Chris Hansen’s blog

We went to two exhibitions yesterday. One was at the Serpentine, called The Welfare Show, with various exhibits including a hallway full of bored security “guards”, and a luggage carrousel behind a glass screen, with one bag revolving forlornly on it. Then we went to the White Cube, in Hoxton, to see Gilbert and George’s exhibition, Sonofagod Pictures, subtitled “Was Jesus Heterosexual?” As we walked in, who should be at the door but Gilbert and George themselves, signing copies of the exhibition program. I paid my 5 quid and queued up. They are really rather Pooterish-looking, but I think it’s a good assumption that they drive a lot of the currents in British art these days. George signed first: “and George”, and “With all our love from”; he then passed the book to Gilbert, who added his “Gilbert” in front of the “and George”.

The pictures are really thought-provoking; instead of making you wonder what Gilbert and George are really like (as many of their other works do), this one does make you think about Jesus and your relationship with him. The main work, “Was Jesus Heterosexual?”, has a surtitle and a subtitle. The surtitle is “Jesus says forgive yourself.”, and the subtitle is “God loves fucking! Enjoy!”

There is a lot of food for thought, and perhaps a sermon, in those words. Don’t know whether I could preach it in an Anglican church or not…

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You’re totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in… in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

Good grief! I’ve only been in Texas once…just goes to show you that almost all these tests are crap…

Well, I wasn’t aware that Sudan had gay marriage, then. Could the recent developments in Massachusetts and the United Kingdom have had such a long-distance effect?

This evil!

You Are 40% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

…now, for those who still yearn for yuppiedom, there’s another item of clothing with an integrated iPod holder.

The man that everyone called “God’s Banker” has died age 84. The Times of London’s obituary notes that he had a son by a mistress. Didn’t know that. However, was wondering what had happened to him the other day–now I know.

An interesting theatre piece came to my attention about Marcinkus. I really enjoyed it, and I’ll bet that he sounded just like that.

Animated music is here. Those of you old enough to remember “Dragnet” will love this one.

William Howard Taft was America’s fattest president. How did he measure up? Look here.

The Rt. Rev. Mark Andrus
The Rev. Bonnie Perry
The Rev. Jane Gould
The Rev. Cn. Eugene Taylor Sutton
The Very Rev. Robert Taylor

You might want to go to the website for more information, but the slate includes a lesbian and a gay man. This will enrage the usual suspects in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

I knew one of the candidates reasonably well. When I lived in Chicago, I worshipped at All Saints Ravenswood. It was, unfortunately, a dying parish. The then Rector was, sadly, not up to the job for a multitude of reasons with which I will not bore you. The parish lacked vitality; it held on to older members without doing any outreach to what was becoming a vibrant community at the heart of Uptown. The building was somewhat decrepit, although it was a historic landmark of Chicago, the oldest wooden-frame church building in the city. We had 35 people at Mass on a Sunday morning and heavy debts. In 1992 the parish became a mission, and at the end of the year, in November, Bonnie Perry arrived to take over from the previous incumbent. I only knew her as Vicar for about 2 months. However, I’ve followed the progress of the parish avidly ever since.

From 35 communicants it has grown to about 220 per week. The budget has grown from $25,000 to about $350,000. It is a vibrant, inclusive, lively church where all God’s children are welcomed and valued.

Bonnie has gone on to gain a doctorate from Seabury-Western in Congregational Development. She really should have gotten it just from her successful efforts at All Saints. It became a Parish again in 2000 and she became its Rector.

I think Bonnie would make a very good, effective, godly, and prophetic Bishop.

I have met Jane Gould (who is at St. Stephen’s, Lynn, Massachusetts) and attended a service there. The building was in difficulty but the people in the parish were absolutely wonderful. It’s another vibrant parish and I’m certain that Jane would also make a good Bishop.

I am plumping for Bonnie, however. But looking at the nominees, I believe that any of them would make an excellent Bishop of California.

I gather that, although this man is not a danger to vulnerable people, they’re still putting him on the sex offenders register in Michigan. Perhaps they’ll have to alert all sheep within 2 miles of his home. Read all about it here.

Why is it that, rather than reveal themselves in human form, God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints seem to be fixated on appearing in foodstuffs? The latest Mary-on-a-snackfood story is here.

…especially when talking about something you can’t do for another three weeks, at least.

San Francisco Zoo has an X-rated zoo tour each Valentine’s Day. Check it out here.

Note the sad sad story of Jack the tapir. I laughed so hard I cried…but I feel sorry for the poor little fella.

We’ve been and gone and done it, yesterday, at Southwark Registry Office.

There are some photos and a little chronology of the day’s events behind the cut.

We began the day quietly, with a lot of reflection and getting ready for the effort. I booked the restaurant for dinner afterwards, HWMBO and I got the groceries (with me walking very slowly to and from the shopping centre), and Paul Sears, our US houseguest, giving us moral support. At 2 the people carrier turned up and we all boarded. The cast (besides us) was:

Paul, Ethel King (witness 1), Mark Cato (witness 2), and Rob (Mark’s partner).

We got there, and found that the waiting room was on the first floor (=second floor for USans). I had to very carefully get up the stairs, and wait.

The waiting room was pretty spare, but here we are:

and here’s a close-up of Ethel, who is a fellow parishioner of ours at St. Matthew’s, and a real live wire:

The registrar ushered us into her office and explained the procedure, while we sat there somewhat nervously. We had to sign a form, and then our witnesses signed the form and the certificate, and finally the registrar signed the form. We got to keep the form and the certificate. So, I signed:

and then HWMBO:

While we signed, we had to repeat a declaration on the form, and my voice broke during the signing. This was something I thought I would never get the opportunity of doing in my lifetime, and here I was, doing it.

