of making our contributions searchable.  Will I use Social Search?  If it’s at all possible to opt out, No.  And here’s why.

    Because I doubt the results will be as relevant to me as Google and all the other potential providers of SOcial Search think they will be.  Let’s face it – these companies will not be doing it for nothing – some where along the way the ‘database of intentions’ will be being supplemented and modified based upon the searches carried out, and such information is a goldmine to marketers and advertisers.

    But the relevance to me?  I’m yet to be convinced – and here’s why.

    If I really want the opinions of my friends, family and occasional business contacts on what I eat, wear, watch or listen to then I’ll ask them directly.  Just because I know someone doesn’t mean that I share any similarity in viewpoint or preferences at all.  I have friends with very different interests – Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Agnostics  and Atheists, people from the political left and right, party animals and stay at homes…the differentiation goes on.  This is because I pick my friends based on what they’re like as people – not necessarily because they share interests or beliefs.  As it happens, I’m occasionally quietly offended by what some of my online friends say – but that’s life.  We don’t always have to agree or share the same beliefs.  

    Therefore, the idea of biasing my search results based on what people I know search for, prefer or comment on is potentially useless.  If I wish to know what my friends think or say – I’ll talk to them, email them or read their tweets / blogs / whatever directly. 

    I feel there’s also a serious risk of ‘crystalisation’ of beliefs – a sort of friendship groupthink emerging.  Think of what it was like when you were 13 years old and spotty.  For many teenagers it matters to be ‘in with the in-crowd’; Social Search could contribute to the return of that sort of belief structure amongst peer groups.  By it’s nature, the people who will be ‘opinion leaders’ in your Social Search universe will be those friends who are most online and who share the most.  Their activities will hence bias the results returned in Social Search.  It might not be such a problem for them, though – people who have a high Social Search presence will undoubtedly come to the attention of advertisers and opinion formers who might wish to make use of that ‘reputation’.

    One of the great advantages of good, old-fashioned, non-social search is taht you will occasionally be bowled a googly (pitched a curve ball for my transatlantic friends!) that might lead you off in to whole new areas of knowledge.  You may be prompted to try something new that NONE of your friends or colleagues have heard of.  Whilst these results will still be in the results, if they’re on the second page, how many of us will bother going there?  We’ll become fat and lazy and contented searchers.

    So….I think I want to stay as an individual.  For now, I’ll happily turn my back on Social Search!

  • Social Media and the mob

    One of my favourite films is ‘The Fisher King’ – one of the most haunting scenes in it is where Radio ‘Shock Jock’ Jack Lucas repeats the words ‘Forgive me’ from a TV script he is hoping to star in, whilst, unbeknown to him, thoughtless comments made by himon his radio show have driven a mentally ill caller to take a gun to an upmarket bar and open fire on people there.  The next scene in the film is of him three years later in a drunken rage after his life has fallen apart in the aftermath of the shooting, with his anger being directed at the actor who DID get teh role.

    A few words uttered thoughtlessly in a public arena; in the film it was talk radio, but today it’s just as likely to be Facebook or other Social Media.  Of course, Social Media is a valuable tool with which to organise groups that are angry at social and political issues, for example.  But there are also a number of groups that go beyond what is acceptable:

    There have been similar items featured on YouTube and Twitter – and as long as there has been any sort of media – starting with the pub on a Saturday night – there have always been public threats made against people.  The reach of Social Media though makes these sorts of groups and viral campaigns different in some major ways:

    • Sheer numbers – let’s face it, with Facebook you have a potential audience of 400 million people for your campaign.
    • Persistence and visibility – until such a group is removed it’s there all the time and can be found via search engines inside the Social Media site and indirectly form outside the sites.
    • Speed of activity – something can grow rapidly – much more rapidly than any campaign arranged through traditional media.

    The obvious immediate result of this sort of mobilisation is the generation of ‘flash mobs’ – often for very good causes – where groups of people assemble, do something. then disappear.  This can frequently be done in the space of a few hours, rather than the days or week traditionally required to get a traditional demo together.

