Chris Hansen’s blog

Master Peter Addison is very proud of his name. So proud that he left it at the scene of his crime. So stupid, too. Details here.

I really like this one…there are five others like it which you can find if you go here.

Much in the news here the last few days are the comments of a senior judge in the UK about keeping DNA in a national database. At the moment, anyone who is arrested in the UK for any crime, no matter how minor the crime or how young the miscreant, has their DNA taken, sequenced, and stored in a national database. If they are later found not guilty, their DNA stays on the database. The judge believes this is indefensible. There are more racial minority DNA samples, for example, because of the proportions of people being arrested for crimes.

However, instead of suggesting that the DNA of the innocent be removed from the database, he is suggesting that everyone’s DNA be placed in the database…some 60 million inhabitants of the United Kingdom.

Moreover, he also suggests that every visitor to the United Kingdom have his or her DNA taken. This is 100 million people a year.

Now in the scheme of things many of those 100 million people will be return visitors to the United Kingdom, but determining that (or taking another sample to ensure that they are actually the owners of the DNA previously taken) will take extra time in the immigration process.

Scalability of the database will be a difficulty; let’s say that of the 100 million visitors a year, 40 million are new visitors. That means that in the first year, you will have 160 million entries in the database. The next year 200 million, It will never get smaller as you can never expunge an entry (if you’re using it for crime detection purposes, crimes can be solved after the death of the perpetrator, thus his or her DNA must be kept in perpetuity).

If a match is found between a foreign person and DNA at a crime scene, we then have to deal with tracing that person (so addresses will need to be kept and updated regularly) and getting him or her extradited to face justice.

In the UK the scheme will have to be linked with the ID card database (still only a gleam in the Home Office’s jaundiced and jaded eye) so that DNA can be linked to its owner wherever the owner currently lives.

Technically, all this will be a challenge. If it happens, then civil liberties protection requires the highest level of security and accuracy. With the current woeful state of government procurement of IT services (eg, the NHS IT system, which is a shambles, or the Passport system, which was so ineptly rolled out at the beginning of the holiday season after new laws had taken effect requiring children to carry their own passports that the Passport Office (as was) had to pass out logo’ed umbrellas to all the punters who had to queue in the rain to get their passports) it is unlikely that the required level of security and accuracy will result from the procurement process.

There were several comments from foreigners who said that if such a program (of typing the DNA of all visitors) is started they will never visit the UK again.

Another difficulty is identical twins. Now you have the problem of identifying which twin actually committed a crime, as witness statements might not be able to distinguish between the two. If this program comes about, it will be the case that each twin will have to justify his or her movements if there is a DNA match, as identical twins’ DNA is, well, identical.

Personally, I think that the government is well-aware that this half-brained scheme is not practically achievable at a reasonable cost in a foreseeable time period. However, they made sure that the comments were widely circulated (the judge was on the Today program yesterday and there were approving noises from the government that fell short of an endorsement) in order that people will begin to understand that they have no rights any more here in the United Kingdom.

Now back to the main idea. There is a tendency nowadays to equate the ability to do something or other with the necessity of doing so. Just because we are (theoretically) able to collect and store DNA information from every citizen and resident of, and visitor to the United Kingdom does not translate into the necessity of collecting and storing it. We have had the ability to store fingerprint information for more than a century. However, if it has ever been suggested that all fingerprints be collected and stored centrally to assist in crime detection it’s not come about.

Not everything that is possible is desirable.

I haven’t posted any updates for the past few days, so here we are. Friend-locked because of the job-related information.

Monday my tie broke. Sounds bizarre, but bear with me for a moment. As many of you are aware, I am now mostly wearing bow ties. In order that they might fit a wide range of necks, they are usually adjustable. A tie that is too long looks very odd, since the wide ends of the loops go past the widest part of the tie into the taper. So the adjustment is normally done with a metal latch of some sort, with varied styles depending upon the cost of the tie.

So I was tying my tie at the mirror in the gents’, and all of a sudden the metal latch pulled away from the rest of the tie, and I was left with two pieces of cloth no longer connected. What a pain. I need to do more research on bow ties and perhaps get this one repaired (as it’s a nice one: blue with red spots).