Now the witnesses: first Ethel:

and then Mark:

and then the Registrar makes it official:

Our reaction?

and

Down two staircases, very carefully:

and

and then back home for a mini-party. At 6 we walked (again, very slowly, to the Pizzeria Castello, where we got the comic waiter (yet again) fishing for tips. No pics of him, but one of us:

and one of Paul, which I love, as it captures his essential sense of fun!

Home again for cake and bed. I woke up with slightly high blood sugar, from the stress and the sliver of cake I had. But it was all worth it. I can’t tell you how happy we both are now, and how thankful that our good friends could be here to share it with us. I’m even more thankful that the heart attack last week was not so debilitating that it prevented me from going ahead with this. The staff at St. Thomas’s were good enough to ensure that I was alive and kicking (if weakly) for the great event.

Now we have the task of living the rest of our lives together.

Thanks to everyone who sent us cards or good wishes yesterday (especially John Song and Caff, you know who you are! Also Jane Saw, who called this morning from Los Angeles.) We appreciate the love and support we’ve received.

If you want to find out what very appropriate actress is being considered to play the central character in the upcoming biopic of Mother Teresa, click here. But be afraid, be very afraid.

in my previous post, that HWMBO has been absolutely wonderful during this whole episode. I’m sure that everyone took that for granted, but in reading the previous post I came across as a self-centred twit in a way, only caring about what was happening to me. While it was dreadful, I’m sure it was just as dreadful for HWMBO, but he was there for me within minutes of Mark calling him from the emergency room. He visited every day, and unquestioningly carried out my requests (Feed me! Bring the newspaper! Bring books! Please kiss me!) and made it at least bearable to be in that dreadful place. He’s taken charge of my diet, now, and we will be eating fish twice a week whether I like it or not. We will be going to get Civil Partnershipped tomorrow, and he’s stood by me through the whole thing. No one could ask for a better partner.

I just wanted to make sure I said it.

I had a heart attack last Tuesday. Here’s the story:

Last Sunday evening we were coming home from Heathrow and I was tugging my luggage out of the Underground. I felt a bit of discomfort but paid it no mind.

Tuesday morning I got up, made breakfast, and sent HWMBO off to work and sat down to do the email and Usenet. At 9:30 I felt a crushing pain in my chest, something like the discomfort one feels when one gulps water fast and it stays in your esophagus for a while. It didn’t go away. I called my friend Mark from across the street and he came over, called the ambulance, and that was basically the end of my week.

We went to St. Thomas’s Hospital, which is the primary cardiac care centre for most of southern England. This is a good thing, as normally one would have been taken to another hospital, from which one would have been transferred to St. Thomas’s. In A&E they evaluated me, and decided to perform an immediate angioplasty and put in a stent, all of which they did. The angioplasty flattens the plaque on the arterial wall against the artery so that the pathway is opened again. A stent looks like a tube made of chicken wire, very tiny. That is inserted to hold the plaque in place and medication is imbued in the stent to prevent clots from forming around the stent. All this was performed on Valium and then I got a shot of morphine, which helped me to understand why addicts like heroin so much. By 12:30 I was in the CCU (Cardiac Care Unit, for intensive care after heart surgery or heart attacks).

The rest of the week was one boring lot of minutes, hours, and days. Luckily the angioplasty (which starts from a tube inserted in your groin and threaded into your heart) left no bruises or scars, and most of the tubes and spigots they put in were taken out by Friday. They were taking blood sugar, blood pressure, and the like every hour in the CCU, and 5 times a day on the regular cardio ward, to which I was transferred on Friday morning.

Had visitors: the Area Dean, the Archdeacon of Southwark, several chaplains, my Rector, HWMBO, our houseguest, and a fellow parishioner. Lots of cards and stuff from friends (some from America!!) I did find out through my sister’s card that my brother and sister-in-law have separated (so some sad news too). Got cards from my Masonic brothers too, which was a very nice thing indeed.

So now I’m back home, with lots of email to look at, time to rest and relax before Tuesday’s Civil Partnership ceremony, time to think before I begin rehab, time to be grateful that this wasn’t the Big One that has done for so many people in the past.

Missed all my lj friends, too! Glad to be back!

WEEK ONE
Beans, Bacon, Coffee, Whiskey

WEEK TWO
Beans, Ham, Coffee, Whiskey

WEEK THREE
Beans al fresca, Thin-sliced Bacon, Hazelnut Coffee, Sky vodka & Tanqueray gin, K-Y gel

WEEK FOUR
Beans en salade, Pancetta, Coffee (espresso grind), 5-6 bottles best Chardonnay, 2 tubes K-Y gel

WEEK FIVE
Fresh Fava beans, Jasmine rice, Prosciutto, approx. 8 ounces, thinly sliced, Medallions of veal, Porcini mushrooms, 1/2 pint of heavy whipping cream, 1 Cub Scout uniform, size 42 long, 5-6 bottles French Bordeaux (Estate Reserve), 1 extra large bottle Astro-glide

WEEK SIX
Yukon Gold potatoes, Heavy whipping cream, Asparagus (very thin), Organic Eggs, Spanish Lemons, Gruyere cheese (well aged), Crushed Walnuts, Arborio Rice for Risotto, Arugula, Clarified Butter, Extra Virgin Olive oil, Pure Balsamic vinegar, 6 yards white silk organdy, 6 yards pale ivory taffeta, 3 Cases of Dom Perignon Masters Reserve, Large tin Crisco

I was happy.

My girlfriend and I had been dating for over a year, and so we decided to get married. My parents helped us in every way. My friends encouraged me.

And my girlfriend? She was a dream!

There was only one thing bothering me, very much indeed. That one thing was her younger brother.

My prospective brother-in-law was twenty years of age and a very cute young man. One day little brother called and asked me to come over to check the wedding invitations.

He was alone when I arrived. He whispered to me that soon I was to be married, and he had feelings and desires for me that he couldn’t overcome and didn’t really want to overcome. He told me that he wanted to make love to me just once before I got married and committed my life to his sister.

