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Catherine Pepinster is editor of the Catholic weekly, The Tablet, and she’s a regular contributor to various newspapers. She penned an article entitled “Let us rejoice Tony Blair’s conversion” in the Telegraph last December. She said “it must be a sign that Roman Catholicism really has come in from the cold in this [...]
Monthly Archives: August 2008
Friday 1st August 2008: Catherine Pepinster
Saturday 2nd August 2008: Rev Rob Marshall
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Bollocks to sport and bollocks to anyone who likes it. I hate sports coverage. I’ll be listening to the Today Programme or the World Service perhaps, learning what’s going on in the world (at least what they tell us is going on in the world), hearing all sorts of fascinating stories and discussions [...]
Monday 4th August 2008: Rev Dr Alan Billings
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Well that was a bit of a rubbish Thought for the Day. Peter Hearty over at Platitude of the Day gave it a 3 out of 5, or ‘fairly platitudinous’. I think if ‘boringness’ was factored in then a 5 would be entirely warranted.
Wednesday 6th August 2008: Rt Rev Tom Butler
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I think what Dr Butler did here was try his best to see if he could say as little in his first Thought for the Day since the Lambeth Conference as was said at the Lambeth Conference. Which was a challenging task to set himself considering that nothing was said at the Lambeth [...]
Thursday 7th August 2008: Rev Roy Jenkins
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“Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye… Forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes”. But what if you get amnesia? Is it fair that after losing your memory you should also lose your sight? I for one think that sucks balls. And does it work the other way around? If [...]
Friday 8th August 2008: Catherine Pepinster
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Why did I have to start this when the Olympics were on? I’m going to spend the next two weeks listening to airy fairy platitudes with a sporting twist. Balls. Balls balls balls.
You can blame good old Saul of Tarsus for just about everything. Including sports metaphors. I hate sports metaphors. I slipped [...]
Saturday 9th August 2008: Brian Draper
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I think this the best Thought for the Day I’ve listened to so far in writing Afterthought. Brian Draper is absolutely right. The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t hesitate to put little girls on your lap because the chances you’ll be accused of being a paedo are actually pretty slim. [...]
Monday 11th August 2008: Rev Angela Tilby
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Well, don’t I feel morally repugnant. Because if you click on the ‘gubbins’ link above you’ll see that I joyously provided linkage to Victoria Coren’s latest column, which pretty much sums up the same attitudes Tilby was condemning. I even said “she was asking for it”. Shame on me. I’ll never be able [...]
Tuesday 12th August 2008: Akhandadhi Das
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Well, obviously the Kremlin were listening to this morning’s Thought for the Day because the Hindu teachings so touched them that they immediately decided to call an end to their military operations in Georgia. You must admit, the timing is uncanny. Just a couple of hours after the broadcast aired reports came in [...]
Wednesday 13th August 2008: Rev Dr Giles Fraser
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Serious question: would you fuck a dolphin? I think if we’re really to communicate with this intelligent and beautiful creature, we should communicate through the language of love. Or at least the language of good firm fucking. And I know dolphins really enjoy making the beast with two backs, being one of the [...]
While you’re waiting…
Today’s ‘depressing’ installment will follow… sometime. Meanwhile, you’ll probably find pertinent my most recent blog entry at crowth.net, Godless mishmoshery.
Thursday 14th August 2008: Rev Roy Jenkins
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Sorry for the delay today. Life, and the particularly slow pace at which I live it, got in the way.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? For no particularly good reason I happen to know off the top of my head the Aramaic for “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It’s just one [...]
Friday 15th August 2008: Catherine Pepinster
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Have any Christians read Weber at all? I know The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism isn’t one of the books of the Bible, but it might come as a bit of a revelation to anyone who thinks a return to Christian values is the antidote for mammonism. But then Pepinster [...]
Saturday 16th August 2008: Brian Draper
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I like to plug Adam Curtis at every opportunity I get so if you’ve not already seen the BBC documentary The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, then you should seek it out. Now. The quickest way being via Google Video where all three parts (Fuck You Buddy, The Lonely Robot [...]