Tuesday was my second interview in Ealing. This, unfortunately, coincided with a Tube strike here in London. These are normally very painful things, with congested roads, lots of people getting on buses and querying the driver as to whether s/he goes to someplace they wish to go (s/he usually doesn’t), and late appointments. I was determined not to miss this, so I left the house at 9 am (for an 11 am appointment) and got to Ealing around 10:20, which was very good time indeed. I took a 148 bus to Lancaster Gate and walked to Paddington, then took a Heathrow Connect train to Ealing Broadway.

The interview itself was interesting. I got to the building and called for the lift. A gentleman entered the vestibule and when the lift came, I motioned for him to enter first. He pressed the same floor that I would have pressed. When I did not press a different button, he asked, “You here for an interview?” I said, “Yes, are you {name of person who would be interviewing me}?” He was, so I think I made a good impression right away. We talked for 50 minutes, and then I spoke with the Chief Operating Officer, who was similarly interesting (and tough). I think I did well, but the proof will come when the second person they are interviewing finishes and they make their decision. The questions suggested by the Chief Happiness Officer seem to really interest interviewers and I recommend using them (see my previous blog entry for details). They spark a discussion that is positive and upbeat, rather than concentrating on unhappy experiences elsewhere.

Wednesday was pretty much a washout. I worked at home because of the strike, and then went to yoga class last night. That was not a washout. I feel that every class I do a bit better. I will never be as limber as everyone else (especially since I am too heavy to support my own weight in many of the positions) but I am getting better at various things and always feel better after class.

I was on the District Line this morning going from Embankment to Victoria (the strike was called off Tuesday night but yesterday was still chaotic, especially in the morning) and saw a spider right in front of my nose. S/he was swinging from point to point on the straphangers’ bar, being blown around by the breeze coming from the end windows when the carriage was moving and swinging around very energetically when it had stopped. I couldn’t see where the web or strand of spider silk was attached, just the spider swinging around. S/he got very close to one straphanger’s head and I debated whether to warn him or not. I decided not, and the spider just blissfully swung to the other side of the carriage. Very calming.

and many happy returns of the day. Hugs.

Those who vote for Republicans deserve everything they get.

If Senator Tapper McWidestance thinks that the Senate and Republican “leadership” are going to let him get away with not resigning, he’s got another think coming. This could drag on into next year if he doesn’t quit now, and it will keep those lying sons-of-bitches in the news for all the wrong reasons well into the primary season. Plus, there are still two Senators that rumour has flagged as being as gay as Sen. T. McW. and they are scared witless that they too will be outed.

As McDonald’s says, “I’m lovin’ it.”

Dirt-encrusted bride.

I’ve heard of that fetish…

If you have a cheque for $41,000 in your pocket, you might want to keep your trousers on. This gentleman didn’t follow that rule.

As you may be aware, I’m slowly going through all my livejournal posts, adding tags.

While I do that, though, I am finding typos to repair, dead links (as of today) that I can tag as such, and nostalgic posts to revisit.

Not that anyone is going to visit them again, alas, but I like it.

I used this meme in March 2006 AND June 2006. My friends list has changed since then, so here’s the new list, and next time someone remind me that I’ve overused this one.

I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for are close by:

• (450 – 500)
• (500 – 550)
• (550 – 600)

• , , , , , , (600 – 650)
• , , (650 – 700)
• , , , , , , (700 – 750)
• , , , (750 – 800)
• , , , , , , , (800 – 850)
• , , , , , , , , , , , (850 – 900)
• , , , , , , , , (900 – 950)
• , , , , , , , , (950 – 1000)
• , , , , , (1000 – 1050)
• , , , , , , , , (1050 – 1100)
• , , , , , , (1100 – 1150)
• , , , , , , , , , , , (1150 – 1200)
• , , , (1200 – 1250)

Created by ciphergoth; hosted by LShift.

TrustFlow II: Who is closest to your friends
list?

We went to the Serpentine today; this year’s pavilion is awesome and I will post pictures as soon as I download them. We stopped off in the gents’ on the way, and a rather unfortunate creature was jerking off as hard as he could in the next urinal over.

We paid him no mind, of course, but I believe there was some interest behind us.

We then walked all the way to Earls Court via Notting Hill Gate, then took a bus to Baker Street, by which time HWMBO was finally hungry, so we ate at a Pizza Express.

Oh, and we bumped into Kym, my yoga instructor, at the Serpentine Pavilion. Cute as always, it was nice to be able to introduce him to HWMBO.