I was in total shock and couldn’t say a word.

He said, “I’m going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want to go ahead with it just come up and get me.”

I was stunned. I was frozen in shock as I watched him go up the stairs.

I stood there for a moment, then turned and went straight to the front door. I opened the door, stepped out of the house, and walked straight towards my car.

My future father-in-law was standing outside. With tears in his eyes he hugged me and said,

“We are very happy that you have passed our little test. We could not ask for better man for our daughter. Welcome to the family.”

The moral of this story is:

Always keep your condoms in the car.

is this comment on the State of the Union speech.

This story is pretty wild. Those ladyboys are really something else.

Well, we got back from Bangkok yesterday night. I was last there 9 years ago, so I was prepared for some change, but what change! There is now a functioning underground system as well as two skytrain lines. Public transport is now an option; 9 years ago tuk-tuks and cabs that might or might not be metred were the sole options other than by foot.

We stayed at the Pinnacle Hotel in Lumphini (they spell it Lumpinee in the hotel’s publicity; That transliteration is not exact). I travelled with my host. BK, and his friends Andrew and Edwin. We spread ourselves across three rooms (1003, 1005, and 1007).

Thursday night was dinner at Anna’s, a Western/Thai fusion place near the hotel. Then we went to a downtown shopping mall and wandered; I didn’t buy anything but Edwin, the shopping queen, bought lots. We ended up in the food court eating fruit and critiquing the men walking by, discovering in the process that we had violently different tastes.

First full day (Friday) was for sightseeing; we went to the Grand Palace and took lots of photos. I shall be posting some when I get back to London. The most offputting thing about the Grand Palace is the tourist glut. The holiest temple in Thailand is located in the Palace grounds, but people were milling about, climbing on the decorations so that they could get better pictures, and generally being disrespectful of the place. We then went to the “Backpacker’s area” (can’t remember the name), where we walked up and down the street while BK bought CDs, Andrew bought books, and I bought a pair of sandals after failing to find the proper size at another stall.

I had some difficulties in measuring the proper (ie, pound sterling) price of goods there. The baht is fairly low-worth in comparison to the pound. Today’s exchange rate is about 39 baht to the pound and about 26 baht to SGD. So my travelling companions only had one conversion to make in their heads (baht to SGD) whereas I had to make two (baht to SGD to GBP). Confusion reigned. So 400 baht is about 10 pounds. The largest note is 1000 baht, the smallest is 20 baht (about fifty pence), and there are lots of 10, 5, and 1 baht coins. Prices are very competitive, however.

Along the way Andrew, BK, and I went to the river ferry for a quick voyage down the river to our next stop: reflexology. On the way I saw a street vendor with an original product: he makes figures out of twisted rope. He had a really cute squirrel that I fell in love with and knew that HWMBO would like. I bought it and didn’t even haggle over the price. This made the afternoon trip worthwhile. We stopped in a restaurant with cute but sullen waiters and I had a beer while the others ate.

Update, much later: HWMBO hated the squirrel. So much for knowing your spouse.

We went to Healthland for reflexology. That wasn’t the original plan, but their other masseurs were engaged already. I’d never had foot reflexology before; it was an eye-opener. I was a bit fearful for my feet, as being a diabetic lots of the sensation in my feet has been lost. They found it, all right. Andrew thought that my masseur was hot looking; I was too busy wincing from the pain to notice much. He poked, prodded, and punched my feet until I was certain they were a bleeding mass of pulp. However, they certainly did feel much better afterwards.

Friday night I had dinner with Bom, our former flatmate. He is a real sweetheart, and is now a lecturer at Thammasat University, and an associate dean. However, he hasn’t changed one bit, and is still the fun-loving handsome young man I remember. He has a car so the transport part was easy, although a bit confusing for me. We went to a restaurant where Bom did the ordering and forgot that I don’t eat a lot of seafood. He ordered mussels, seafood soup, fishcakes (which were excellent), and rice. I asked for green chicken curry, very sheepishly. We made plans to meet on Sunday, and then I went home, while the other three went off to DJ Station, the most crowded gay disco in Bangkok. I gave it a miss because of cigarette smoke and crowding, but at least one of our travelling party met a friend there that night…

Saturday started off with taking the underground to go to a vegetarian restaurant discovered by BK. We got lost, and found no one who spoke English or Mandarin. It’s a wonder we ever found it, as it was really tucked away. But find it we did, and it was really good. I had (surprised, surprise) green curry which was very good. We then went shopping in the Weekend Market. It’s a huge warren of corridors flanked by stalls selling all sorts of things. We were sure to be split up, so we made plans to meet by the clocktower at 4:30. I wandered around, but only bought one pair of shorts. There was a lot of trash, lots of shoes and sandals. We indeed met at the clock tower, although how I found it is a mystery, and how we then found our way out is an even bigger mystery.

We then went to a gay sauna, Chakran, to begin the evening (although it ended mine). It’s quite elaborate, as saunas there tend to be, but as I was only there for the scenery, that was enough. It has a gym (and quite an elaborate one at that), jacuzzi (which helped my back), steam rooms and saunas, a restaurant and bar, and a cold pool in which no one was indulging. There was a small area for sexual encounters called “Heart to Heart” (although no one was doing anything up there as far as I could tell and, had they been, I don’t think that it would have been their hearts touching). After a crackdown by the police, some of the saunas have removed the doors of the private cabins. Certainly would have cooled my ardour.

After a misunderstanding, BK ate dinner there while Edwin, Andrew, and I set out for a restaurant. It had a strange decor (clear plastic placemats with feathers embedded in them, for example), but the (guess what!) green chicken curry was very chilli-hot and good. Edwin and I went for a massage afterwards…very therapeutic, but not really Thai massage; that would come later. Back to the hotel and bed for me; DJ Station for everyone else.