Monday 18th August 2008: Rev Dr Alan Billings
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Identity is not as tied down as it used to be, but social mobility is lower than it was 30 years ago. So if you’re born into an affluent family you’ll probably stay affluent, if you’re born into a poor family you’ll probably stay poor. It’s the 21st century and our social identity [...]
Tuesday 19th August 2008: Vishvapani
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“Real change comes from engaging with life as it is, not as we want it to be”. That’s probably the wisest statement I’ve heard so far in writing Afterthought. Buddhism may be known somewhat for its retreats and for ‘taking refuge’, and a postcard parody of religious truisms I once had sent me [...]
Wednesday 20th August 2008: Rev Dr Giles Fraser
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Fraser’s Thought today was heartfelt, insightful and perhaps a little moving. No mention of dolphins either, which is probably best for all concerned (don’t worry, I’m getting counselling). Of course, there wasn’t much mention of religion today, no ‘and that reminds me of Jesus’ or ‘it’s like St Paul said’ or ‘if only [...]
Thursday 21st August 2008: Elaine Storkey
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I’m a bit confused by Storkey’s approach to this topic. She lists a couple of particularly negative assessments of alpha parentalism in education, which we are reading about more and more frequently in the papers, and then says never mind, it’s a return to Biblical family values, so it must be good.
Friday 22nd August 2008: Canon David Winter
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I’m sure that Spanair would like Winter’s take on this. Don’t blame us, shit happens. We’re already hearing a lot about troubles at the airline and uncertainty before takeoff. Perhaps someone is to blame. I don’t know how things work in Spain but if it were the UK it would no doubt be [...]
Saturday 23rd August 2008: Brian Draper
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Yeah, isn’t it awful when Christians shove the Bible down your throat. Those “so-called religious people” with a “well deserved reputation for being judgemental hypocrites”. It’s “especially ironic given that Jesus confronted this attitude head-on”. Are you kidding us Brian Draper? Or are you just pre-empting the satire by parodying yourself? I don’t [...]
Monday 25th August 2008: Clifford Longley
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“So the Catholic Church in Italy now faces a difficult choice.”
If that’s true, then they’re really in trouble.
Let’s think about this apparently difficult choice. According to Longley, it’s a choice between racial persecution and liberal values.
Tuesday 26th August 2008: Vishvapani
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What do we want society to become?
I’d settle for fairer and less about money. Actually, perhaps just less about money. I think a society that didn’t revolve entirely around money would subsequently become fairer. So, just a bit less about money. That’d do me.
But while I’m on the subject… I suppose there are [...]
Wednesday 27th August 2008: Rev Dr Giles Fraser
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Serious question: would you fuck a cloud?
Only kidding. I’m just sidetracked by all this talk of oncoming clouds spilling their radioactive loads. What else was going to happen though? The atom picked a fight with Russia, so someone was going to get their ass handed to them. And it wasn’t going to be [...]
Thursday 28th August 2008: Elaine Storkey
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So people don’t always mean what they say? Or say what they mean? Or even know what they really mean when they say what they think they mean? What, even politicians? Well, bugger me backwards with a bent backbencher.
And it would be a good thing if people tried to mean what they say, [...]
Friday 29th August 2008: Canon David Winter
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I heard on the news that Putin suggested the Georgian conflict was cooked up by the US in an attempt to promote a climate which would influence the election. The idea being that the threat of war would turn voters away from the inexperienced Barack Obama and towards the septuagenarian former Vietnam POW, [...]
Saturday 30th August 2008: Rev Roy Jenkins
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Despite the fact that my clock radio tuned into Radio 4 at 7.40am this morning, I didn’t really wake up until 8am. So although I might have dreamt about today’s instalment, I have no recollection of it. This wouldn’t normally be a problem as the marvellous maintainers of the BBC’s recently re-designed website [...]