Thanks to , this is one hell of a clip. The woman’s name is Sonya Renee, and she rocks, completely. It was a Poetry Slam competion.

…comes courtesy of Spank the Male Nurse, an absolutely great Singapore blog. I wasn’t aware that Jesus was so afflicted, but it appears that He told us so.

…you really need to read this.

For around a century people could find out the time by calling a phone number. But in 48 states of the US, this has stopped. Now, it’s about to stop in California.

At the tone, it will be the end of an era.

…is (allegedly) from Idaho’s Senior Senator, Mr. Foot Tapper.

My work mobile phone just went off…I answered, and a gentleman asked for me, and started into a spiel for placing someone here at TCS. I stopped him in the middle and said, “Sorry, I’m not the person to whom you should be speaking.” He asked me whether I knew who the proper person for him to speak to was. I replied, “Haven’t a clue.”

His response: “Kevin Taclue? Could you spell that please?”

Of course, I should have let him call reception and ask for Kevin Taclue, but not being a total sadist, I repeated myself, “Haven’t a clue” and he finally got it. I hung up laughing.

I took a day off (indistinguishable from most workdays these days) and went to a job interview yesterday. The company is in Ealing, West London, and produces software that runs their customers’ online businesses–some large retailers that most of you UKans would recognise are their customers.

I got to the area around 10am for an 11am interview, so took the opportunity to walk around the area; it’s quite interesting with some malls, retail, and a large South Asian population. Transport is really good, with two Tube lines, a mainline trainline station, and lots of buses laid on.

Took a breath mint, and then went up to the office, which was, well, very spare. Obviously they put their money in their people rather than in plush surroundings.

The woman who interviewed me was very matter of fact, but let me do most of the talking (on the theory, perhaps, that people who are allowed to do most of the talking end up hanging themselves). The position is titled “QA Manager”, and it would involve, initially, supervising two Test Managers and a large number of testers both in Ealing and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I’d be responsible for “quality”, whatever that is. We seemed to establish a rapport, especially when I talked about my Your Baby’s Ugly theory of bug reporting and how managers need to smooth the path for the people who work for them and make their jobs easier (something that few managers do, it seems). I also asked her two questions from the Chief Happiness Officer’s blog about happiness at work:

1) What

Many of us have lots of credit cards, store loyalty cards, and the like, fattening our wallets. This product, about to be produced, claims to slim your wallet by allowing you to use one card to imitate all the other cards you have.

However, if we’re talking about risks here, you have to share the characteristics of your cards with an outside agency, and keep the information in a wallet-sized device, accessible through fingerprint recognition. Imagine being frogmarched to the local ATM and forced to imitate all your cards for cash by swiping your (still-living-but-barely) finger on the device.

Priceless!

This iz mah kitteh.

I was dreaming that someone else (I can’t remember who) and I were preparing a meal al fresco somewhere or other. I recall seeing cases of wine dug into the side of a hill, presumably to keep them cool. The other person was preparing salad, and asked me to find bowls. While I was looking for bowls, I saw a mandolin (the musical instrument) lying on the ground, and then I woke up.

I realised that yesterday, when reading thegrauniad Weekend magazine (I’m a bit late…) I read a recipe that required thinly sliced cucumbers; it said that “if you don’t have a mandoline, slicing very thinly with a knife will have to do”. (A mandoline, for the non-culinary, is a flat utensil with a blade that allows you to thinly slice things such as onions or cucumbers by sliding them down the surface over the blade.)

Amazing how your subconscious mind makes these connections, even if your conscious mind doesn’t.

I figured that the new “Vatican Airlines”, which is a charter air service to places like Lourdes run out of the Vatican, would have severe difficulties when they had their first air accident. But they’ve had some trouble due to international regulations that may scupper them even faster than a crash.

Vatican Air: An airline with invisible means of support.

One of my LJ friends has commented on Senator Foot Tapper’s troubles; I replied, and he has replied to me. I won’t identify him (although you could probably find out who it is) but the exchange is screened so what I would say is this:

Most gay Democrats do not nowadays have to resort to cottaging in order to have gay sex. There have been instances in the past (a black staff assistant to President Lyndon Johnson was outed many years ago, I believe) but none recently.