Sunday was my day with Bom. We went to a Chinese restaurant for dim sum. The dish I remember best was Chinese buns filled not with barbecued pork, but with egg custard. I’ve never had such a good bun before in my life. I wish I could remember what they were called so I could have some again back in London.

Bom asked if I wanted a traditional Thai massage. Well, he knew of a place downtown that was very good. We went there and, boy, was it good! They punch, poke, prod, and stand on you to get results. You wear a kind of smock and baggy trousers during the massage, but Bom had warned me that some of the masseurs did extra services. I think that mine might have done, except that when he massaged around my crotch and discovered my PA, he was so bemused that he stopped.

Therapeutically, this was the best massage I’ve ever had. Afterwards, my scoliosis had been completely reversed! I stood up straight for the first time in years. I will look for traditional Thai masseurs in London, but fear they’ll cost more than the pounds or so equivalent this one cost.

Then we went shopping in the Central Department Store. Because of purchases, I needed a new bag to go back to Singapore with; we found one and, to our surprise, discovered that we were eligible for a premium from the service desk downstairs because of the amount of our purchase. We ended up with three money-off coupons and some commemorative coins. So back for more shopping to use up the coupons. I bought a pair of Fila trainers, a luggage tag for my new bag, and a key case for WL. Bom bought a stepladder for his new house and some tops (of which I bought two as well). Back to the hotel, and then Bom dropped me off to meet the others at Babylon for Foam Night.

I wasn’t too impressed with foam night (basically they have a foam “generator” pouring out foam on the dancers on the dance floors), but the new Babylon is quite impressive. It was mobbed for Foam Night; however, again, I just observed. I find it confusing to find my way around these places and am a little insecure about getting around. They are all rabbit warrens. Lots of cute men, though. The restaurant was quite good, if the menu was anything to go by, and there was no smoking except in the open area near the bar (easily avoided). I left BK, Andrew, and Edwin there and went home to bed.

Monday was about packing and getting ready to come back to Singapore. I was ready early, after the breakfast buffet (which was quite good, with American bacon as a specialty!), but the rest weren’t ready to go until a bit later. Edwin was staying on my my room for two days for some laser whitening of his teeth, so we left our bags in 1003 and went off to Healthland again. I discovered that it’s not a good idea to have two Thai massages in a row (twice a week is the usual standard), so I went off and investigated the transport system. I took the Sky Train to the end of the line, and then changed to the Underground system, and rose that to the end of its line. Very Singaporean in design (large island platforms, mostly, with doors on the platform edges). The ticket was a relatively large round black token that was encoded with the fare I paid, and dispensed from a machine. When I get back, I’ll edit this entry and put all the relevant pictures in, including the one I took of this token. Emerged at the end of the line, looked around (nothing of interest), and popped back in to go to Si Lom, which was one stop away from the hotel. Walked (at 2 pm) from Si Lom to Lamphini and took a few pics. Had lunch at an A&W Rootbeer restaurant (HWMBO doesn’t like them but I guess that I wanted to slum a bit) of a burger, curly fries, and a rootbeer. Back to the hotel and then taxi to the airport and home.

Oh, and budget airlines suck, big time. We were scheduled to leave from Gate 71, but it was changed at the very last minute to Gate 26, at the other end of the airport. What a pain! It was also “festival” seating, which meant that by the time we got there we were almost strapped to seats on the wing.

At Changi, the wait for the taxi homw was marred by two boorish American queuejumpers, who separated me from BK and Andrew. I was livid. I made a very loud remark as we went for the taxicab (long queue because of Chinese New Year) mentioning “rude American queuejumpers” but, as usual with American ang mohs, they weren’t in the mood to listen to anyone.

So, I enjoyed Bangkok very much. I hope that HWMBO and I can make the trip later this year or next year and stay with Bom at his new home. I can have another traditional Thai massage for GBP 5 again!

I know I have been a bad correspondent, and should probably have my lj epaulets stripped off my t-shirt and be turned out of the fort, but it’s been really hectic the past few days, and we leave for Bangkok in two hours. I’m packed, but still not bathed. I will try to update when I get back, but it’s difficult when you’re on holiday to get your mind back to work. And keeping up your livejournal is work.

…and I’m really glad I did. He’s a real sweetheart with all the qualities that would make a guy melt all over him. I will post pictures when I’m back from Bangkok next week, or when we’re back in London, but pictures were taken, I assure you. It’s good to meet your lj friends in the flesh when travelling.

PS: his lj tag is quite daunting, but it’s all a front.

We got back yesterday from four days in Malaysia. I had never been to KL before, so was interested in what it was like.

The Petronas towers are huge. Very huge. So huge you can hardly believe it. They are as modern as anything in Singapore, the UK, or the US. The rest of KL is a curious mixture of very modern smart buildings and shopping malls and run down areas.

Present were: Me, HWMBO, our friend BK with whom we’re staying in Singapore, our friend Choo Beng, and his bf Caff.

We took the “luxury bus” from Singapore to KL. It took about 5 hours, including customs and immigration stops in Singapore and Malaysia. Everyone here knows this bus: when you mention it, they say “Oh, the massage chair bus!” The seats have built-in massagers. Not very effective (in my experience) but very comfy nonetheless. There is a video screen at each seat and you get food and a drink.

KL is chaotic. Very busy, lots of running around. The transport system is seriously dysfunctional: there are about 4 or 5 different train lines and they are run by different companies. So you have to get out of one train and walk a distance to get to another one. Very annoying and must be confusing if you don’t have someone who knows their way around with you.

We shopped in several stores and bought shirts; mine were XL but still too small, not because I’ve gained weight on this trip (I think I’ve lost a bit) but because XL in Asia is really L everywhere else.

