Anthropax's Old Blog

Quick update - the snow is sticking, and carrying on falling, so there should be a good bit in the morning. I've also over-indulged a little too much on the alcohol front. I was tempted with cries of "It's Lent tomorrow", and real life seems a little fuzzy. Well, if I'm going without alcohol and puddings for 40 days and 40 nights, then I should mark the last night with a bit of a bang - and hopefully I'll feel a little under the weather in the morning, making my resolve easier to keep. I was also flirted at, as a tactical move between to factions in the Pagan Soc - one of my housemate Pagans, and one of a seductress witch. She did flirt with everyone though, even the chaste Catholic Priest-to-be. ho-hum. Good night, and good luck!

The weather here in mid-Wales is so very different from the sunny balm of South East Wales, for today it is snowing. Visibility can just drop to a couple of hundred yards ahead of you in a few moments, and then clear so you can see the hills blanketed in white. I just got covered in snowflakes about half a centimetre accross, in the walk from the refectory where I lunched (Paella and Veg + pancake for £2.50 - bargin) to one of the IT suites. The other news is that it is (or should be) St Davids day. "Why?" I hear you cry, "isn't that popular saint so linked with Welsh identity venerated on his Saints day, which this year is on Wednesday? Why is that fool and buffoon celebrating it today?". The logic is clear. As the Feast of St. David is a feast day, it cannot be celebrated during the fast which is Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday, or (if you will...) tomorrow. Therefore, as a feast day cannot be celebrated in Lent, the feast day has to brought forward to the nearest day outside Lent, which happens to be today.

...it's a post from a right-winger who takes issue with the Church's removal of investment from the company that makes the bulldozers that the IDF use to bulldoze Palestinian homes. Read it here. My post on the subject is here. The C of E is always, and I mean always wittering about diversity in all things. Having abandoned 99% of its faith's actual tenets in pursuit of it, there is however a last 1% that I personally would love to see go the way of the rest. Oh please. Which tenants would that be please? The 39 articles? Not that they are tenents as such, but they are quite near, how about 'upholding the catholic (note small 'c' to the more protestant wings of the church) faith', which the Athanasian creed states is to worship the Trinity. Lets have a look at that shall we? Well, I for one can't see any arianism going on in the Church today, so that seems fine. Ok, how about as Richard Hooker says, the 'three-legged stool' of Tradition, Reason and Scripture, with the different wings of the Church placing more emphasis on one 'leg' or another, but still getting along just about fine. How about this? If the writer of the original post feels that these three legs have been worn down to small stumps, leaving nothing, then he must be sorely mistaken. That 1% is the identity of the ArchBishop of Canterbury. I presume from this line that the writer means Rowan Williams, as he is, well, the Archbishop of Canterbury. I was blessed with having Rowan as my diocean bishop for a number of years, and my Archbishop (both of Wales, and of Canterbury) more recently. Rowan is a very Holy man. I think it would be hard for any who are in his presence to not be impressed by his calm, and spirituality. While showing Christs love through social liberalism, his theology is rather orthodox, as seen in his reaction to the unorthodox (some would say heretical) bishop Spong. His academic credentials are impecable, with numerous highly articulate works having been published, including a superb book on the Desert Fathers that I am working my way through at the moment. He was a founding member of Affirming Catholicism, and I am honoured to say that he confirmed me into the Church. Now this post has, I think no one could disagree, been filled by a constant stream of white upper class Liberals whose Leftist political credentials far exceed their spiritual ones. But surely this uniformity of white upper class twits isnt very diverse at all? Lets have a look at the current ABC, and the one that proceded him. Rowan was born in a middle class family, and went to a Grammer school. There, not upper-class. You can see above for his spiritual credentials, keeping in mind that Rowan almost became a monk, such is his spirituality. Rowan was proceded by George Carey, who was born in working-class London, and went to a secondary modern school. He's also a conservative evangelical. So how's about this. I have the perfect candidate for the next Archbish. He's Black, he's back and I think he's absolutely brilliant. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Archbishop Peter Akinola. Whilst the rest of the PC Priests are far concerned with Palestinian Solidarity and removing Israel from existence through economic boycott whilst in Nigeria Muslims burn churches and slaughter dozens of their fellow Christians, Mr Akinola is emphatically not fussed about slapping around the Joooooz. He's actually - gasp! - interested in the fate of oppressed Christians. This possibly makes him - uniquely - the only person in the Anglican hierarchy who may possibly be capable of halting or even reversing the Church's near-terminal decline. I don't think I need to comment on this bit. There have been troubles in Nigeria for a long time, and I hope and pray that they can be resolved in a peaceful and loving manner. Akinola seems to be a rather devisive force in the communion, falling out with various churches around the globe, and I feel that many of his comments have urged on Christian mobs to act in a most unchristian manner, burning over 80 people in the street. He most certainly should not become ABC. I'm really serious about this. I dont know how many of my readers are Anglicans or even Christians, and how many will just snigger at the idea. I'm most emphatically not a religious man, but I know plenty of people who are. So get onto your keyboards, break out those letter-writing kits, and send good old Rowan 'boycott the Joooooz' Williams a line. This line, to be precise. Rowan has clearly stated that the Church's actions are not a boycott on the State of Israel, and most certainly not on all of world Jewry. "You have betrayed every ideal our Church once stood for. Please have the decency to resign in favour of a man who hasn't." Pah! what a load of hogswash! Message ends.