Entrapment is not a happy thing. However, all that being said, a goodly number of those who cottage are doing so because they are married heterosexually and think they have no other outlet. The solution to that is not to cottage, it’s to be honest with your spouse and come out of the closet. For a Democrat, that might not be too difficult. For a conservative Republican who has a record of voting for such things as the Defense of Marriage Act, coming out of the closet will be difficult if not impossible.

Schadenfreude is not a pleasant thing to have, or to have to have. I suppose that someday someone might have some on my behalf. But Republicans are nearly all vile and evil on the subject of sexual morality, something like John Major proclaiming his “Back to Basics” campaign while he, his Cabinet, and his MPs were busily shagging each other (in John Major’s case, for Americans reading this, he was shagging a former minister Edwina Currie) or other people. This kind of campaign invariably turns on its creator when the sexual antics going on behind the scenes become public knowledge, as they often do.

There are Democrats who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. If any of them were entrapped in this way, I would expect them to do the right thing and resign.

Oh, and if this were the only time that Senator Foot Tapper had been identified as homosexual, I might be more lenient. He has consistently been identified with casual public sex, especially with an incident in Union Station in Washington DC a while back. You’d think that those stories might have given him pause; they didn’t. He could have gotten rent boys who would be professionally silent. My conclusion is that he’s continued this because he enjoys the frisson of danger and has no consideration for his family, his reputation, or his constituents.

Oh, and if Sen. Foot Tapper voted to convict Bill Clinton for lying about his sexual activities with Monica Lewinsky, he’s even a bigger hypocrite than I thought he was (I’m sure he did).

All in all, a very sad case indeed. Pressure is mounting on him to resign, and if he were a British MP or minister, he’d already have been told to consider his position.

…can be found here. I’m loving this.

He has stated that he is not gay, and here’s a response to that.

Truer words were never spoken.

Thanks to Across the Board, we have this commercial, which may unsettle you as much as it does me…

One doesn’t normally want to make excessive fun of those who believe odd things, but the followers of Pope Pius XIII (yes, that’s XIII, not XII) are convinced that only he is the true Pontiff, bringing the Roman Catholic Church back to the true Catholic path.

I recently came across his site again, and His Holiness is now busily upgrading his residence in Washington State with a library.

Here is a picture of HH assisting in the work (don’t forget to read the caption), and you may, once you see this picture, wish to trawl through the rest of the site, starting with the home page.

Another interesting photo of a very versatile Pontiff is here.

HH seems to have gone through several cardinals (he only has six, and four of them are cardinals in petto), but they all know who they are so that when the next conclave happens (His Holiness is 89 years old, so it won’t be long delayed) they’ll be able to get together and vote.

I am presuming that it won’t be in the Sistine Chapel.

It seems that Senator Larry Craig, Idaho (R), has pleaded guilty to some dodgy conduct in a restroom Minneapolis St. Paul’s airport. You can guess what that conduct might be. Craig, who is 62 years old and married with children, is on holiday and not commenting. Who knew that the first gay senator would be a Republican?

…has been quite placid.

On Saturday we decided to go to Tate Britain for the photography exhibition. As usual, for an exhibition that is about to close (our bad, as we always vow not to wait until the last minute to see something but somehow always do), it was mobbed. The fact that many of the items were small, with long captions that need to be read, meant that there was quite a mob at each photo/picture. A very cute man with cutoff jeans and flip flops and a great tan was ahead of us most of the time, and, frankly, I probably looked more at him than at most of the exhibits. As it was British photography from the mid-1800’s to today, much of it had cultural overtones and resonances that I could not entirely understand, not having been here as a youngster. There was a pictorial of the area around the Elephant in the mid-1940’s that was quite interesting, though. I suppose I should take some pictures before the whole thing goes up the spout, as it’s apt to do shortly.

We then walked to St. James’s Park, having thoughtfully brought a blanket to sit on, our iPods to listen to, and books and newspapers to read. We took some pictures along the way:

We went by the new Home Office building on Marsham Street, an energy-efficient building that looks like some sort of defensive wall with openings for gun emplacements (perhaps quite appropriate). The sign is nearly invisible, as it’s embossed letters on a shiny background. You need to get really close to discern the letters.

We then continued walking past the old “Public Baths”, given to a grateful populace by the local Church of England parish; it’s now some sort of religious centre, where now sins can be washed away by faith, if the sign in the window is to be believed.

and the dedication plaque as well:

Getting to the end of the street, we saw Westminster Abbey as tourists.

and HWMBO wanted a pictures in an alley with interesting shadows, just by the European Union representative office.

