Chris Hansen’s blog

Der Blogosphere has been full of the stories and time-lapse video of a guy trapped in an elevator for 41 hours a few years ago. I’m sure you’ve mostly all seen it, so no link here as I’m too lazy to find a good one.

This guy lost his job through the trauma of going through this.

I too have a trapped-in-an-elevator story. I think it may be almost more horrible than this guy’s. Many years ago (early 1980’s?) I was attending the Mensa gathering in New York City, which was held in that Trump hotel near Grand Central Station on 42nd Street. At the same time as our gathering was an Amway convention. I took an elevator and it got stuck. Imagine being stuck for an hour in an elevator half filled with Mensa members and half filled with Amway salesmen.

It’s a wonder any of us got out alive.

A Singapore couple has been charged with distributing a Chick Tract. The tract in question, The Little Bride, features a Muslim boy trying to convert two young Christian girls (presumably to marry both of them, I suppose). One of the girls’ grandfathers explains to them why Islam is wrong, Mohammed is a person who married a 9 year old girl, and various other things that are pretty offensive to Muslims.

One of the couple has been charged under the Sedition Act, and the other under the Offensive Publications Act. They distributed them to two apparently Muslim people.

There are lots of interesting points in this. First, yesterday I looked at the Chick website and found the tract in question quite easily. It was slimy, as they all are, but also pretty risible, as they also are. Today I looked again, to refresh my memory, and I get an error message. In fact, in each language in which the Chick tract is published I get an error message. It seems to have been taken down. I wonder if there is a connection between this story and the removal of the tract. I do understand that the website was unavailable in Singapore through a bar by their government web proxy.

Second, Singapore is full of evangelical Protestants as well as a shedload of Roman Catholics. I suspect they won’t be too happy that two of their evangelists have been arrested for spreading the Word of God. They may actually do the unthinkable and lobby the government a bit.

Third, the tract in question (in my humble opinion) is likely to cause unrest in Muslim communities and particularly in Singapore, where there was a history of religious violence that only ended 40 years ago or so and still bubbles under the surface. The tract makes a disparaging reference to Muslim countries having the crescent moon on their flags (and there is such a crescent moon on Singapore’s flag, connected with its history as a Malay settlement up until a century or so ago). This will be highly offensive to Singaporeans of whatever religion.

Evangelisation is often best carried out by the example that Christians make of their own lives. Chick Tracts are a Southern Babtist’s idea of how to spread the Gospel. I don’t think they translate very well to Singaporean culture and society.

and many happy returns of the day.

As they often say, it’s always better to be able to examine the goods in person…farmers are supposed to be quite cautious but this one seems to have thrown caution to the winds.

Thanks to for the heads up.

Gosh…there is something for everyone to go “oh, gross!” in this video boyfriend troll.

and if you want to see his “partial” striptease, here it is:

He has a lot of maturing to do. If he were a Brie, he’d be hard and bland. Thanks to for the heads up.

(Oh, the guy’s in Arizona, if you’re minded to track him down. But make sure that you’ve never had a penis inside you, or that if you have, don’t tell him about it. He doesn’t want to know.)

…comes from the Indian subcontinent. The lyrics are helpfully transcribed in the subtitles. But, one wonders, who the heck is Benny Lava? Thanks to for the heads-up.

…and many happy returns of the day! (as it’s April 15th where you are).

If you fry your laptop, and your laptop maker says they’ll send you a new one, you expect it to be relatively clean and fresh. This person, however, got more than he bargained for…

Being from Saarf Lunnon does help in understanding this article, but I still find it a bit, well, April-Foolish, innit.

A sweet grandmother telephoned St. Joseph’s Hospital. She timidly asked, ‘Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me how a patient is doing?’

The operator said, ‘I’ll be glad to help, dear. What’s the name and room number?’

The grandmother in her weak tremulous voice said, ‘Norma Findlay, Room 302.’

The operator replied, ‘Let me place you on hold while I check with her nurse.’

After a few minutes the operator returned to the phone and said, ‘Good news. Her nurse has told me that Norma is doing very well. Her blood pressure is fine. Her blood work just came back as normal and her Physician, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled her to be discharged Tuesday.’

