oakleys.org.uk

Just so we don’t miss this report, last summer’s floods were not caused by climate change.

Many will remember the furore when Prince Charles stated, many years back, that he wanted to be not “defender of the [implied, Christian] faith”, but simply “defender of faith”.

Some of the problems of that should be obvious.

Whilst doubtless local feelings are mixed (they always are), I think it’s exciting that Audley now has its own branch of Tesco. It’s not very big. But it’s there. Tesco Express Audley opened its doors at 8am this morning, and from now on will be open 7 days, 6am-11pm. Hurrah!

There are plenty of people out there who are Tesco Haters.

I always enjoy reading David Field’s posts on topics such as global warming and the environment.

The post he put up this morning, entitled A Collective Madness is particularly enjoyable. He is quoting two paragraphs from The Spectator, but I particularly enjoyed the phrase

“Environmentalism has become the new religion.”

Think Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

Think Isaiah 40-46.

Then read the story that appeared on the BBC News website today, entitled Hindu gods [sic.] get summons from court.

On Sunday, I used an illustration from Harry Potter in a sermon. Nobody challenged me over it afterwards. But they could have done because HP arouses strong feelings in some Christians.

The frequently asked question is: How bad is Harry Potter for us?

So thank God that he understands and controls the movement of every molecule of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour.

I love the humility from Darren Bett when he says

I'm sure everyone reading this would want to wish the cast of the Monty Python spin-off musical, Spamalot, all the very best in their world record attempt in Trafalgar Square on Monday. They aim to beat the world record for the largest ever coconut orchestra, by getting the public involved in playing "Always look on the bright side of life". In case you were wondering - the current record is held by them too.

Yes, they have officially registered their attempt with Guinness World Records. Those wanting to know what to expect can find photos of the previous world record, which was established on Broadway last year.

Those who were on Lymington holidays with me in the late 1990s will immediately know which member of the Oak Hill teaching staff really ought to be going along to take part. His part in the "Old Hag" sketch was always done with finesse. (No, I'm not talking about Mike - although I suspect he would rather enjoy being at the world record attempt, if he had the time).

So: All the best to them!

I’ve just read (in the transcript online – I’d got home long before this point) Andrew Brown’s conclusion to the programme:

But what can we change? What should our arrangements be? We can’t disentangle the problems of children from those of adults. The government, too, sends families mixed messages. They are to be, in Gordon Brown’s great phrase, “hard working families”. But do the hardest-working families have the happiest children? The evidence suggests that they don’t and that it’s the family which plays together that stays together. In fact it’s hard to resist a rather heretical conclusion. Most of what we have seen as the peculiar horrors of modern childhood seem to arise from a lack of authority: they can, in shorthand, be blamed on the Sixties. But that was a complicated decade, with good as well as bad; and one of the distinctive attitudes of the Sixties was a distrust of money, and a belief that material success should not be the measure of everything. We’re never going to get away from a society that cares about status. But one in which status is measured only by material success makes us, and our children, needlessly miserable.

I had to laugh out loud in the car on the way home from standing committee last night. I often have Radio 4 on in the car, engine starts up for a ten minute journey, and I catch some snippet of something.

Last night, the programme was Analysis, looking at the UNICEF report that said Britain’s children are amongst the unhappiest in a developed nation. No, the laugh-out-loud (shortened to LOL, by the way) moment wasn’t the continuity reader accidentally calling us an undeveloped nation, although that was funny.