Chris Hansen’s blog

…but here is an ingenious little piece of Flash that fits right in with the season.

Hint: Click on the computer screen on the last page of the show.

…this. I gather it’s some sort of TV reality show. Boy, was it real! I think that some astrology or solstice party might help her unwind.

As usual, I’m beat on Christmas evening; having Midnight Mass, then Christmas day Mass, then cooking, always leaves me exhausted. The Queen was suitably tasteful this afternoon, talking of the “annus horribilis” we’ve just had (no, she didn’t use those words) and reminding us of our duty toward those who have suffered in the last year. The Christmas ham was very good (if I do say so myself), and all four of us are suitably stuffed and waiting for squash pie a bit later.

So, Merry Christmas to you all (well, Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends and a very happy day to everyone else), and I hope you’ve all had a good day.

To those who are feeling down, hugs and much love from London to you all.

Update: The Times of London, today, referred to the Queen’s talking about 2005 as an “annus horribilis”. So I wasn’t the only one who made the connection, I guess.

Some Taiwanese women put theirs in a very private place, on vibrate, then ask their bf’s to call them occasionally. However, this story from the BBC takes the, er, cake.

…The Digital Photography Handbook. A great gift (that I had been contemplating buying for myself) and one that will help in buying a new camera and learning how to use it professionally.

However, today’s Blondie comic hits close to home!

Need I say more?

I wouldn’t wrap fish in the Sun.

You may have heard that the first same-sex couple to form a civil partnership in England will not be Elton John and David Furnish, but was a couple one of whom was terminally ill and who died the next day; their ceremony was advanced because of his illness. Here is their story.

…especially if you listen to this.

…got this in Integrity Lightspeed, and wanted to share.

O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
A wall is laid where tourists stayed,
And people can’t go by.
And in thy dark streets shineth
No cheerful Christmas light;
The grief and fears of five sad years
Are met in thee tonight.

How silently, how silently
The world regards it all,
As now thy heart is torn apart
By Israel’s ghetto wall.
They terrorise a people –
A war crime and a sin;
Their winding “fence” can make no sense;
Revenge can still get in.

O ye who now rule Bethlehem,
Cast down the iron cage,
The walls of hate that separate
And harden and enrage;
The land grab and apartheid –
This violence must cease,
If there’s to be a land that’s free,
A Bethlehem at peace.

…and it’s Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2006. After a day minching around Central London, going to the Barbican Centre for an exhibition, and then having a princely lunch at Subway, we took the number 12 bus to Camberwell and kept our appointment with the registrar. The building is a Grade II listed structure (I suppose it might have been St. Giles’s Rectory or something of the sort, but I can’t say for certain) but the waiting room is so modern that the registrar has to come out with the hand-held chip and pin machine because the slots in the glass window at reception are too small to pass the machine through.

We saw the registrar, first together, then separately, while she took down our details. The notices will be up for the next two weeks, and then we’ll be free to form our Civil Partnership. We won’t be having a ceremony, just signing the register, but we’ll take our witnesses out to lunch afterwards. And that will be that!

Wish us luck!

…for £80, and discovered that it was not only one of the earliest models, but also deficient in the memory and hard disk categories: only 32 MB RAM and 6GB hard disk. So, I bought, in quick succession:

Then, of course, there was the hassle of actually putting the stuff in the computer. For someone who is familiar with Intel PCs, fooling with the inside of an Apple iMac is something like doing a cholcystectomy through a keyhole slit in a patient with one hand tied behind your back and no light with which to see inside the patient. Well, maybe not that bad…

I luckily had some help in the form of printed-out instructions on a website devoted to souping up your iMac. I was astonished when it worked, first time! The CD-Rom drive (the absolute original one with the tray rather than the slot opening) is a bit off-centre, and sometimes has to be coaxed into opening, but the computer booted up, OS 9.2 installed first time, and the computer now works! Hurrah!

Our friend Win from Australia (former flatmate, great guy, was here on a 2-year tourist working visa) is going to send us a G3 tower via a friend of his who’s visiting in January. Then we’ll be a full Mac operation here. I will probably use it as a server to deal with the mountains of spam and the attacks that are constantly annoying us in PC-land.

Now to get it connected to the Internet.

Update! While the computer connects fine to the internet, I now find that it won’t run OS X and, of course, everything now available for the Mac is supposed to run OS X. I shall find out more about this later on from my friend Rob, who is a Mac-a-holic.