The grandmother said, ‘Thank you. That’s wonderful! I was so worried! God bless you for the good news.’

The operator replied, ‘You’re more than welcome. Is Norma your daughter?’

The grandmother said, ‘No, I’m Norma Findlay in 302. No one tells me shit.’

…and not one of the Seven Dwarfs. We went out to lunch with our friend Mark, who is having a tough time with his visa and his relationship, and were friendly and loving ears while he told us all about it. We then were looking for a coffee shop to have a coffee in while continuing to talk. We went into a Caf

The Anglican Church of Australia has become the fourth province of the Anglican Communion to select a woman as bishop. The Venerable Kay Goldsworthy will be consecrated Assistant Bishop of Perth on May 22nd. Hooray! Four down, 34 provinces to go. The other three provinces which have women bishops are the Episcopal Church of the USA, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. The Scottish Episcopal Church and the Church of Ireland are two other provinces which have approved women bishops, but they have not yet actually consecrated one. The Church in Wales last week narrowly defeated a bill to allow women bishops,

Did you know that one of St. Catherine of Siena’s relics has a web page all to itself? Click over there if you dare!

Normally one wants to have some tissues around for such emergencies, but some people would rather wear it than mop it up.

Fagin got his charges to pick a pocket or two…this girl decided that her baby could make a contribution to her own getaway… Thanks to BoingBoing for the tip. I’m sure it’ll end up in News of the Weird next week.

For a long time ministers, priests, and rabbis have had the power to solemnise marriages for both civil and religious purposes. This is true both in the UK and the US. Various churches in the US have suspended marriage ceremonies, opting to bless a marriage already contracted civilly. Now, Newington Green Unitarian Church in North London has done the same. This will continue until full parity between same-sex and opposite-sex unions comes to pass in law.

Thanks to its minister, Andrew Pakula, for his support and his congregation’s support. They are my

BRICKS OF THE DAYtm MadPriest

In America, he’s often greeted by sycophantic cheering audiences or jeering protesters. However, in Russia, he was met somewhat differently…This is worth reading just for the fractured translation.

A few days ago I blogged a link to an article the premise of which was that blogging can kill you. Well, ZD blogger Larry Dignan has his own take on this, and on balance, I think his take is better.

…but this is what greeted me. What kind of May flowers will this April snowstorm bring?

…and as someone (no doubt, many millions of people) has pointed out, one can now pry the gun out of his cold dead hands. The greatness of his acting has of late been eclipsed by his advocacy of the National Rifle Association.

Most of us blog for fun. The lives of those who blog for pay can be pretty unfortunate. Thanks to The Knight Shift for the heads-up.

This has been a laid-back week (except for the tax drama). The highlight of the week was yesterday, when HWMBO and I went to Hammersmith to dine and attend the stage show of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, or ISIHAC as it is more fondly known.

I got there first and waited from HWMBO at the entrance to the Piccadilly/District Line station. We managed to miss each other but by the miracle of mobile telephony we finally met and went to a Mexican restaurant just around the corner from the Apollo Theatre. We were the second couple to sit down to dinner, but by the time we left the place was heaving. If you are going to the Apollo and can show them the tix, you get free garlic bread. We shared a plate of tacos and various salsas, and washed it down with sangria–which I must add was delicious. Then I had a bacon and chicken tortilla with rice and salad. Odd combination for a Mexican restaurant, but it was delicious. HWMBO had a seafood tortilla, which he wasn’t as happy with. It had cockles in it, and later on, in the theatre, he asked me whether it was safe to eat them, fearing Hepatitis A. I said it was unlikely he’d get it from cooked cockles, and that seemed to calm him down.

Then to the Apollo. There were 3550 people in attendance, which the producer said was the largest live audience ever to see ISIHAC. We then participated in the largest kazoo ensemble ever (the previous Guinness Book of World Records had 2500 or so) and were photographed in the act. For those who have never heard ISIHAC, kazoos often play a large part in the show.

