Listen / Read By a random coincidence, I went to an open mic spoken word night last night where I read an uber-long poem I’ve been writing which utilizes a reoccurring bee metaphor throughout. I know, I know, I’m a hypocrite, what with my referring to Rhidian Brook as an animal metawhore. But I think [...]
Monthly Archives: October 2008
Thursday 2nd October 2008: Dom Antony Sutch
Listen / Read Marvellous. I’m sure we were all looking forward to Miracle Monk’s next instalment. I know I was. And I thought that was a cracking start. It was the “and an aunt is a nun” that really killed me. It caused me to experience the sensation of blowing coffee out my nose, but [...]
Friday 3rd October 2008: Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks
Listen / Read All the vast majority of people have to atone for is being lulled into a false sense of security by a Chancellor who talked of an end to boom and bust, and a finance industry that convinced people they could dip into an endless well of credit, deceiving them into taking money [...]
Saturday 4th October 2008: Catherine Pepinster
Listen / Read I think Pepinster is suggesting that our relationship with food has become a bit weird. I tend to agree. The other week I had one of those terrifying moments of self-realisation mid-coitus with a bath of couscous. It suddenly dawned on me that something had gone horribly wrong somewhere along the way.
Monday 6th October 2008: Rev Dr Alan Billings
Listen / Read Well slap me silly with a Danish existentialist’s willy! Kierkegaard also said that “To stand on one leg and prove God’s existence is a very different thing from going on one’s knees and thanking Him.” Well. Quite.
Tuesday 7th October 2008: Dr Indarjit Singh
Listen / Read I agree with Singh. I more or less said the same sort of thing in response to Sacks’ reading the other day, though I’m angrier at the finance industry and more forgiving of people in general. I do however think everyone’s an idiot and the human race is a disease – I’m [...]
Wednesday 8th October 2008: Rt Rev James Jones
Listen / Read Some of the people who manage money in the finance industry might be religious so we should forgive them for putting at risk the very economic structures upon which Western society depends. That’s what JJ says. I say fuck them, fuck him, and fuck every other Thought for the Day reader who [...]
Thursday 9th October 2008: Rev Rosemary Lain-Priestley
Listen / Read Phew. I’m fed up of listening to religious commentaries of the economic shithittingfan but relieved that another speaker didn’t tell us all to think of all those faithful, hard-done-by, scapegoated bankers. The poor rich bastards.
Friday 10th October 2008: Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks
Listen / Read I thought this one would sound better with a backing track : [Audio clip: view full post to listen] Much better. In fact, I think the Chief Rabbi should do a cover version. It could go something like this:
Saturday 11th October 2008: Rev Roy Jenkins
Listen / Read This tourism initiative bollocks will probably work. Everyone loves those Who Do You Think You Are? programmes. I’ve caught a couple, they can be quite good. There’s something compelling about looking over dusty old records locked away in a local library somewhere in Bavaria, or Gujarat. Or Swansea. It’s like a good [...]
Monday 13th October 2008: Rev Dr Alan Billings
Listen / Read Fuck off fuck off fuck off you Thought for the Day twatbags. You everyone but me is a hypocrite horse shit shovellers. You preachy, patronising prickwads. You stupid, inflated fart articulators. Fuck off and go away. Stop taking up airtime so we might learn something other than that we’re all immoral and [...]
Tuesday 14th October 2008: Dr Indarjit Singh
Listen / Read They’re really hammering this. Today Dr Singh says that just like when you have to turn to the instructions when your Ikea self-assembly wardrobe starts to look like modern art, you have to turn to religious scripture when the economy starts to look like a clusterfucking shitmare. Because they’re the real instructions [...]
Wednesday 15th October 2008: Rt Rev James Jones
Listen / Read JJ’s back! He wasn’t gone long was he? You start to get a feeling there are only about 6 or 7 clergy-folk and religious commentators in the country who want to do Thought for the Day. Could it be that most of them don’t think it’s their place to go on national [...]
Thursday 16th October 2008: Rev Rosemary Lain-Priestley
Listen / Read I’m really glad we have people who are eager to go on national radio, have their voices heard by millions of listeners across the land, to tell us all that we must utilise our ambition to better enrich others with our Giant Sky Fairy-given gifts and aptitudes, and enrich ourselves by fulfilling [...]