Full story is here; don’t know how long the link will stay up so be quick about it!

Americans got the worst president they have ever had, and they got him at a very perilous time in history. A religious nut, a lush in denial, a spoiled playboy, a chronic liar, and a know-it-all who knows very little…and my personal feelings are that probably most Americans would vote for someone as bad or worse again if the packaging were appealing.

A masterful summary of the Disaster-in-Chief.

…because it said that I’m a New Yorker!

I am really pissed off: my btinternet.com email has been down since last night. Not only do I get no POP feed, but I can’t log in to the website to look at it. In addition, Yahoo! email (which runs btinternet email) seems to be down as well.

Good grief. I hope that they’re saving it somewhere and not bouncing it back. If they are, I’m switching ISPs.

10:00 am UPDATE: It’s now back, as always. No explanation of where it was while it was gone. Something to do with magic, I suppose.

Your Christmas is Most Like: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

You can’t really get into the Christmas spirit… But it usually gets to you by the end of the holiday.

Somehow I thought this would be the case.

There has been some discussion in soc.motss about misreading the title of Ang Lee’s new movie Brokeback Mountain. However, as usual, Overheard in New York is right up with the latest trends.

…thanks to Towleroad, is here. Do watch out; it’s duck migration season now, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.

…with thanks to . Get your jollies with the Snow Globe.

My friend Alex is an actor who does whatever he can to keep body and soul together. He did an ad for ntl in which he was one of three breakdancers. ntl, unfortunately, did not give him a DVD copy of the ad, and Alex does not have a tv. So, he asked me to tape the ad. “It comes up every 10 minutes or so on channel 666 on Sky.” Now, the number “666” should have been a tipoff. I have put it on now for three days straight in the evening. The channel is a series of rolling ads for ntl broadband services. There are three inane actors who do little skits about getting broadband (they must not have worked in years to have stooped so low) and I have only seen Alex’s commercial once, when I didn’t have the VCR on. I am rapidly losing my mind. I could just record 3 hours and hope that the ad comes on, but in 2.5 hours yesterday not a peep of it.

Alex really owes me now. He’ll have to visit me in Broadmoor (most famous mental hospital in the UK) if this keeps up.

UPDATE! Got it taped this morning (Tuesday). Thank God! I may not have to go to Broadmoor after all.

…thanks to the Annals of Improbable Research, you get to see one, here.

Remember him? The little guy? He’s shilling for a loan agency, here, but watch out for the ‘flash if you don’t like that kind of thing.

…from 1895! Salina, KS Journal.

Would you pass?

With the recent innovation of changing “Christmas” into “Holiday” to accomodate everyone, it was inevitable that some humour would result.

The Christmas Party!
FROM: Pauline Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: 4th November 2004
RE: Christmas Party

I’m happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on December 23rd, starting at noon in the private function room at the Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! We’ll have a small band playing traditional carols … please feel free to sing along. And don’t be surprised if the MD shows up dressed as Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will be lit at 1.00p.m. Exchange of gifts among employees can be done at that time, however, no gift should be over $10.00 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone’s pockets. This gathering is only for employees! The MD will make a special announcement at the Party.

Merry Christmas to you and your Family.

Pauline

****************
FROM: Pauline Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: 5th November 2004
RE: Holiday Party

In no way was yesterday’s memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees. We recognize that Chanukah is an important holiday, which often coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However, from now on we’re calling it our ‘Holiday Party.’ The same policy applies to any other employees who are not Christians. There will be no Christmas tree or Christmas carols sung. We will have other types of music for your enjoyment.

Happy now?

Happy Holidays to you and your family,

Pauline.

**************
FROM: Pauline Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: 6th November 2004
RE: Holiday Party

Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table … you didn’t sign your name. I’m happy to accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that reads, “AA Only,” you wouldn’t be anonymous anymore!!!! How am I supposed to handle this? Somebody? Forget about the gift exchange; no gift exchange allowed now since the Union Officials feel that $10.00 is too much money and Management believe $10.00 is a little cheap. NO GIFT EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.

Pauline.

*****************
FROM: Pauline Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: 7th November 2004
RE: Holiday Party

What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20th begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees’ beliefs, perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party-or else package everything up for you to take home in a little foil doggy bag. Will that work?