In 1995, my Christmas Letter was accompanied by a less artful picture of me standing under this street sign. Recreating the scene 12 years later, here’s a much better view.

When we got to the park, we sat in a spot just off the Mall, and I took a picture of the Eye. I discovered that my exposure setting was much too high to take pictures of such things well (the structure disappears in the sunlight) and, by lowering the exposure, I did a much better job:

A very pretty pair of young women perched next to us, applied makeup (perhaps they were going out on the town later), ate, read, and generally made merry until a park attendant came and demanded rent for the deck chairs they were sitting in.

They then moved away, exposing what they’d left behind. I do wish people wouldn’t litter like that, expecially since there are plentiful trash baskets around.

Some young men were walking by, and their backs seemed to present a challenge for photography.

As the afternoon progressed, people moved around to capture the last few rays of sun on their Vitamin-D-deprived skin.

We then walked up to Kingsway and ate at Belgo, a part of a Belgian restaurant chain. HWMBO had chicken and drank an apple beer of which he is fond, and I had a Swiss burger and a Hoegaarten. We walked home from there, and boy did my legs ache on Sunday.

On Sunday, after a reasonable Eucharist for a change, with Sheila, a priest at a neighbouring parish, presiding, I came home and realised that I was dog-tired. So we stayed home Sunday, fed the squirrels, and rested. In the afternoon HWMBO watched the 1979 remake of “A Lady Vanishes“, and didn’t like it very much. I made a meatloaf for dinner, and after dinner we watched the 1938 Hitchcock version, which HWMBO thought greatly superior to the remake. As I didn’t watch the remake, I must confess I did enjoy Hitchcock’s version quite a bit. At the very end Victoria Station appears, and except for the antique trains and the absence of the awful new concession stands, it’s the same now as it was then.

Just before retiring I made our usual perimeter check of the house, and turned on the outside light to look at the back garden. Lo and behold, someone’s cat was on our windowsill, meowing to be let in and fed (I think). HWMBO and I conferred, and I thought it would be better not to let the cat in, as it probably did belong to someone.

Today we’re off to East London this afternoon to see our friend Rosemary compete in a dressage competition, and have dinner with her. The wonder of this entire weekend is that it has been sunny and almost cloudless, although it is a Bank Holiday and, traditionally, English Bank Holidays are damp (if not actually bucketing down) and cloudy and cold.

Long may it continue!

Thanks to for this.

…and it seems that there is a vacancy on the Church of England’s Audit Committee, as an appointee of the Archbishops’ Council.

As I am currently a member of the Southwark Diocesan Board of Finance, and its Audit Committee, I think I’m reasonably well-qualified to do that job nationally. But, I’m already over-meetinged.

I think, on balance, that I won’t apply, but, boy, is it tempting. In three or four years’ time, there will be elections to General Synod and I think I would rather aim for a seat in General Synod if I’m going to take on more committee work. In that instance I would probably resign from the DBF and Audit Committee, and perhaps as Lay Chair of the Deanery (if I still hold those offices in four years).

Decisions, decisions.

For the UK-challenged, about 10 years ago a head teacher (=US “principal”) Philip Lawrence was stabbed to death outside his school by a teenager who was in a fight that the teacher was trying to break up. Learco Chindano, who has dual Italian and Filipino citizenship, was sentenced to a minimum term of 10 years and will be eligible for parole next year.

Chindano came to the UK as a young boy, lived his whole life here, has no available relatives in Italy or the Philippines, and has gotten an education in prison. He has been praised by the prison system, is not seen as a risk to reoffend, and is likely to continue education or learn a trade when he is released.

According to EU law, Chindano, as an EU citizen who has lived in the UK for more than ten years, may not be deported when released. This is not under human rights legislation, it’s under EU citizenship legislation. However, the government recently came under criticism for not trying harder to deport foreign prisoners upon their release from prison, so in this very high profile case they sued to be allowed to deport Chindano next year when (and if) he is paroled.

The decision came down yesterday, and the government lost.