Then we had the show, and it was great. Barry Cryer, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Jeremy Hardy, all (barely) kept under control by Huymphrey Lyttelton, the 86 year old chair of the show. We shouldn’t forget the ever-fragrant Samantha, the scorer, who was supposed to attend but who was four times delayed by her gentleman friends.

I should add that I misread Row Z as “Row 2”, and thought we would be up front. HWMBO and I were dismayed to find that we were in the very last row, at the top of the theatre. We could see and hear everything that went on, just from a very great distance.

There was, of course, a game of Mornington Crescent, which we enjoyed immensely. At the end there was an encore which involved us all playing our kazoos, and when he had finished, someone brought Humphrey his trumpet (he was and is a spectacular jazz trumpeter, see his Wikipedia entry and his personal website) and he went to town. Next month he will be 87 years old, but he played as if he had the lips of a 25-year-old. It was wonderful!

Getting home wasn’t as pleasant. The entrance to the Underground is through a subway under the road, and the entrance is very narrow. We waited patiently and finally got to the station and home.

Today I had some blood taken for my twice-yearly diabetic and heart checkup. We will now see if my eschewing of caffeine has had any effect. Even if it hasn’t had any effect on my blood sugar, I think I feel slightly better for it and will probably continue with decaf and non-caffeinated cola. Lunch at the church drop-in, then gym (where I again saw and forgot to ask him whether he’d gotten his phone). HWMBO went out with his former workmates tonight, so I dined alone and am now waiting for his return.

The designs of UK coinage have been static for most of the last 37 years or so, bar an “aging” of the portrait of the Queen on the reverse.

Now the Mint has revealed the new designs for our coinage (except for the

…and many happy returns of the day.

Didn’t do much today except go to the gym, where I saw . Not a surprise, as I knew he was thinking of joining, but I wasn’t aware that he had already joined.

Last week I came across some examples of videos online where words from the song/poem/talk being played were represented on the screen in various ways.

Today I came across a shining example of this genre, which will delight both scientists and Tom Lehrer fans, two universes which often intersect.

I may have mentioned that this year I was so confused by my US taxes (yes, I have to file a US tax return, contrary to the rules of almost every civilised country in regards to their expats) that I decided to get a professional to do them. I got the results today. Because I have an ISA (UK tax-free investment account) I have to pay $55 to the United States (as the interest on that account is not taxed here, I cannot set it off against UK taxes).

My blood is boiling.

I know it probably isn’t terribly much as far as the taxes of my US friends are concerned, but you get US government services. I get zilch from the US except a tax return each year and the opportunity to vote in Federal elections. Fat lot of good that’s done me in the last 8 years.

I immediately emailed the accountant to ask what he knew about the financial ramifications of renouncing US citizenship (I know, I’ve talked about that before, but if they’re going to screw me for saving, I might as well go through with it) and he doesn’t know anything and advised against it. When I explained that I couldn’t move back to the US because of the high cost of health care that I’d need, the fact that I could not take HWMBO with me, and the fact that the US government recognises me as single even though I’ve been in a civil partnership for more than two years, he said that he understood.

I have no financial ties to the US now except for the money in my Social Security account (which is negligible). Not only that, but I am ineligible for Medicare here in the UK (you have to go to the US to get it) and will probably never see any of that money anyway.

So I need to talk to an attorney quickly and then get over to the Embassy and do it, before they sock me again with another hit.

I think that the visceral reaction of American citizens to renunciation of citizenship comes from everyone having read “The Man Without a Country” in grammar school. Get ’em young and they’ll be yours forever.

I have been getting a lot of abuse from Norton Ghost (v10) lately. Despite having more backup space than I can currently use, it aborts some backups, serves up annoying popups every once in a while (or more than every once in a while), and is a general pain in the neck.

Do any of my readers have a favourite backup program that they could point me to? I would say that money is no object (that’s not entirely true) but I am interested in something that is reliable and relatively unobtrusive.

Oh, and did I mention that Ghost is a real resource hog? It slows operations down to a crawl sometimes and is very resistant to attempts to postpone its online backups to a more convenient time.

March 30, 2008 Low Sunday
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10 am.
Readings: Acts 2:42-47; Ps 118 2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.