Meanwhile, I’ve arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest from the dessert buffet and pregnant women will get the table closest to the toilets, Gays are allowed to sit with each other, Lesbians do not have to sit with gay men, each will have their own table. Yes, there will be flower arrangements for the gay men’s table too. To the person asking permission to cross dress-no cross dressing allowed. We will have booster seats for short people. Low fat food will be available for those on a diet. We cannot control the salt used in the food we suggest those people with high blood pressure taste the food first. There will be fresh fruits as dessert for Diabetics, the restaurant cannot supply “No Sugar” desserts. Sorry! Did I miss anything?!?!?!?!?!

Pauline.

****************
FROM: Pauline Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All F****** Employees
DATE: 8 November 2004
RE: The ******** Holiday Party.

Vegetarian pricks I’ve had it with you people !!! We’re going to keep this party at the Grill House whether you like it or not, so you can sit quietly at the table furthest from the “grill of death,” as you so quaintly put it, you’ll get your f****** salad bar, including organic tomatoes. But you know tomatoes have feeling too. They scream when you slice them. I’ve heard them scream. I’m hearing them scream right NOW!! I hope you all have a rotten holiday, drink and drive and die!

The Bitch from HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

******************
FROM: John Bishop – Acting Human Resources Director
DATE: 9th November 2004
RE: Pauline Lewis and Holiday Party

I’m sure I speak for all of us in wishing Pauline Lewis a speedy recovery, and I’ll continue to forward your cards to her. In the meantime, the Management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party and instead, give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd December off with full pay.

John

Happy birthday to you,
Zhu ni sheng re kuai le,
Happy birthday, dear Richard,
Happy birthday to youuuuuuu!

Many many happy returns of the day!

I’m watching FBI Files right now instead of BBC 10’o clock news. George Best died today and all the news outlets have been full of it. He’s said to be the best football player ever (=US soccer, of course), but his last years have been marred by his alcoholism, his liver transplant, and his subsequent return to drinking. There won’t be much on this in the US (although it was on CNN online). He’s been dying by degrees for the past month, and last night he was supposed to be imminently dying. It took a while. The satellite trucks and commentators were hovering around the hospital. So I presume that the first 10-15 minutes of the news tonight, like the first 10 minutes of the BBC4 6 o’clock news, will be devoted to him. I already know enough about him.

So while I’m sad he’s gone, and gone in that particularly unfortunate way, I just want to avoid the news until he’s been planted.

Watch out, the homosexual lifestyle vigilantes are on the loose, in the Onion, here.

On a related note, I wonder why there is no lesbian variant of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I should think that the potential for an interesting show is quite high.

In an article about a company that specialises in cleaning up after deaths and other unpleasant biohazard events, comes the following quote:

“I don’t care if you’re black, white, rich or poor, whether you live in the projects or a penthouse, everyone smells the same when they die,” Mr. Gospodarski said as he scraped a caramel-colored goo off the floor of Apartment 6-F this spring.

Just got skype working on the first laptop (we have a Chinese system of naming for our laptops: First Laptop and Second Laptop) and got my first call.

It was a wrong number.

As my homiletics professor at Dunwoodie used to say: “Preaching is like drilling for oil: if you don’t hit paydirt in five minutes, stop boring.” It was about 5 minutes long, just the right length for a cold church. St. John’s is just such a joy to visit; it really does energise me.

November 20, 2005-Feast of Christ the King
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, Larcom Street, 10 am.
Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17; Psalm 22; I Cor 15:20-26,28; Matthew 25:31-46

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

My grandfather was from the American state of Vermont. He was a Methodist for many years, until he met my future grandmother, whose mother wouldn’t let her date a Protestant. He duly became a Roman Catholic, and thus the Pyramids.

While he was a Methodist, he served as a sidesman in the church in his hometown. One day he was taking up the collection at a service for the foreign missions. A man who was locally famous for being close with a penny was sitting in the pew, and when the collection for the missions was being taken, my grandfather passed the plate to this man, who returned it without making a contribution. My grandfather passed him the plate again, and the man said, “I’m sorry; I don’t believe in giving to the foreign missions.” My grandfather shoved the plate under the man’s nose and said, “Since it’s for the heathens, maybe you should take some out.”

Modern religious discourse often talks a lot more about sin than about virtue, charity, and grace. And not just about any old sin, such as disobedience, lying, theft, coveting one’s neighbour’s goods, or setting up of false gods, all of which regularly take place either in Parliament or in the City, in the name of party politics or Capitalism. The sin that religious leaders like to talk about is sexual immorality. In some cases, the other sins that I’ve listed above are crowded out by that one class of sin. The Anglican Communion is currently riven with dissention: this has many causes, but the “presenting” cause, as a doctor or nurse would say, is immorality.