There has been quite a bit of criticism of the ruling, and the usual suspects (mostly Tories) have gotten up on their hind legs to denounce the European Union (which they are entitled to do in connection with this case, as it’s EU law that is cited), and the Human Rights Act (which they are not entitled to do as this act is not the basis for the decision). Mr. Lawrence’s widow describes herself as “unutterably depressed” but blames the Human Rights Act, wrongly. The government is about to appeal on the basis that Chindano only spent 9 years here before his conviction, however there is no provision in EU law that allows the time spent in prison to be discounted when calculating the ten years residence necessary to forbid deportation.

I realise that at least one reader of this blog will not agree with me (hi, K***h!) but I am depressed at the turn this has taken. I do not believe that prison is merely warehousing for punishment. This guy could not even write or read his own name when he went to prison; he has now taken GCSE’s in English, art, and something else, maybe math. He will have spent ten years of his life in prison (not a picnic, from all accounts) but is emerging as a person who can sustain a job or further education and contribute something to society. Had the person he stabbed been another gang member, there would be no question of his right to remain here and no public outcry. Are offenders to be sentenced according to the eminence or innocence of their victims? Every human life, not only yours and mine, but Mr. Lawrence’s and Chindano’s, has an equal worth and is equally a loss when it comes to or is brought to an end.

So, what to do?

First, the media has a responsibility to ensure that the facts of the case are widely disseminated, and to correct, firmly, anyone (including Mrs. Lawrence and the idiot politicians) who asserts that the Human Rights Act has anything to do with this decision.

Second, a debate has to occur on exactly what we intend prison to be: a punishment only, or also an opportunity for rehabilitation back into society. It can be both, or it can be punishment only. If it is punishment, then the punishment ends when the sentence is served. If both, then rehabilitation should also include an admission by society that the offender can emerge and have a decent chance at a job and a life.

I offer my sincerest condolences to Mrs. Lawrence: the loss of her husband is horrible, and no amount of apology, support, or time will make up for that loss. Neither will trying to break the law to wreak even more vengeance on Learco Chindano. To him I offer encouragement, admonition, and condolences, too. The pounding he’s getting and will continue to get from the media might break him yet again; he has been broken, and partially patched up. I hope that with the rest of his life he will try to make up for the loss and the pain that he caused. Go ye, and sin no more.

(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)

In a corollary to the Chindano/Lawrence case, another convicted felon has won a case against the government for keeping him incarcerated unfairly. As a condition for his eventual release, the trial court required that he go through a particular course aimed at assisting him to keep from offending. The institution in which he was incarcerated does not offer this course, and his efforts to get the course were not successful. When his sentence was served, the government refused to release him on the grounds that he had not taken the course. He sued, and the courts held that he was being unfairly incarcerated and ordered his release. It is only common sense that conditions for release of a prisoner must be offered to that prisoner and be achievable. Otherwise, we have indefinite imprisonment without parole, Catch-22, and tyranny.

Whenever I go to my gmail account to look at and delete the spam that’s accumulated there (I only use the address occasionally), gmail throws up a link to a recipe that contains SPAM[TM] at the top of the window. I curiously followed the link one day, and saw many more recipes in the list. None of them are particularly appetising, but this one, which seems to have won a prize, may cause me to skip lunch today, as I feel very unwell after merely reading it.

When using superglue, you should be careful not to get it on your skin, as this performer at the Edinburgh Fringe found out, to his cost. I wish they’d taken pictures.

And yet another one ends up as bear scat. Darwin Awards all ’round!

We went to Tate Modern this afternoon to see the Dali exhibit, and also the Cities exhibition. We found the Cities exhibition to be overcrowded (it was free, natch) and jam-packed with information. If you want to go, go at a time when the tourists are elsewhere (Friday Changing of the Guard, for example).

The Dali exhibition was fine–however, there were too many people and too many items to see. Dali’s paintings are very detailed, and to get all you can get out of them takes a long time. You don’t have that with the press of many hundreds of people who want to stare at the paintings too. The films were interesting (Destino, especially) but again, overcrowded.

This evening we went to a French restaurant with Alex and Bob; I enjoyed the steak et frites, and HWMBO had fish (natch!). He exclaimed over the quality and the portion size, and gave it 8 out of 10. We dined in Soho, where Alex and Bob live, and bemoaned the fact that it’s likely to be so wet tomorrow that no one will have a good time. Next weekend looks good, though–for a Bank Holiday weekend that is almost a first in Britain!