    However, a less obvious but more sinister aspect of the use of Social Media is what’s best called ‘validation’.  This is something I’ve touched on in a previous blog post here on Joe’s Jottings – ‘Gazing in to the abyss’ – and it’s possibly more dangerously relevant when we look at the role of Social Media in generating a good, old fashioned, pitch-fork and torch carrying mob.

    If you’re one slightly disturbed individual who thinks that a public figure deserves death, then the chances are that until recently you’d find very few people who agreed with you – or even if they agreed with you, would be very unlikely to publicly state it.  Today, the world’s a different place.  Your views can find validation in a number of ways – someone may set up a ‘jokey’ ‘Let’s kill X’ group or web site; other nutters may be more serious about it; or you might see groups on the Internet who just don’t like the person.  And you might see all of these people as somehow validating your point of view – a little like Jack Lucas’s deranged listener.

    Let’s just hope that we don’t have too many people saying ‘Forgive me’ as a consequence.

  • A quick guide to blog spam…

    I’ll soon be hitting a landmark on Joe’s jottings – 10,000 spam posts caught by the Akismet spam trapping plug-in for WordPress.  Not at all bad going – I would advise anyone who runs a WordPress Blog to get their hands on this very useful piece of kit!  Anyway – I saw a comment posted by another blogger that made me wonder about ‘spam spotting’ in general, especially as I’ve seen a number of spam posts that are plausible enough to look like a ‘real’ comment sneak through Akismet (not many – about 2% in total) in to my moderation queue, and I’ve also seen quite a few comments on other blogs that are clearly spammy.

    So, here’s a few thoughts as to keeping your Blog spam free!

    1. First of all – why bother?  The simple answer is that if you allow spam posts to appear in your blog comments then it gives the impression that you don’t care enough to keep the spammers at bay.  I’ve set my blog up so that all comments need to be moderated / checked before they show up on the live blog.
    2. Use a good spam-trap like Akismet.  It save so much trouble and effort and is well worth it – and it’s free for personal use.  There’s no excuse! It isn’t perfect – it will sometimes allow stuff through in to your comment queue which you then need to check out. 
    3. When you get comments in your comment queue, it’s worth looking at the email address.  My general rule of thumb is that if the mail comes from a .ru address, or just looks ‘unusual’, I bin it, irrespective of what the actual comment is.  This may sound rather ruthless but I’ve yet to have a single real comment from an .ru email address, so I can’t be bothered to spend brain cells on it.
    4. Take a look at the relevance of the comment made against the article on which the comment is givn.  Some spammers apply ‘generic’ comments such as ‘great post’ to everything – don’t be deceived – take a look at the email adderss and any link.  Don’t necessarily click on the link – you have no idea what’s on the other end of it.
    5. Some comments may be of the form ‘How did you get this template working?  Please mail me and let me know how.’  Occasionally these even have sensible looking email addresses, but I NEVER reply to a comment on my blog through email.  Basically it’s just a way for the spammers to get a ‘live’ email address from you.
    6. A general piece of advice is to be wary of any comment that is complimentary or that is in bad English or just a single sentence of the ‘I agree with this post’.  ‘I agree’ posts add little to debate around posts on a blog anyway – if the person is genuinely commenting they’ll tend to put a little more on to the comment.  Some comments are in incredibly poor English – even if they’re not spam, I bin them as they just look poor on the comment list for an article.
    7. If you do get comments that are spam, and that have escaped the attention of your spam filter, please ensure you report it as spam using whatever ‘report spam’ options are available in the spam filter you’re using – that way you’ll be contributing to improving the quality of spam filtering.

    And there you go!  May you be spamless!

  • Why are some Open Source support people so damn rude?

    Don’t get me wrong – I love Open Source software and have used some of it fairly widely in various development projects that I’ve done.   I’m also aware of the fact that people involved in the development and support of such software are typically volunteers, and on the odd occasion I have called upon people for support, I’ve always had good experiences.

    I’ve also seen some absolute stinkers of ‘support’ given to other developers, in which the people who’re associated quite strongly with the softwrae have treated people in a rude, patronising and often offensive and abusive manner.  Now, in 20+ years of dealing with IT support people – including folks like Oracle, Microsoft. Borland (showing my age) and even Zortech and Nantucket (back in the deep past!!) I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve had this sort of treatment from big bad commercial software houses.  It’s unfortunate that I’ve seen dozens of examples of this poor customer service from Open Source suppliers in the last couple of years.