We tend to think that our time on Earth is unique: the things that we do and the sins that we commit are novel, tied to our time and our love of newfangled gadgets such as automobiles and computers. Moral theologians might now debate the question of whether email spamming is a sin or not. If they can fit it in between discussions of immorality, they might get around to it. As we all know, sadly, there is nothing new under the sun, and new sins are just old sins dusted off and set on the mantlepiece.

It’s important for us to particularly look at the sins that Jesus mentions in today’s Gospel. Not feeding the hungry, not giving drink to the thirsty, not offering shelter to the stranger, not giving clothes to the naked, nor a kind word and a smile to those who are sick, nor visiting a prisoner. These are the actions that Jesus finds sinful, and that is as true today as it was then.

Now I shan’t wear out my welcome by saying that we should never consider anything else as sinful: a person who does all these things to strangers and yet treats his or her family badly or embezzles money from his or her employer (as rich as their employer may be) is sinning just as much as someone who never feeds the hungry or clothes the naked. So why does Jesus focus on these particular sins of omission?

Ezekiel talks about the Lord being the shepherd of his flock, and says that the Lord himself will find them when they’re lost, give them pasture, allow them to rest, bandage their wounds, and even look after the sheep that are healthy. Sheep in their pasture are actually so dumb that they will eat the grass right down to the roots and then starve to death rather than find a new patch of grass. They need to be led around to new fields by the shepherd.

But in the Gospel, instead of being the shepherd and providing for the sheep and the goats, Jesus becomes their judge. And the actors are reversed. The needy people among us are stand-ins for Jesus himself. So providing for the well-being of the poor and disadvantaged is providing for Jesus as well. It’s a radical thought, this: in Biblical times those who were disadvantaged, poor, in ill health, or without food were thought to have brought their misfortune on themselves by offending God in some way. Even their parents or grandparents may have offended God, and the effects were felt throughout the generations.

Jesus is telling us that these people are not under God’s wrath; in fact, God expects us to fill in for Him and help to provide for their well-being. Those who do not, do not know God and are unwitting accomplices in their own judgment. Note the surprise of both sheep and goats when told that they have or have not tended to Jesus in the person of their fellow people. It’s not obvious, without God’s grace, that helping others is actually serving God directly.

I think that, at the end of the day (and perhaps the phrase “at the end of the day” is uniquely applicable to the Last Judgment) there are two lessons to take away from today’s Gospel. The first one is the obvious one: ignore the needs of the people with whom you share Earth at your peril. Jesus expects us to be mindful of the needs of others and to do our best to help them live and thrive. If we don’t, we now know the consequences.

The second one is the one that we often miss. The person who is doing the judging is Jesus, the Son of God. Not us, not the priest, not the Archbishop, not the Pope, and certainly not the civil government. The standards we’re being judged against are not human standards-they’re God’s standards. And God’s standards are high indeed. Those who fail to recognise Jesus in their fellow humans do not pass that standard.But we are not competent to pass judgment on anyone. Jesus does that, in his role as King and Judge of all of us. Thus the name of today’s feast.

I recently learned that in some languages, the word for “sheep” and the word for “goat” is the same word. They don’t see them or eat them in some parts of the world, preferring other livestock, so they don’t need two words for these animals: they’re similar enough so that one word will do. Similarly, we can think about this: the only way to discern which are the sheep and which are the goats in our Gospel today is through the eyes of Jesus. We can’t do it: judgment is not ours to give.

Be aware of God’s grace working good things in our lives; be watchful for opportunities to help people here on earth; act as the shepherd does towards the sheep. Feed them and watch over them. Make sure that the advantages we have are not due to laying our burdens on the backs of other people, but rather from sharing out the bounty we have been given by God among everyone in need. Let God do the judging-we must stick to the giving. That is how to end up as sheep and not goats. AMEN

This is a new program on Channel 4 here in the UK. A failing parish in the north of England, under the urging of their archdeacon, calls a priest from the United States to serve as vicar. They use the services of an ad agency and the priest’s industriousness to try to reverse the fortunes of the parish.