Technorati Tag: Anglican

...to Portia Simpson-Miller, the newly elected president of Jamaica. Not only is she a woman, but also a member of the democratic socialist People's National Party (considering that Jamaica is supposed to be quite conservative in nature, this is a great step forward). I wonder how much the left-wing gains made in South America influenced the voters.

Via so many people, words fail.

...module is one that I suddenly have to do because of my transfer to Theology. It starts on Tuesday, so I picked up the course outline today. One particular part of the assessment captured my eye. We get to write a case study on divorce and remarriage/the 'War on Terror'/Assisted dying/Herceptin, through the medium of either an essay (bit dull, done enough of them), a newspaper article (hmm, not too bad, but still...) or a Sermon/talk (hell yes! and, you know, may come in useful some time...). *edit* We're having to do a dreadful IT module as part of the course. Now if I was some emotionless scientist (sorry Ronald, I don't mean you), who could barely talk to other human beings without refering to numbers (again, I don't mean you Ronald) in the "everything I know about people, I learnt from pens/computers/numbers/bacteria first" way, then I could understand the importance of more than basic IT. However. I am a Theologian and Anthropologist. I look at people, and abstract concepts. I can quote from texts that are thousands of years old in my essays. In the words of one fellow theologian "I'm going to be a preist, I won't even need to touch a computer if I can help it", and other arts diciplines are the same (although without the being a preist thing for most). Although, ironically, the preist-to-be in question is a blogger. Ahm. To cut a long story short, I can't see much use for anything more than basic IT, for humanities students (although there are cases where it may be needed I admit). To make passing the course depentand upon making a website about Stephan Fry seems pointless.

I had a great big time test at 9.00 this morning on Early Church History (or ECH as us craaazzy cats call it - we're just Wilde like in our wit at times), and I plumped for the question on Constantine 1: "Eusebius of Caesarea wrote: 'Constantine... became a friend f the all-sovereign God and was established as a clear example to all mankind of the life of godliness'. Is this a fair assessment of the life and reign of Constantine?" It turns out that the reading of the wikipedia articles as a major part of the revision payed off, as all those facts (some slightly dubious though) contributed to the list of family members that he killed. Most hot blogging action has taken place on James 'Africa is a nation' Skinner's blog. I've managed to disagree with him on the Death penalty (i.e. not thinking that criminals should be killed because they cost the taxpayer money), 'Political correctness' (i.e. thinking that it's OK to call fundamentalists 'ignorant bigots'), and Cannabis (i.e. recognising that cannabis is not addictive, and in particular when compared to alcohol).

The Go! Team!!!!!!!!!!!! etc. The Uni is organising a small trip down to The Coal Exchange on the 7th of next month. It's going to be ace. If any Guardian readers think that they recognise the name, it could be because they were jammin' with it last Friday.