If was Caff’s birthday so we had dinner at his friend’s restaurant near Time Square shopping centre. Very nice, but somewhat blur (as they say here in Sg) since two friends of Caff’s and Choo Beng’s had had a spat, and one threw the other out of the house. They were both supposed to come to the birthday meal. So there was much to-ing and fro-ing while Caff and Choo Beng went out and called them on their handphones or talked to them outside the restaurant. Lots of fish but enough for me to eat so I wasn’t hungry. A big birthday cake at the end. Happy birthday, Caff!

More later, as I have to go out for my morning constitutional to keep from being totally unfit.

Well, BK and I went window-shopping yesterday…didn’t buy anything but got ideas. I need to be very careful so I’m not going to go hog-wild this time around. We then parted and I met HWMBO and Tiow Hua for a Teochew dinner. The Teochews (a coastal area north of Hong Kong, I think) have spread throughout Southeast Asia. Their cuisine is hard to find elsewhere, though; I’ve never seen it in London or New York (although there might be Teochew dishes scattered on menus). Their meat specialty is goose, so we had braised goose with tofu; a braised cabbage and mushroom dish, with the cabbage in a round bowl with mushroom caps arranged in a circle on top of the cabbage and a slice of red pepper in the middle of the circle; meatball “cubes” with pork and prawn mixed in; and a prawn omelet. All with dipping sauces of various kinds. Then for dessert we had a yam paste, served hot in a bowl. Very moreish, but probably very fattening. Followed by a very small cup (really a dish) of very strong tea to de-glaze your tongue and throat.

I got home in good order (though I got a bit lost getting here) and forgot to take my melatonin before bed, so I ended up waking up, irrevocably, at 4 am.

Lunch with an lj friend today then dinner with BK, I think.

Having suffered a heart attack back in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.

“At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life,” said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. “We would resuscitate him,” then execute him.

The world has gone mad. People often ask me why I don’t go back to live in the United States. Just read the above quotation will be my answer.

We had a pleasant surprise upon arriving at the Elephant and Castle underground station: the Piccadilly Line was not going to Heathrow on Sunday so we could use the Heathrow Express for the price of a one day Travelcard zones 1-6. This was to be the last pleasant surprise.

We got to Heathrow, everything went well, we got to the boarding lounge and on the plane. Then I did a double take as the plane seemed to be scheduled to stop at Frankfurt. And so we did.

It turns out that there is no longer enough jet fuel at Heathrow to get a plane all the way to Singapore. This is because of a fuel depot explosion and fire over the Christmas holidays. So all the long-haul flights have to stop elsewhere to top up before going on their way. So we were ultra late (got out of Customs at 6, were supposed to be out of Customs at about 3).

HWMBO’s mom asked BK whether the person HWMBO was traveling with was the same person he travelled with last year. He said that it was. No more questions.

She doesn’t look good; she has gotten quite stooped in the past year, but she has a wide smile (HWMBO has her face and smile, while he has his dad’s height). We separated and BK and I went to his place, while HWMBO went to have dinner with his parents and Choo Beng.

When BK and I went for dinner, HWMBO and Choo Beng came along. It turns out that it didn’t take his parents more than an hour to try to set him up with a woman. He declined, even though she is an assistant CEO of a company. She’s 35, and I guess her parents have despaired of ever getting her married off. So HWMBO’s parents decided to offer…

It’s almost 1 am Tuesday here so I must be off to bed to try to un-jet-lag myself as quickly as possible.

Cheers to all!

Apparently a surplus of women in Chechnya and Russia has attracted the attention of legislators, here.

You know what the penalty for bigamy is, of course.

Two mothers-in-law.

I got the book “The Gospel Hoax”, written by Stephen Carlson, and subtitled “Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark yesterday. I saw down and finished it tonight. It is riveting! I immediately wrote the following email to the author, and thought I should share it with all of you, not to blow my own horn but to bring into greater clarity one of the great disputes in Scriptural scholarship of the last 35 years.

Dear Dr. Carlson:

I have just finished The Gospel Hoax and wish to first congratulate you on a masterful and convincing argument. I was a student of Morton Smith’s (undergraduate, Columbia College 1970-1974, BA Latin and Greek, 1974) and even at that early date (Clement of Alexandria was published during the time I and others I knew were his students) we felt certain that the Secret Gospel and Clement’s letter were hoaxes and, moreover, that Morton was responsible for them. He always refused to discuss it with us even in a colloquium on the Synoptic Gospels in which discussion of Secret Mark would have been appropriate.

I would like to add some impressions of Morton that you may be (I actually would find it difficult to believe that this information was not available to you) familiar with but that were not included in the book.

Much of the writing and comment against Secret Mark took Smith to task because of his difficult personality. In class he was manifestly a woman-hater; those women who were bold enough to take his class were at once ignored and, if noticed, insulted. One was so incensed at his treatment of her that she paid to have a pie thrown in his face outside Philosophy Hall.

His wit was noticeably absent in his courses: he required us to buy his book “The Greeks” for his Ancient History introductory course; we felt that it may not have been the best available work on the subject but that Morton required it for the royalties. I saw an article in Newsweek that noted a chemistry professor’s decision to require his own book for his course as it was the best available; however, the professor refunded the royalties to each student who purchased the book. I cut the article out of Newsweek and put it on his desk before he entered the class. He looked at it, and scowled, and that was that. I didn’t expect any refund, but I thought I might get him to crack a smile.

He was also homosexual. As I am an Anglican (and was an Episcopalian when I lived in the United States), I was told by someone on Bishop Moore’s staff (Bp. Moore was then the Bishop of New York) that Smith was discovered in a compromising position with a young man and was forced to resign his orders. That was the way things were done in those early days. My informant may be wrong, but it has the ring of truth. At a colloquium on Secret Mark held at St. John the Divine in (I think) 1975 Pierson Parker drove Smith to fury by referring to him as “Father Smith”. Morton tried to get his own back by referring to Parker as “Father Parker” but of course Parker was a priest so it was a damp squib.