It’s an interesting program, made more interesting to me since I know the archdeacon. The Ven. Jonathan Greener was curate at St. Matthew’s at the Elephant, before becoming, in succession, Chaplain to the Bishop of Truro, Vicar of Church of the Good Shepherd in Brighton, and now Archdeacon of Pontefract in Wakefield diocese. He’s apt to have a mitre on his head before long.

The Grauniad says that the show includes a “faintly silly archdeacon”. Well, he may seem silly to some, but it’s probably because of the editing of the show.

We shall see what the parish and the priest get up to next week.

The gospel is Matthew 25:31-46, the account of the Last Judgment where Jesus separates everyone into sheep (who care for other people) and goats (who don’t). Neither group is aware of their charity or lack of it.

I think that once I’ve given it, I’ll post it here. If anyone is in the area, then come to St. John’s, Larcom St (third left after the Elephant and Castle off Walworth Road) at 10 am. I realise that some aren’t interested, but I’m just narcissistic enough that I’d like to share it with everyone else. I suppose that means I have a chance of ending up with the goats.

We watched it last night; I do hope that they up the comedy ante this season.

Some of the old skits absent this time around are: the projectile-vomiting lady, the giant agent and the very tiny actor, and the shopkeeper and his wife “Margret!?, Margret???” New this time around are: an incontinent elderly woman who loses control of her bladder in a shop, and a man who sends away for a mail-order Thai bride (pictured as slim and sexy in the magazine) and who gets a rather obese lady complete with suitcase ringing his front doorbell.

Returning are: Sebastian and the Prime Minister (who needs Sebastian to destroy some evidence), Dafydd (the Only Gay in the Village, who’s put up a personal ad at the local newsagent’s), Vicki Pollard, the wheelchair-unbound man with his friend (both of whose skit-names I forget), the “We are Ladiez!” couple, one of whom discovers in Brighton that she hadn’t shaved that morning and goes to a chemist’s shop for surprising results. (I like it when these things are filmed in places I’ve been and remember well). And, of course Bubbles de Vere, who meets her ex-husband’s new wife for the first time when they show up at the spa.

I think that this may be the last season, judging from some of the quality. They’re going for the belly-laughs from slapstick (watch Vicki trying to compete with a young lithe break-dancing girl; cringe as the incontenent lady pees more than an elephant all over the floor, see the Prime Minister in Sebastian’s clutches), and the new skits aren’t necessarily very funny. One of the glories of British TV humour is that, generally (with the notable exception of Absolutely Fabulous) the writers and cast of a show know when it’s time to stop and do something different.

Innovation often becomes tired after two to three seasons. One of the reasons Fawlty Towers is still endlessly rerun on all channels that can is that it was hilariously funny and didn’t wear out its welcome. Thus, we welcome it still. I hope we’ll be able to welcome Little Britain for years after it’s ended its run, and the the stars will continue to innovate in other vehicles.

I got up this morning later than usual as I hadn’t slept well in the middle of the night. I looked out the back door onto our rather unmowed back garden (=yard for the UK-challenged). There had been an orange candle in the garden and I had put it on the windowsill rather than throwing it out (you never know when you’ll need a candle, I guess). It was on the patio this morning. I thought “Wind’s blown it off the windowsill” and put it out of my mind as I started to make breakfast.

HWMBO came downstairs, we ate breakfast, and then as I began my morning trawl through the emails he called me to the back door and asked what had happened to the candle. I told him that I thought it had blown off the windowsill. He said, “And there’s something else in the garden. Get the key and take a look.” So I did. As I opened the door, what should we see but a fox, streaking out from under a shrub. We only saw his tail in our garden, but then he climbed over the fence between the next garden and the one next to that, and we saw all of him. He was about as big as a largeish cat (overfed cat) or a smallish dog (underfed dog). I picked up the candle and it had toothmarks all over it. So the wind hadn’t blown it off the windowsill; the fox had jumped up thinking the candle was edible and been disappointed.

I hear about urban foxes quite often, but have never, until this morning, seen one.

HWMBO hopes that the fox hasn’t eaten our squirrels, as they’ve been scarce lately.

From time to time I look at the text of spam messages that MailWasher Pro finds, just for fun. Came across the following today (with the link removed):

SPERMAMAX consists of 200% of Vitamin C.
Research has shown no side effects associated with SPERMAMAX.
Make the bed soaking wet with the amount of sperm that you can get by using Spermamax.

Now I can see something that is 100% Vitamin C, but 200%?