1. One Of Multiculturalism’s Great Success Stories "They arrive on our shores with nothing –many have never seen a city before- yet integrate well into British society, despite profound differences of culture and beliefs, and the racism they encounter." 2. News from the DPRK! "Screened at the film shows were Korean films including "Respected Comrade Kim Jong Il Is the Great Thinker and Theoretician" and "The Great Leadership Guiding the Building of a Great Prosperous Powerful Nation to Victory". Meanwhile, a special bulletin titled "Kim Jong Il totally dedicated to the Korean revolution" was issued by the Group of Youth for the Study of Kim Jong Il Juche Idea in Vienna on Feb. 14, a bulletin titled "Feb. 16, the birthday of great leader HE Kim Jong Il" by the National Preparatory Committee of Tanzania for Commemorating the Day of the Sun" You don't get film titles like the above often enough.

...eucharist went very well. It had some nice touches, like the sending out of catechumens, and a lovely Orthadox-inspired section about the 'ten thousand times ten thousand angels forever crying out and saying "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord". Also, the deacon had a part to play in the liturgy, and although the High alter was used, and the priest has his back to the congregation, it felt rather good. However, the lack of the usual processing in with a thurifer and crucifer was a little odd. I've just looked out of the window, and it's snowing. Which is nice. *edit* The snow was a bit crap to be honest - the ground was wet, so the snow didn't stick. The side affect of the snow was that I twisted my ankle when I walking along the street with Louise. The other news may interest Jo, who isn't Jewish (although I must admit that I assumed she was, having been to Israel with the UJS, but anyway), but Lampeter now has a J-soc. Hurrah etc. I've also had to take issue with someone over at James Skinner's site (see left), who think that prisoners should be killed if the cost the taxpayer too much money. This is clearly wrong from so very many viewpoints, not just a religious one. Technorati Tag: Anglican

Hurrah for John!

...lecture that mentioned blogging! Although it was only in passing, and that it was a good way of discovering people's opinions. Even though, it seems an interesting step. I've been a bit sporadic with blogging as of late, this is due to my (slightly) increased workload. I finished off a rather tricky Early Church History essay on the Christological views presented at the Council of Nicaea, and brought in Hosius of Cordova as well as Arius and Athanasius. As part of Uni tradition, every year we have a Chapel service with historical liturgy. Tonight, it's the turn of the non-jurors liturgy of 1718! An exciting proposition as I'm sure you all agree, dear readers.

Hmmm. I'm inclined to support the synod's views on ethical investment. I don't think it is anti-semitic at all, as Rowan has been trying to make clear. I'm in the position of being Jewish enough to have anti-semitic abuse posted on here, but am also an Anglican. I have a gut feeling that Israeli actions seem to bring about anti-semitism on non-Israeli Jews throughout the world. While I'm not going to compare the destruction of Palestinian homes to slavery, the Church has made unethical mistakes in the past, and withdrawing support for some Israeli actions is, I guess an attempt to avoid such things again. The Church has made it quite clear that this is not a call for the boycott of Israel, and, to be honest, I think Rabbi Sacks is making an undue fuss. I've read a few of Rabbi Sacks' books, and find him to be a superb, and spiritual, writer, but he should know that to condemn the actions of Israel is not to condemn the members of the diaspora. Read about it here: Church of England website Jerusalem Post NYTimes BBC In times like this, I try to think what Jesus would do (it sounds corney, yes, but it does help focus the mind), and after contemplation, I feel that the Anglican communion should remove investment in the firm.

Technorati Tag: Anglican

...popped on down (up?) to Lampeter on Friday. It was jolly nice to see him, as we were rather good friends at school, and I hadn't seen him since the Christmas hols. I showed him the sights of Lampeter (which took around 7 minutes), and I gave a little tour around the Uni. We had a swift drink in the Union bar, and I introduced Humphrey to Bridget and Nick, as well as Louise, and then nipped around to see Amanda, but she was... unavailable. There was then time for a cup of tea and a chat, before heading off for a lovely meal. Then, across the county line to vist the local pub. All in all, a fun time.

...from Anthropology and Religious Studies, to Anthropology and Theology. So I am now a theologian! I'm reading a (very amusing) monograph of life on the Kiribati islands, called 'Sex lives of Cannibals'. Needless to say the title is one that mocks the sensationalist headlines and titles of some anthropological books. Despite this, I borrowed it from a friend, as I would rather have walked over hot coals than ask for, let alone purchase such a book in a shop.