In the 1950

Those of us who have eschewed McDonald’s for years now may not think so, but this man created something that our fellow women and men often eat daily. I wonder what his cholesterol level was.

Got a grimy cope? A chasuble that needs a clean-up? A grey alb? Well, read this story when choosing your dry-cleaner.

Remember Dan “D.B.” Cooper? The man who extorted $200K and a parachute many years ago and jumped out of the plane, never to be seen again? Well, they may have discovered his parachute. Thanks to The Knightshift for the tipoff.

…is a post by on Flirting and Sex in Japan. This is a must read for all, and thanks to the several Singapore bloggers who posted this link. It needs to be in your Memories list.

…and many happy returns of the day.

Good Friday was quite peaceful, if cold. The entire weekend has been colder than a witch’s …. well, you know what. I went to St. John’s to preach, and gave my two-minute sermon. We didn’t go anywhere in particular on Friday, just chilled (easy enough in this weather).

Saturday we went shopping; I got a pair of shoes at the Natural Shoe Store in Covent Garden. We had lunch at Thai Square on the Strand, as HWMBO wanted some Thai food. I had green curry pasta, and he had just plain green curry. It’s not too bad and is filling without being too hot or too expensive. We walked all the way to Goodge Street for a Starbucks that wasn’t full, later on.

I got St. Matthew’s ready for Sunday services on Saturday evening then went to St. John’s for their Easter Vigil. As the weather was horrible (did I forget to mention the hailstorm we had in the afternoon?) we did very little else on Saturday or Sunday.

White Easter indeed…

Today we needed to buy some health food stuff and I suggested that we go to the Embankment and share a footlong Subway sandwich then go to the Holland and Barratt’s store there. When we got there, we discovered that a Quiznos has opened there, so since neither of us has tried one, that’s where we had lunch. We shared a meatball sub and a chicken sub. Both were very nice; we’ll go there again. Off to the Heyward then to see the Russian photography exhibition (pretty boring Russian socialist realism to me, but HWMBO liked it) and the tail end of the Laughter exhibition, which we abandoned 3/4 of the way through last time because there was just so much of it.

Back home again and to dinner, roast chicken with cornbread stuffing and peas. Now to bed, and back to the grind tomorrow.

…in marshmallow! Go to item number 8, and laugh!

Yes, you too, .

Especially you!

It is snowing outside as we speak. I wonder if any of the bookies took bets on a white Easter this year; if so, they have lost a bundle.

Bishop James Jones of Liverpool is preaching on Radio 4 at the moment; he is doing what I try never to do in preaching: he’s retelling the reading in his own words. It does suck up time when you have a thin sermon idea, but on Easter?

…will be of interest to a certain ailuropod in Toronto. Watch it to the end, now!

…and many happy returns of the day.

It’s been pretty quiet around here, so no personal blogs. Last Sunday was back at St. Matthew’s after a four-week absence. Nothing changed, really. Not that I expected it to.

I am trying to revamp my website, but don’t have the technical know-how so to do. has promised to help out. Perhaps over the Easter holiday.

I am still between assignments at work. This is seriously beginning to annoy me–I don’t know what to do, but will step up contacts with recruiters and my network after the Easter holiday.

St. Matthew’s is having a Passover Seder tonight before the Maundy Thursday service. I refuse to participate in Christian Seders, as I don’t wish to participate in simulations of the liturgies of other religions. The Rector says that as Judaism is the precursor of Christianity, he’s entitled to put on a Seder. I think that’s triumphalistic. He is very annoyed about the whole thing. I shall be preparing the church for Maundy Thursday, going away, then returning to strip the altar after services.

Tomorrow I preach at St. John’s: a two-pager this time. Very short and sweet. I hope it’s effective and memorable.

I have bought an internet wi-fi radio; will probably be delivered next week. I don’t think I can get it on my Reliablehosting VPN so that I can listen to KKSF or WNUA over it, but we will see. Anything is possible these days. I got

…and many happy returns of the day!

I got the following email from Democrats Abroad:

It’s been an exciting primary season so far for us, kicked off by our own Global Primary. Whether you voted in person, at over one hundred voting centers in over 30 countries, by mail, by fax, or on-line, your voice was heard.