    Because even if we don’t pay, we are customers – and some of the worst behaviour I’ve seen from companies where users are required to pay for a license when the software is sued in commercial situations.  It’s hardly encouraging, is it?  I know it can be frustrating to answer the same question several times a day, especially when the solution is well documented, but rudeness isn’t the way forward.  After all – it doesn’t exactly encourage people to use the product, or pay for a licence – rather than persevere or even volunteer a fix, folks are more likely to just go to the next similar product on the list.

    Ultimately, it boils down to this; piss off enough potential customers and people like me will write articles like this but will name names and products.

    So, here are a few hopefully helpful hints to people involved in regularly supporting products and libraries.

    1. If it’s your job, you’re getting paid to do it.  If you’re a volunteer, you’ve chosen to do it.  In either case, if you don’t feel trained up enough in the interpersonal skill side of things, just be nice, and read around material on customer support.  If you don’t like it support, then rather than taking it out on customers, quit.  Because you’re unhappy is no reason to take it out on other people.
    2. Remember that the person asking the daft question may hold your job (or the future of your product) in their hands.  You have no idea whether they’re working on a project for a small company or a large blue chip / Government department.  Your goal is surely to get widespread adoption – the best way to do this is to make folks happy.
    3. Even if the fix IS documented in any number of places, be polite about it.  If it’s that common, then have it in your FAQs or as a ‘stock answer’.  The worst sort of response is ‘It should be obvious’.  Of course it’s obvious to you – you wrote it.  It isn’t obvious to other people.  This seems to be a particular problem with ‘bleeding edge’ developers who swallow the line that ‘the source code is the documentation’ – it may well be, but if you want your product or service to be adopted you need to get as many people as possible using it.
    4. Don’t forget that if someone perseveres with your software, through buggy bits, they may be willing to help you fix it.  The chances of you getting a helper if you are rude to them is minimal.
    5. If you get a lot of questions or confusion about the same issue, perhaps it’s time to update the FAQs or Wiki?  And don’t forget sample code – if you’re generating code libraries PLEASE provide lots of real-world examples.

    And to all the nice support folks – thanks for all the help – it is appreciated!

  • Facebook would like you to share even more….

    There’s an episode of ‘The Simpsons’ in which Lisa sets out to determine whether a hamster or Bart is the more intelligent for a school science project.  She does this by applying electric shocks to the ‘subjects’ when they attempt to feed.  the hamster soon stops trying to eat the nuts that are attached to teh electrical wiring, while Bart just keeps on getting electric shocks whenever he tries to eat a slice of booby-trapped cake.

    And so it seems with Facebook and privacy issues; no sooner than they navigate their way through one privacy crisis, then they end up with another problem of their own construction –this time involving a new plan to allow ‘trusted third party partners’ access to information about your Facebook account.  At the moment, when you go off to a site – like a game – that connects to Facebook via the ‘Facebook Connect’ application, you’re asked if you wish to give the site permission to access data from your Facebook account that the site needs to work.  This is usually the point at which I say ‘No’ and close the brwoser window, I should add.  The new arrangement will be that certain sites will be given special dispensation to bypass this process and use your Facebook ‘cookie’ on your PC to identify your Facebook account, then go off to Facebook and grab details about friends, etc. without you ever agreeing to it.

    Of course, there will be the option available for us to Opt Out of this rather high-handed approach, and by reducing the amount of information that you make available in your profile with a privacy setting of ‘Everyone’ you’ll be able to restrict what data is presented anyway.  But it does appear that this, combined with the recent changes to default privacy settings that made ‘Everyone’ the standard (unless you change it), are pointing to an increasing interest form Facebook in working out ways of :

    1. Using your facebook login and data as a ‘passport’ on to other affiliated sites.
    2. Increasing the ‘stickiness’ of Facebook – not necessarily by keeping you on the Facebook site but by keeping information about your social activities with other Facebook users going back to the Facebook site.
    3. Increasing the ‘reach’ of Facebook accounts to make them more valuable for monetising.