Happy SAD day

...odd stories from the beeb today. Firstly, it seems the new thing to do for couples in love is to get a matching nose job. Well, it's slightly less tacky than matching bling from Argos, but only slightly. What concerns me though is this; if you saw a couple walking down the street, who looked rather similar to each other, it would be easy to mistake them for siblings who were rather too close. There was also a story about the Prime Minister of Bulgaria filming a birthday video with him as Hugh Grant, but I can't find it. I've also decided to back Ming. I think that an older 'statesman' type person is what the Lib Dems need, and he always seems popular when he's on Question Time. I'm a bit worried after his fluffing of his first PMQT, but he seems to be over that. He also seems to be the most green of the candidates, and looks like he could work well with Brown on the subject of Africa.

...of yummy food, we had a small family meal at The Stonemill Restaurant, in order to celebrate my little sister getting into HMSG. The food was very close to divine, and in order to get my dear readers taste buds tingling I'll let you know what I had. Firstly, seared king scallops with Parma ham crisps, white bean puree and sun blushed tomatoes for my starter. The scallops were heavenly (and on the large side), and the Parma ham rounded off the textures well. For the main course I plumped for a juicy fillet of (local) Longhorn beef on a port-braised shallot base. This was rounded off by a lovely gingery sticky toffee pudding. In other news, after chatting with a few people, it seems a certain Mr Sam Korn is heading towards being a man of the cloth.

...thinking about 'doing' Spain in the summer. Perhaps fly to Madrid, and then use the train network to go to the various cities. Try to cross off a few more on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list. I'd also get to use my Spanish, and see some of the finest Cathedrals in the world. Flights are cheap as well. £100 or so, and should take advantage of my being a European citizen, and therefore having free movement across the entire continent. Not to mention the fine food. Yum.

...couldn't help but notice a rather nice Birthday present for Humph. Dunfermline and West Fife by-election 2006 Liberal Democrat - 12,391 Labour - 10,591 SNP - 7,261 Conservative - 2,702 So much for Lib Dems being a joke of a party eigh? Not bad for a party "which is in a never ending downward spiral heading towards failure" is it? It's worth noting that the 'Cameron effect' didn't help the Tories at all.

...locked in discussion with fundamentalist evangelical Christians. Lampeter's Evangelical Christian Union (not associated with the Uni, cos, well, they're nearly fascists). The term 'fundamentalist' is accurate, as they all (there was a panel of four) told us that they believed the Holy Bible was literally true, and that there are no discreponcies in it. at all. To keep a long tale short, we (myself, and two RC's, one of them being John) trounced them, using logic, scripture and cunning rhetoric. One was an archeology student with long hair, who, dispite feeling that everything was entirely true, looked shocked when I quoted St. Paul's views on men with long hair. This was part of the larger arguement as to why they hold the (rather reactionary and mysogonistic) writings of St Paul as of equal value to The Blessed Gospels. The Bible is not a literal document to be used as part of a legalistic morality (the sort of morality that Jesus opposed), but a guiding text that is the biography of the Word incarnate. I came away from the event with a half-formednotion in my head, that I've since had time to work on a bit. Is it idolatry to hold the Bible up as infallable? To hold up The Bible as 'The Word of God', when Christ is the Logos made flesh. To make this book that provides fantastic insight into the life of Jesus and some elements of the Early Church, as almost another part of the Trinity is wrong. I'm not sure I'm being clear enough here, as the idea still needs some working on, but I think this could be important. Technorati Tag: Anglican

Thank-you Mr Skinner for your inciteful comments, they reveal quite a bit about you. In particular the: "Royston eat sh*t and die, Love everyone XXX" "Shut up you fu*king smelly jew" The IP address of the person leaving these comments: 81.86.13.173 The IP address of Mr Skinner (from previous comments): 81.86.13.173 notice anything? Ah, the joys of Haloscan - it lets you know the IP thingy of the commenters. You're banned for, well, as long as I feel like. Ciao

The whole thing about the below has realy upset me. I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while, at least until I can sort some things out. It may be a day or two, or a week, or even more - keep checking up dear reader, although I may be a bit down, I guess I was just nieve to thing that people on the internet were not too bad. Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.