Friday 17th October 2008: Rt Rev Lord Harries of Pentregarth
Listen / Read I’m actually inclined to agree with the ridiculously titled Harries’ overall suggestion that when everything comes tumbling down, you do have the opportunity to better rebuild it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hoping for that. But commentators have also been reminding us that the Great Depression contributed to the political [...]
Saturday 18th October 2008: Rev Roy Jenkins
Listen / Read Having written over two and a half months worth of Afterthoughts now, I’m beginning to get a little bit sick and tired of actually having to really listen to what a lot of these people say. If you really give any thought to these 3 minute indulgences, your brain starts to go [...]
Monday 20th October 2008: Rev Dr Alan Billings
Listen / Read As a British Anglican, perhaps Billings thinks himself a progressive, a forward thinking reformer. Unlike their African counterparts, the Church of England has tried to change with the times, to not make policy based purely on principles contained in the Bible. Of course I’m talking about homosexuality.
The Atheist Bus Campaign has arrived!
atheistcampaign.org Blerb : The Atheist Bus Campaign launches today, Tuesday October 21. With your support, we hope to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across the capital for four weeks with the slogan: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Donate online now! Professor Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The God [...]
Tuesday 21st October 2008: Akhandadhi Das
Listen / Read Last year when I was doing some induction training for climbing and ropes courses, belaying and whatnot, I was told that practice does not necessarily make perfect. Rather, perfect practice makes perfect. I think when you’ve got someone hanging 50ft up on the end of of your belay line, that adjustment is [...]
Wednesday 22nd October 2008: Oliver McTernan
Listen / Read Yes, if only all religious people were humble and not consumed by religious self-righteousness. That would be nice wouldn’t it. But aren’t we living in a dream world to hope for such a thing?
Thursday 23rd October 2008: Rev Rosemary Lain-Priestley
Listen / Read Gorgeous. I didn’t think it would be long before this came up. In your face Christians! You said we’d never manage it but we’re at £87,000 and still counting! Skank on you! Nah nah na nah nah! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Let me compose myself…
Friday 24th October 2008: Rt Rev Lord Harries of Pentregarth
Listen / Read You can’t help but feeling that George Osborne crossed swords with Peter Mandelson and got pissed on.
Saturday 25th Ocotber 2008: Rev Roy Jenkins
Listen / Read I’m just going to veto this Thought for the Day because it has too much football related content and relates to a topic I’m fed up of hearing discussed from a religious perspective, and fed up of responding to.
Monday 27th October 2008: Rabbi Lionel Blue
Listen / Read As soon as I heard that paired greeting, it put a little smile on my face. I really like Lionel Blue. His kindly tones calm and soothe me, the quiet modesty of his every inflection, the gently rolling modulation of his voice is just what I need in a morning.
Tuesday 28th October 2008: Akhandadhi Das
Listen / Read I’ve been half-heartedly trying to formulate some sort of response to this reading in my mind. As usual it’s a case of two unrelated, utterly incongruous things – a current news item and a current religious festival – being smudged together like plasticine and sand, ruining one and wasting the other. So [...]
Wednesday 29th October 2008: Oliver McTernan
Listen / Read Peter Hearty made note of the fact McTernan seemed a little bit dismissive of the opinions of the senior military officers he met who all held negative views on Islamic culture. It does seem perhaps that while he says there’s a need for a more nuanced approach to the Muslim world, his [...]
Thursday 30th October 2008: Anne Twatkins
Listen / Read Griselda? That’s such a bourgeois namedrop. But that’s my problem. Anne Atkins is an eloquent idiot. Reading this cockswallop on live radio isn’t as easy as it sounds. Most difficult of all is pronouncing the word ‘simple’. But on the whole she seems to make such light work of it, she sounds [...]
Friday 31st October 2008: Rt Rev Lord Richard Harries
Listen / Read Erm… yeah. Cock-on Harries, cock-on. Same again next time please. Other Thought for the Day speakers, I hope you were paying attention (fat chance, I know). This new legislation is excellent news, a political success. But as with most things in politics, it does seem to have been the product of compromise, [...]