    It’s inevitable that Facebook will want to start making some real money from the vast amounts of personal data acquired on their users; if they increase the number of ‘selected partners’ significantly then the amount of data that can be collected about behaviours of Facebook users will be vastly increased – perhaps it’s time to start remembering that you are soon going to be paying for Farmville and other such activities one way or another; it may not be a subscription, but your personal data might start showing up in all sorts of places.

  • The Birth of a Brand

    As some of you may know, I’m on the Board of the Hillsborough Forum, a group that works for the economic regeneration of the Hillsborough area of Sheffield, and also coordinates other activities in that area, such as ‘Yorkshire in Bloom’ and other community activities, such as Community Gardening.  I’m very proud of my involvement with HF – and certainly enjoy working with some wonderful people such as Wendy Wells.

    Tonight we had an event to launch our ‘Made in Hillsborough’ brand – an attempt to provide a unique and easily identifiable brand for companies and businesses based in the area.  the brand was designed by local, highly skilled, Graphic Designer Emma Metcalfe and manages to encapsulate all the major aspects of Hillsborough – green spaces, soccer, the Barracks, the range of produce available in the area.  It’s so ‘hot off the press’ that the first time I saw the ‘full version’ of the logo was at this presentation, and it’s a smasher. 

    It’s partially visible in the background of the above photograph and on the right you can see a larger version of the logo in all it’s glory!  The launch took place in the Hillsborough Hotel, who provided us with excellent surroundings, a nice buffet and a very nice special brew for the occasion from their in-house Crown Brewery – Hillsborough Pale Ale.  Of which a fair amount was quaffed by all, including me.

    There was an excellent set of introductory talks from the Rt. Hon. David Blunkett MP, local author and historian Ron Clayton (Ron – if you’re reading this send me your web site address!!)  and Hillsborough Forum’s very own ‘member of the Queen’s Gang’, Wendy Wells MBE.  And then it was down to networking, brewery visiting, eating and drinking!  And a fine evening was had by all, with your correspondent finally strolling home through the drizzle at 11pm!

    We had excellent support from many Hillsborough businesses for raffle prizes and give-aways on the night including Picky Miss Sock Monsters, Imogen’s Imagintion (milinery / hats), Simpkin’s Sweets, Teddy Bear Maker and Funks Butchers.  On a personal level it was great to see old friends again, and make contact with Russell Cavanagh who runs NW Sheffield News Online.  My major social gaffe of the evening was not immediately recognising the very friendly folks from the Java Lounge coffee shop in Hillsborough – given the amount of coffee and cheesey crumpets they’ve served me in recent months that was a wee bit embarrassing! 

    But – thanks to all!!  Follow @Hills_Forum on Twitter, and if you want to help plug the brand, use the #MadeInHillsborough hashtag!

  • Civil Partership ceremonies on religious premises….some contradiction in terms?

    Over the last decade or so, the number of times when New Labour has created legislation in what ‘the Simpsons’ would call ‘the American way’ – i.e. do a ‘half arsed job’ – has been legion.  There must be some sort of finishing school for NuLab legislators where they go to have that bit of the brain responsible for common sense somehow removed.  And now Lord Ali has kept up the tradition by tabling an amendment to the Equality Bill that allows civil partnership ceremonies on religious premises.  Note the juxtaposition of words there…civil…and religious.

    In a letter to The Times, Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, has expressed his concerns about this amendment.

    Now, I was of the impression that the reason civil partnerships existed was for people who could not or would not undertake a religious marriage (irrespective of religion) but still wanted to publicly commit themselves to each other.  Look what the direct.gov website has to say on the issue:

    “A civil marriage ceremony cannot have any religious content, but you may be able to arrange for individual touches such as non-religious music and readings to be added to the legal wording, and for the ceremony to be videoed. The register office where you intend to marry will be able to tell you more about the options available.

    A Civil Partnership is legally formed by the signing of the civil partnership schedule. Like a civil marriage, this is also non-religious, but couples who wish to arrange for a ceremony should discuss this with the registration officials.”