Oh, and I finished the sermon early this afternoon…it may not be my best sermon I’ve ever preached, but it still says something and I hope that people will respond to it.

But the next time I agree to preach a sermon on a Marian feast, please shoot me.

…that I’m slowly adding tags to all my posts. It’s quite painful, but interesting to read each post I’ve made in my journal in the last three years and decide what tags to put on it. LochJournal doesn’t have any mechanism to add tags to a post, so when making a new post I have to edit it in LiveJournal to add the tags. Bummer. However, I’ve decided that it would be a good thing if, for example, I could bring up all my sermon posts, or all the posts on Singapore, and the like.

It will take a while, and I will announce the joyous news here when it’s done.

…because I am nearly totally blocked on my sermon for Sunday. The major text is the account of the Visitation in Luke 1, including the Magnificat. I’m thinking in terms of difficult vs. impossible. I have about a page done, but I’m not happy about it and I would be OK with scrapping what I’ve got so far.

I went to Desperate Preacher, but only ended up looking at many pages of spam for Viagra and the like, as the discussions of the reading tapered off and the spam took over.

I shall sleep on it. Meanwhile, any thoughts welcome if they happen to hit you, and I trust that I shall awake tomorrow morning with the sermon written in my mind. Prayers for inspiration welcome.

Heck, inspiration welcome, if you have some to spare.

Those of you who’ve met me know that I’m not in the best of health or shape. But every time I go to Singapore. our friend BK, bless his cotton socks, says that I ought to take up yoga. I’ve hesitated up to now, mainly because of the diabetes and the fact that I’m nearly 55. But my gym has just built a room where classes can be held, and they had a yoga “taster” class for free tonight. So I thought I’d take them up on it.

I got to the room, and about 5 other guys were there, plus the instructor. Suffice it to say, I stretched a lot of things that haven’t been stretched in a long time, I did manage most of the exercises, and I was sweating like a pig by the time we were finished. The instructor was most patient, and “allowed” us to reduce what we did if we weren’t able to do the entire thing. For example, there was one exercise where we were to balance on one foot; I couldn’t do that no matter how hard I tried. We had an hour of exercise, and I did get a lot out of it.

Afterwards, in the shower, I struck up a conversation with the instructor and when I mentioned that I had little feeling in my feet he said, “Aha! That’s why you couldn’t balance on one foot.” I’d never thought of that. I will really need to work on that somehow.

Anyway, I will try to go to the class at least once a week. The instructor was very patient, he worked with us, and those of us who were older or not as lithe were praised just as much as the others were. He is a really kind and good instructor and I hope I can keep up with him, at least just a little.

So I’ll look on the glass as half full (I’m still able to do most of the yoga exercises) rather than as half empty (I have been brought face to face with my limitations yet again).

If you want to send someone not your spouse flowers, you might want to read this cautionary tale.

Stolen shamelessly from soc.motss, we have Abe Lincoln’s notes for the Gettysburg Address, if it were given today.

…even if only on a T-shirt? This guy doesn’t think so any longer. What a travesty…don’t the police have anything better to do?

…to spend more time with his family.

I guess he’s done enough damage to lots of other families.

And thanks to for coming up with this overheard in the supermarket religious moment.

Automated password suggestions can be, as the Register says, something of a crapshoot. In that vein, take a look at this.

This story tells of a female panda who just gave birth to twins. However, the notable quote at the beginning of paragraph seven might give paws to those wishing to be panda-identified…

I know it’s been difficult lately, with all the IndigNation difficulties with permissions denied and events cancelled, but I wish you all a very happy National Day today (August 9). May you have a good day off from work, and may you all work for a happy, prosperous, and just Singapore.

If you go here, you too can be Simpsonised (or Simpsonized, if you live in the US)

I was.

…this headline just about sums it up:

Pope Swims Tiber Again

This is about retired Bishop Clarence Pope, of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas. He became a Roman Catholic several years ago, but returned to the Episcopal Church a few years later when Rome told him that, no, he couldn’t become a RC bishop (Mrs. Pope was a bit of an obstacle there, as well as the fact that the RCs didn’t need any more bishops in the area). Well, as the headline indicates, he’s done it again. Presumably the RCs haven’t changed their position (Mrs. Pope is still in the land of the living) but now-Mr. Pope has decided to swim anyway.

I do hope he remembers his way back. This wandering sheep strays regularly.