I decided to egogoogle (a word as fun to type as it is to spell - go on, try it) 'Anthropax' just now, while I had a bit of time to spare, and came accross the following article (warning, anti-semitic content). This "Luke O'Farrell" mentioned a small post that I had written, commenting about the arrest of David Irving. 'Luke' had written about how Jewish people hate free speech (mentioning Mel Phillips and Mark Steyn), and seems to have come accross my blog (at the time, I had been having problems with some of Mr Skinner's friends - I'm not saying there's a connection between one right-wing bigot and another right-wing bigot, but there may be). He wrote: In November 2005 the British historian David Irving was arrested in Austria to be put on trial for a speech he had made ten years before questioning the official history of Auschwitz. This was a much more important story than the police merely questioning a “homophobe” for comments on the radio, and “the left” that Mel so despises was certainly buzzing with the news. Here’s a comment from one of its shining ornaments, a Jew who describes himself as a wavering “athiest” (sic) and a “rather liberal, tolerant person with chums from a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds”: Friday, November 18, 2005: David Irving arrested Although I first found out on Jo’s Journal [a blog run by a Jewish lesbian NuLabourite], I haven’t got around to blogging about it (although I did help update the wikipedia article – Go team me!), I’m pleased to report that racist “historian” and and [sic] denier of the Shoah David Irving has been arrested in Austria, and could face 20 years in prison. Hurrah! # posted by Anthopax @ 17:54 3 Glorious Comrades! T (0) It’s no surprise to find a Jew who hates free speech and has “Glorious Comrades!” at work on Kikipedia, but if we apply Melanie Phillips’ own principle to what Irving said – “Free speech should only be constrained in extreme circumstances where a crime may be committed” – we can only conclude that she would be speaking up loud and clear in Irving’s defense. I had a little flick through the article, but what made me feel a little nauseous was not that I was seemingly comparable to Mark Steyn (who I despise) and Mel 'the Mynx' Phillips (although that is enough for many), but that I (and Jo) had been singled out as Jews. Now, I'm not very Jewish, I wasn't raised Jewish and have never been to a synagogue (with my dyslexia, spelling 'synagogue' is enough of a problem). But simply because back in the depths of time, some of my ancestors were "red sea pedestrians", I had been targeted.

(building-wise at least)

...from my little sister. She ended up getting a place at HMSG, and once more, she gained a scholarship! Her 25% didn't beat my 33% for the Boys School, but on the phone we decided to call it even. This means that I'll have to pop home next weekend for a celebration meal. Which'll be nice. (I just noticed that the HMSG site is viewable in Mandarin and Cantonese - they're clearly trying to pick up on some newly rich folk from the Tiger economies). Speaking of China, Friday was the start of the multiculturalism week at the Uni, celebrating the diversity of the international students. Being me, I love all this stuff. There was fantastic food available at around mid-day, and I got to try some fantastic things - notably Amanda's Beef Rendang, some lovely Polish cabbage that Marsha made, some rather spinach-like Nigerian vegtables, and a very nice Slovakian potato-fritter thing. The money raised went to charity, so it was for a good cause! In the evening the fun continued with a world-music night thing. Which was fun. And involved dancing.

I was going to do a post about the new influx of books from Amazon, but I'm just going to go and get my free veggie soup - gotta love those Methodists!

A new badge graces my genuine fake bag from Hong Kong. It is......

That answers the question. Not sure if it was a typo with the two "Saunders'", but hey. The Bishop of Stockport from 1951 to 1965 was David Henry Saunders Saunders-Davies and from 1965 to 1984 it was Rupert Gordon Strutt - hope that helps. [Anthropax] wrote: > Your Excellency, > Would you be able to tell me the name of the individual holding your > office during the early 1960's? I have been told that I am a relative of the > (now presumeably deceased) individual. Any information would be helpful. > > Yours sincerely > > [Anthropax] -- Margaret Kitchen PA to The Bishop of Stockport Bishop's Lodge Dunham Town, Altrincham, WA14 4SG 0161 928 5611 ______________________________________ Chester Diocesan Board of Finance, Church House, Lower Lane, Aldford, Chester CH3 6HP. Tel: 01244 620444 Fax: 01244 620456 Registered Charity (no.248968) Company Limited by guarantee (no.7826)