    Seems pretty straight forward there.  They even say ‘cannot have any religious content’.  With me so far?  Good.  Let’s take a moment to thing about religious buildings – and I’m going to include churches, mosques, chapels, synagogues and temples here.  Most religious buildings are built with certain tenets, based on the religion in question, in mind.  Ignoring the theological issues around whether the church refers to the building or the people who celebrate there, and focusing purely on the building itself, there are aspects of the construction and furnishing of most churches (and other religious buildings) that are symbolic – altars, crosses, positioning of certain fittings and furnishings, the orientation of a building within a plot of land – all can be highly symbolic, and hence ‘religious’.  So, to be strictly within the letter of the law, any ceremonies held would have to somehow remove the symbolism from the building.  Do we have to take away a cross because it might show up on a video, for example?

    We then have the whole raft of issues around desecration; if a Mosque were to be used, do we insist on all those entering the main part of the room to be barefoot to respect the building, or do we allow any footwear?  Same with clothing.  Or is it likely that this opening up of religious buildings would only apply to, for example, Christian denominations or faiths that do not insist on certain rules around footwear / clothing / etc.?

    And this applies whether the couple participating in the ceremony are heterosexual or homosexual; we have here a simple issue of a law being bought in as part of an ‘Equality Bill’ that will actually remove the rights of religious communities to indicate how their buildings are used by non-believers.  Hardly equal rites for them, is it?  Especially as in many religious communities the fabric of the buildings is maintained not by state or local government but by the religious group themselves.

    A religious building is for the celebration of religious events.  It’s not to provide a photogenic backdrop for people with no beliefs at all.  It isn’t to provide yet another football in the political battles around the rights of homosexuals vs heterosexuals in our communities.  By hanging this legislation of the Equality Bill, I’m afraid that it will end up putting some priests, Imans and vicars in a terrible position of being asked to go against their conscience or against the law in the name of equal rites – which don’t seem to apply very much to religious folks in these sorts of situations.  A vicar can refuse to marry people in a Church based on any number of reasons – divorce, where the people live, lack of obvious connection with the Church / parish.  These restrictions have been in place for centuries in some cases, and apply to everyone irrespective or sexuality, race, whatever who wish to use the Church.

    This law seeks to effectively de-consecrate religious buildings for a short period of time – it should be resisted.

    Now – here is where what I write will start getting contentious and I expect to be upsetting a few folks with what I say next. 

    It’s no secret that I am a religious man.  I like to think of myself as a fairly tolerant and reasonably non-judgemental fellow, but it increasingly seems to me that when our Government talks of tolerance and equality it usually means that religious folks are going to get it in the neck, and be expected to suspend some of our personal beliefs in how we conduct ourselves in our day to day lives.  If we’re now going to start being told who we can and can’t allow to use our own churches and holy places, then our rights are being eroded, and perhaps it’s time for some tolerance to be shown to us and our beliefs.

  • I sometimes wonder….

    As some of you will know, I’m what’s best described as an (occasionally) practising Christian.  Just to get the joke out of the way early, I’ll keep practising and one day I hope to get it right!  Yesterday I attended a Christening in a different Church to my usual one, and the sermon offered was about the topic of expectation; funnily enough, over the last 24 hours I found myself pondering a few issues around the topic of expectation – what I expected form others, and what others expected from me.

    The funny thing is that this isn’t the first time that this has happened to me.  Before I became a ‘regular’ attender at Church, I’d sometimes go on a whim and was quite surprised at how often the sermon or a reading in Church would provide me with insights in to whatever was uppermost in my mind at that time.  Of course, I’m aware that there are any number of explanations for this sort of thing.  The first is that I remember only the times when there was a relationship between my state of mind / concerns and the sermon given on a particular day.  A second explanation is that I read more in to the sermon or reading that is actually warranted.  And there are probably more….

    But…it sometimes makes me wonder.

    Whether coincidence, causality or synchronicity I do find the experience useful, and in many ways that’s all that counts.  I get inspiration, guidance and intellectual provocation from what I hear at Church, as well as an affirmation of my faith.  I sometimes wonder if these ‘coincidences’ are actually some sort of answer to prayers that I’ve not said out loud – they are often so very relevant and provide me with inspiration and insight to get stuff done. 

    As an aside, I just heard the following line of dialogue from the TV show ‘FlashForward’ that ‘What some people see as coincidence is actually God at work’. 

    Daft as it may sound, I think that’s a great point to finish this post.

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