Morton, during the time that I knew him, chose a new research assistant yearly. It was always a male graduate student, and the one whom I knew best told me that Smith was forever “hitting on him” sexually. Smith was also very vain of his appearance, swam daily, and kept extremely trim. In 1974 he was nearly 60 years old but still had a figure that would have been the envy of many young men, not to mention his contemporaries.

The reason I mention this is not to blacken his reputation in any way (at the time, I suppose it was not uncommon for professors, other academics, and businessmen to “hit on” their students or employees; nowadays you’d be slapped with a harassment charge immediately). However, I think it sheds more light on your argument in chapter 6 about Morton’s motives. More than Smith’s atheism, I think that the fact that Smith always vehemently denied (and many times in my hearing) that he himself had said anything about Jesus’s “homosexuality” in Secret Mark says volumes about his real motive for writing Clement and Secret Mark. I believe that his leaving the church due to homosexuality impelled him to turn the tables and purport to discover a text that cast aspersions of a homosexual nature on Jesus. However, he tried to “cover” his apparent motive by loudly denying that he himself had ever said such a thing, and thus brought even more attention to that very motive.

When I began reading Chapter 6, I was expecting that each new paragraph would mention the situation I’ve described in my last three paragraphs. I never saw it. As it is impossible to libel a dead person, I conclude that either you were unaware of his sexual orientation (improbable) or you deliberately excluded one of the (in my mind) most telling motives he could have had. I suppose that since a lot of the argument against Secret Mark has been insulting polemic, perhaps you excluded it on the grounds that it would simply seem to be “more of the same”. However, I think it would have fitted right into Chapter 6 (after the bulk of the objective evidence had been set down) and delivered the coup de grace, as it were.

If on the other hand you were unaware of it, then consider this letter a bit more evidence of the correctness of your arguments.

A sidelight to all this is that in the lesbian and gay religious community (of which I am a member) Secret Mark has been quoted and praised liberally ever since the books were published as an example of how the “institutional Church” suppressed any whiff of a mention that Jesus might have been homosexual. In 1992 I had a long argument with a priest of the diocese of Chicago who lives in Nicaragua. He was convinced that Secret Mark and Clement were genuine, and moaned about how the Church was yet again taking an opportunity to do us down. I told him the facts and impressions I have shared with you above, but could not move him. When a fact is as attractive as that one is to lesbian and gay theologians, it will take a crowbar and considerable force to dislodge it. I think that my priest friend is enamoured of it _still_. Perhaps I’ll send him a copy of “The Gospel Hoax” with my compliments! I’m sure that Morton followed this trend of gay theological thought with much joy and satisfaction that, not only had he made the mainstream theologians uncomfortable, but he’d also hoodwinked the lesbian and gay theologians who’d stayed behind in the Church from which he had been excluded. I have been trying for many years to right the assumption in the community that Secret Mark is genuine. Every time in email groups and in fora in which I participate that the subject comes up, I add my two cents to the argument. But as the conclusion that Secret Mark is a hoax is unattractive to those who advance the opposite, I find it very difficult slogging indeed.

I must confess that in response to a scathing review in the Boston Herald of “Secret Gospel” in the mid-70’s I wrote a letter (which was published) taking the reviewer to task for saying that Smith was an “ersatz scholar” or some such phrase. Whatever else he was, Smith was a real scholar and extremely talented, intelligent, and learned. I told the reviewer to counter Smith’s arguments, not call his credentials into question. This is what you have done, and I am very happy you have done it.

So, in closing, thanks so much for writing this book; I found it riveting and hardly put it down until I had finished it. As I am no longer professionally a classicist (I ended up in computer science as a software tester and test manager, and now as a consultant in testing training and test management) I enjoy dipping back into the field and your arguments were not only good, but intelligible to those of us who are not intimately involved in the field still.

I hope that sales are brisk and that your future writings prosper as well. I do feel sorry for that gentleman who wrote his dissertation on Secret Mark defending its authenticity. He must be feeling most unhappy at the moment.

I shall spare a thought for him this evening.

Regards

Chris Hansen

UPDATE: I received a reply from Dr. Carlson in which he states that he was aware of Smith’s sexual orientation but felt that including references to it would detract from the logical arguments he gave in the book. However, he also said that another book is coming out later this year from Yale University Press that also debunks Secret Mark, and includes more references to Smith’s personality and his homosexuality. I can’t wait for that one! As Carlson said, “It never rains but it pours.”

Carlson’s blog is in my Friends list under .

In alt.obituaries I saw this quotation at the bottom of the obit of John Webster, an advertising guru of the 1970’s and 1980’s, whose most famous ad campaign was the Smash Martians (you have to be British of a certain age to remember this one). I thought that the quote was really good:

A couple of decades ago he bought a house in France which came with a tiny vineyard; he was proud of the wine he produced and sold – at ridiculously low prices – to his friends. He liked to point out that there were two ways you could go in life: you could go into advertising and work excessively long hours in a highly competitive environment, eventually having enough money to buy a small house in France. Or you could just be a French peasant and not bother with the other bit.

Last month I saw on eBay a shortwave radio that I had possessed many years ago (probably late 1970’s/early 1980’s. It’s a Grundig Satellit 2000, and the eBay seller (a German, natch) described it as in full working order, having been checked by a technician before shipping.

The radio has a full, lush sound, tunes the entire LW, MW, SW, and FM bands, with the SW broadcast bands in service then being tuned in finer detail. Each band is selected by turning a turret, which places a different set of coils into the circuit. There is a huge speaker, with treble and bass controls along with the volume control.

So, I received the receiver before Christmas. The FM band worked fine. However, none of the LW, SW, or AM bands worked particular well: the audio was barely detectable. The turret didn’t turn; it was “stuck” or “blocked”. I was in despair. The packing had been, well, loose to say the least. There were bits of styrofoam interspersed with newspapers.