And who will be sleeping on the wet spot, pray tell?

but I passed 8th grade science. Woo!

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Try this guy’s service: $250 minimum, but you’re guaranteed to look your best. Click on a picture, then follow the instructions.

I’m surprised that the subjects of the photos gave permission for him to use their pics on the website. Maybe they didn’t pay up.

Woo haaa! Another item to blame on the hurricanes. Talk about a “blow job”…seems those hurricanes don’t just suck, they blow too.

They’re now able to get regular breaks. You gotta admire those Ozzies; they don’t overwork the sheilas.

You Are 70% “Average American”

You are average because you support affirmative action. You are not average since you have (at least) a college degree.

I really took this quiz just because I liked the flip-flops.

…comes from The Inquirer. It seems that Irish folk are so attached to their mobiles that they want to take them with them.

…to me was an extra 1 GB of memory in our desktop computer. It was 512 MB before; now it’s 1.5 GB. It flies. HWMBO is constantly observing that the machine is slow and I really need to take some stuff off it. Instead, I put some stuff on it. I also took the opportunity to vacuum the machine out (dust is flammable, you know) and remove the SCSI card which I no longer need since I bought the SCSI/USB adapter.

I used to put my own computers together; I only relented and bought this computer when my last home-brew’s power supply conked out. However, it’s good to keep your hand in by being able to replace memory, insert new hard disks, insert and remove cards, and generally be able to find your way around the inside of a computer. It’s out of warranty, so there are no consequences to opening it up.

As the machine is now faster, this was not only a present to me, it was a present to HWMBO too. The present that keeps on giving.

(psst!) I bought him his own domain name this week: www.liangtea.com. He doesn’t know it yet. I’m saving it up for his birthday next month.

You may wish to share this one with your cow-orkers. It’s now official: cow-tipping is difficult.

We may have a dead parrot to deal with here, unfortunately; however, dead parrots may tell no tales, according to this burglar. Beware: for the UK-challenged, there’s a lot of British slang in this article; translation will be provided upon application.

If you’re a computer-head, but also have a sense of humour that was developed before the 1960’s, you’ll find this funny.

I think that, with the number of asteroids far outnumbering the classical Greek, Roman, and Other mythological names, it’s very imaginative for a team of Bulgarian astronomers to name their latest find after a local celebrity: details are here. The picture is especially fine.

HWMBO and I just returned from St. Martin in the Fields church in central London, where Changing Attitude had its 10th Anniversary service capped by an address by Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Everything was fantastic. Gene is an absolutely fabulous preacher (although this sermon was after the service and it was an “address”, not a sermon) and spoke for more than an hour with minimal notes. However, I hope someone publishes the text, because he was superb. His basic massage was “I (ie, Gene Robinson) am not the message; Jesus is the message.” and he elaborated on that theme for the entire time.

We saw our former rector. Angus, who was sprightly and warm as ever; we saw many friends and had a nice time at the reception. Some photojournalist from the Telegraph took a photo of my Rainbow lapel badge because my lapel was pinstripe and I guess he thought it would appeal to the Torygraph’s rightwing blue rinse readers.

The music was fabulous, although they seemed to think that some of the old hymns weren’t good enough, and set new words to them, which haven’t yet stood the test of time.

Last night at the party for Changing Attitude volunteers, Gene autographed my copy of his ordination program…he was surrounded by minders after the consecration and hardly anyone could get close enough to him to speak with him. He’s very approachable and has an uproarious laugh. I suppose he needs to laugh a lot.

Jeffrey John was also at the party last night. He has put on some weight since I saw him last (which was before all the foofaraw over his appointment as Bishop of Reading). He’s been through the wringer so I guess I don’t begrudge him a bite or two. It turns out that he and Gene were in regular email contact but had never actually met before last night.

The question I wanted to ask Gene was: “Given that the US Presiding Bishop election is next summer, what do you think the Anglican Communion’s reaction would be to the first openly gay primate.” I didn’t get a chance to ask it, more’s the pity.

…and no further comment from me is required.

I’m sure that some of you out there will know of a non-invasive (that is, one that doesn’t depend on another site) website hit counter. I do not want to have one which has to go to another site, as it’s likely that it collects more than your hit statistics. Some of them also serve up ads, which I object to.

If you do, could you give me a pointer to where it is, or a web reference so that I can investigate it myself? A google produced thousands of hits on so-called “free” hit counters, all of which serve up ads.