So I looked around on the web, and discovered London Sound. It’s way the heck out in Rayners Lane, almost in Uxbridge at the end of the northern branch of the Piccadilly Line. It takes about an hour to get there on the tube. But when I contacted Mike Solomons, the proprietor, he said that he could fix the radio. I went out there after Christmas, and he was delightful! We spent about an hour gabbing about radio, business, and various other subjects. I paid a lot of money as a deposit, and he reminded me that with my money I would get a 1-year guarantee on his work.

Today I got the radio back. There was at least one surprise: there was a rechargeable lead-acid battery in it, and Mike had taken the casing of that battery and replaced the innards with AA cells and a resistor so that it would recharge just as the original one did. When he took the innards out of the radio, one switch on the front, rather than being slipped onto its post, had been glued on as it had been broken. Mike drilled two tiny holes in the post, put a bent piece of paper clip into the holes, and slipped the switch knob onto that. What workmanship! The radio now works perfectly; the mechanics of keeping the “piano key” switches on the top from getting gummed up, and the intricacies of getting the coil that fell out of the turret back into the radio were explained by Mike.

I won’t mention the cost, but it was perhaps the most expensive radio I’ve ever purchased (and had repaired). However, I would recommend that anyone in the London area who has old-time audio equipment to be repaired (hi-fi sets that were transistorised rather than computerised like today’s are, or old-style SW radio receivers) go see Mike right away (and I suppose you should mention me and my Grundig too). Mike is someone who is absolutely dedicated to his work, someone who stands by it and guarantees it for more than a perfunctory period of time, and who is immensely knowledgeable and ingenious and inventive.

Now I’d better get upstairs and start SWLing, to amortise the enormous cost.

Oh, and BTW, I’m suggesting to the seller that his packing was seriously deficient and telling him that I’m “minded” to give him a negative rating. Hopefully that will give him food for thought and maybe I’ll even get some of my money back.

…and any other Singaporeans who might be reading this.

I’m arriving in Singapore on Monday afternoon, for a three-week vacation. I shall be in Malaysia (KL and Malacca) from Jan 21-24 and in Bangkok from Jan 26-31. Otherwise, I’m in Sg. Perhaps we could all get together for a drink or a meal?? I’d love to meet you guys: , , , and anyone else who’s around then.

SMS me at 90142898 next week!

A man’s body was accidentally removed from the funeral home by the dustmen, and ended up in a landfill. The man’s family says it’s OK to leave him there. You can read this bizarre story here but get to it fast, folks, as it may time out.

On January 2, in this post, I mentioned that soon the Easter eggs would be on the shelves.

Well, yesterday, coming home from the gym, I stopped off in Tesco’s on Kennington Lane for some stuff for dinner. What did I see?

You guessed it. Chocolate bunnies, ready for Easter.

Fooey!

More humour about the Chimp-in-Chief

After numerous repetitions of “We don’t know if Osama is still alive,” Osama himself decided to send George Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.

Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a single line of coded message:

370HSSV-0773H

Bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Condi Rice. Condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it at the FBI so it went to the CIA, then to the NSA. With no clue as to its meaning they eventually asked Britain’s MI6 for help. Within a minute MI6 cabled the White House with this reply:

“Tell the President he’s holding the message upside down.”

…comes from a Bryn Mawr Classics review of:

Colin Austin, S. Douglas Olson, Aristophanes. Thesmophoriazusae.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. cviii, 363. ISBN 0-19-926527-5. $150.00.

Reviewed by Ian C. Storey, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario,
Canada (istorey@trentu.ca)

“…they affirm (267) that “abuse of individual citizens in Aristophanic parabases is normally confined to the epirrhematic syzygy…”

I always thought it was the prorhematic syzygy myself, but who knew?

There is a man in Britain who is so dense that he caught his dick in a mousetrap.

Not once, but twice!.

You can read his sad tale here.

I can see a future Darwin award winner here if he keeps this up.

…and wonder of wonders, my bloodwork was fine. Blood sugar normal at 6.2, cholesterol 4, liver and kidney function good. It’s about time.

Now I have to lose 24 kg and then I’ll be perfectly fine.

You may know of James Lileks, of the Gallery of Regrettable Food. He’s got a blogcast here. You should listen, especially to the ad for these:

Fraudsters have been rigging up ATMs with fake slots and cameras to get the information they need to clone your debit or credit card and get your PIN number here for a long time (maybe 2-3 years). It’s old hat.

Of course, unless it happens in the US, it doesn’t happen, so this story from CNN/Money, recounts that thieves in the US are doing it too.

I guess this is another of the way in which the UK is miles ahead of the US.

George Bush has a heart attack and dies.

Obviously, he goes to Hell, where the Devil is waiting for him.

“I’m not sure what to do,” says the Devil. “You’re on my list, but I have no room for you. But since you definitely have to stay here I’m going to have to let someone else go.

“I’ve got three folks here who weren’t quite as bad as you. I’ll let one of them go, but you’ll have to take their place. I’ll even let you decide who leaves.” George thought that sounded pretty good, so he agreed.

The Devil opened the first room. In it was Richard Nixon and a large pool of water. He kept diving in and climbing out, over and over. Such was his fate in Hell.

“No!” George said. “I don’t think so. I’m not a good swimmer and I don’t think I could do that all day long.”

The Devil led him to the next room. In it was Tony Blair with a sledge hammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing the hammer, time after time.

“No! I’ve got this problem with my shoulder. I would be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day.” commented George.

The Devil opened a third door. In it, George saw Bill Clinton lying on the floor with his arms staked over his head, and his legs staked in a spread-eagle pose.

Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best.

George Bush looked at this in disbelief for a while and finally said, “Yeah, I can handle this.”

The Devil smiled and said, “OK, Monica, you’re free to go!”

I really dislike the Christmas and New Year holiday season here in Ould Blighty. Everything shuts down or has morbidly shortened hours, so you never know when anything is open. Everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING!) shuts down for Christmas Day, with the exception of the corner stores owned and operated by Muslims. No public transport, no large stores, no nothing. Again, on New Year’s Day, everything is shut. Today everything shut at 5 pm.

Tomorrow the world regains its equilibrium. Stores are open normal business hours. The shelves are almost free of Christmas junk. The first trayful of chocolate Easter eggs will be put out in Tesco’s.

God’s in her heaven, all’s right with the world.

Those of you who are currently on, or who have been on, bounce mailing lists such as Yahoo! Groups will be familiar with the person who forgets they’re on a list and how to unsubscribe from it. They then send a one line message to the list saying “unsubscribe”, but instead of being unsubscribed, the entire list gets the one-line post.

I got a “twist” on this situation from one of my lists today:

On Jan 1, 2006, at 4:01 PM, {name deleted to protect the guilty} wrote:

unsubscribe

{to which someone replied:} Sorry. You are subscribed as a “life member” and your request cannot be completed.

One of the chores I have to do each January the first is to gather up all the previous year’s emails and place them, month by month, in a folder marked with the previous year’s name. So this morning I added a folder “2005” to each email category and moved the folders for each month of 2005 into it (I use Eudora). Then I created a new folder “January 2006” in each category.

I confess: I’m an email packrat.

For certain mailing lists, I have all emails dating back to 1996, sorted by month and year. Others I just place in a year folder, not bothering with the month.

Why do I do this? In one case, it helps with my US tax return (Currency Converter). In other cases, it’s helped me with work situations. Most of the time, however, it does nothing. The emails sit there, clogging up my computer: I have 1.64 GB of email on the disk.

Will I stop? Not until they pry the mouse out of my cold dead hands.

Happy New Year to everyone!

I’ve had a couple of odd dreams lately. The first one was one of a type that many Brits (and other people whose Head of State is HM the Q) seem to report having. HWMBO and I were giving part of my old stamp collection to the Queen. The stamps were very ornate; certainly not part of my former collection, most of which was stolen when I was a child. The Queen was very gracious, and then, in return, asked us to take out the trash. We of course first had to find the skip. The dream ended as we searched Windsor for it.

I’m told that lots of people dream about having the Queen to tea. The one time it happened to someone for real, the Queen, in her blue dress and hat, perched on a dining room chair nervously holding her teacup, looked like she was about to be poisoned. The experiment hasn’t been repeated. It was one of that long line of publicity stunts aimed at making the Queen seem more human to the public. I almost said “to her subjects” but as I am always correcting people, we are no longer subjects of HM the Q. We are British citizens.

The second one had to do with my job. For some reason a lot of the sales department was relocated to an upper floor (since the company I used to work for and am now consulting at is actually on the top floor, it was an obvious dream!) and I had to do up there to meet with one of the honchos. The floor was huge when I got up there on the elevator, and as I walked around there was food on almost every desk and table in the place. I finally saw the guy I was to meet, but before I could go into the meeting, I saw HWMBO, with his yellow rubber gloves on, washing up the dishes in the sink. We decided to leave. And that’s where I woke up.

I don’t often remember dreams, but these two were wacky enough I guess so that I could remember them. But as to what they mean, I haven’t a clue.

In the Elephant and Castle shopping centre, there is a stall selling glass and crystal knick-knacks. The sign on the corner of the table reads:

DON’T TOUCH
Easy to break.
We will show you!

Didn’t see any broken glass around, though.

A few days ago I wrote about upgrading my iMac from 32 MB memory to 384 MB, and from 6 GB hard disk to 80 GB. Now I’ve installed OS X, and am doing my first post from the iMac. It’s quite an eye-opener. I haven’t yet taken advantage of the many features that people say the Mac offers. However, some observations might be in order:

1) The installation, while relatively simple, is not intuitive. OS X told me that it couldn’t install on the 80 GB hard disk because it had to be in the first 8 GB of the disk. All well and good; why then didn’t it offer to partition the disk for me appropriately and then continue with the install? Instead I had to struggle with a disk utility that was itself not particularly intuitive. That over, I had to reboot yet again in order to start the install anew as the program refused resolutely to recognise that the disk had been partitioned.

2) That being said, once the installation happened the machine fully configured the Ethernet connection for me; no struggling as with OS 8 and OS 9.

3) Wonder of wonders, it has now found the printer on my PC. However, it still won’t print through it. Another mystery for another day.

4) Instead of the horrible round green Apple mouse, I not only put a Microsoft optical mouse on the machine, I was able to download software that allows it to be left/right hand configured. The scroll wheel works.

Does this mean that I’ll become a Mac-head and toss all the PCs out? I don’t think so. However, it’s always nice to have a new toy with which to play. Now I have one, and it’s exciting. WL can now surf Chinese websites from the kitchen table with full rendering of the Chinese characters.

I have had the Foundation Certificate for three years now, and of course I am a certified tutor for that particular course. I just invested nearly GBP 600 in a self-study CD-ROM for the Practitioner’s Certificate, the next step up. I’m hoping that I can complete this in time for the March examination. If not, then for the June one. Getting this certificate would mean increased income, as you must hold the Practitioner’s Certificate to be a tutor for that course.

I got 9 out of 10 right on the review of the Foundation material, so perhaps I’m off to a good start. The Practitioner’s exam is essay questions, not multiple choice; there will be lots more work to do on that and I may take most of February and devote it to studying that material.

I will update the blog with my progress occasionally.

We don’t get snow very often in London, but it’s snowing heavily at the moment. Being 2 degrees (C) outside, it won’t stick, but I still detest snow.

Update: It was over in a few minutes, and the snow didn’t really stick. Hurray!