After fairly successfully weeding out the spam from our e-mail, I’ve tonight had to do the same to the blog. I’ve had the spam filter turned on in WordPress anyway, but tonight we got deluged with spam that got round the blacklist, so I’ve made a couple of changes to the setup, that initially will cause all comments to be moderated until I’ve got the filter trained. However after that the spam should not make it onto the comment pages for the blog.
Monthly Archives: September 2004
Phoney Surveys
I’ve just got hit by a Halfords rep trying to get me to sign up to their new credit card using a tactic beloved of a number of parts of the Energy Industry – the phoney survey.
I went into the Halfords branch in Havant to get a replacement headlight bulb as (much to my satisfaction) when the drivers side bulb blew last night, I managed to replace it myself using the bulb from the spare bulb kit I keep in the car. Anyway, I found the bulb without a problem, and paid for it, however hanging around by the door was a girl with a clipboard.
She said she was promoting the new Halfords credit card, and did a speil about how it could earn points to spend at Halfords (looking at the deal it is a £10 voucher for every 1000 points), and she was surveying for eligibility. Now I’m not in the market for another card, as we have two already, one gives us a cashback that we can spend anywhere, and the other is clocking up BMI miles, which are going to take us over to Canada next summer. Anyway, we went through a list of pretty general questions, basically making sure I was a UK resident, had a bank account, good credit history and so on, however rather than then telling me that I could have a card, she handed me the form she’d been filling in to sign on the bottom. Reading above the signature line, in bold it said that by signing the form I was agreeing to take the card – basically the usual agreement under the Consumer Credit act that all credit card applications include.
At that point I said I wasn’t signing as I didn’t want the card, so she told me that that wasn’t what I was signing for. Even when I pointed out the line in bold, she still continued to argue the point until I basically told her that I didn’t want the card and left.
I’m assuming that she was being paid on commision for every customer she signed up, the same reason it is tempting for energy salesmen. That coupled with the fact that a lot of people won’t read what they sign (how many times have you read the small print on a form?) and the fact that it will be a month or two down the line when the card turns up that people will realise, and she gets a nice commision. Having said that, what she is also doing is breaking another part of the Consumer Credit Act by mis-selling a card, which I guess she hasn’t realised.
Star Wars Comes To DVD
True to their publicity, Amazon have managed to deliver the DVD release of the first Star Wars Trilogy to my desk by 9am on the morning it is released. Although I’ve already got the movies on VHS, it is in the original version, bought the first time they did a ‘last ever time on video’ release. When the special editions came out on VHS only, I always said I’d wait for the DVD release, and here it is!
Can’t wait to see how the cleaned up print looks and sounds on the TV setup at home.
Not Suitable for Charabangs
The following is a snap from our day trip down to Somerset to see Sheila Baker, Beth’s Grandfathers second wife, who was on her annual trip back across the pond. The sign is by the roadside on the hill past Wookey Hole Caves where we spent most of the afternoon.
For those of you who are wondering what on earth a charabang is, the dictionary definition is a sort of tourist motor coach. The term still gets used occasionaly, but has really dropped out of common usage.
After visiting the caves we stopped in nearby Wells to go to Choral Evensong at the Cathedral. Wells have several choirs that share service duties. The first choir is the alto/tenor/bass parts, all men, then there is a junior choir of boys, and a junior choir of girls. We had the men with the girls on Saturday. The service was the normal variation on Book of Common Prayer Evensong that only seems to get celebrated at Cathedrals, fairly traditional, however unlike some, they were using a modern translation of the Bible for the readings. Whilst I do enjoy a well done Choral Evensong at a Cathedral, it always bothers me that it furthers the image that the Church is stuck in the past, trotting out services that have been unchanged since 1662. Almost like the sign harking back to a bygone age, and great for the tourists, but with no relevance to real life, and in a language not used by the people of England today.
However, on further investigation I found a sign of hope. As many will know, one of my big bugbears is the way the ‘traditional’ Lords Prayer has hung around. I grew up with the modern version, in fully contemporary language services, and the services that were produced during the seventies only had the modern words. With the advent of the Alternative Service Book in 1980, again the contemporary language services included only the one Lord’s Prayer. However in 1987, John Bickersteth, the then Bishop of Bath and Wells, together with Colin James the Bishop of Winchester succesfully pushed through General Synod and got the traditional language Lords Prayer printed side by side in the modern service. Since then the two have always appeared together, although in the current Common Worship services the modern form is printed first, with the traditional offered as an alternative. Quite amusingly, in the traditional language services, both versions of the prayer are also offered, although I doubt anyone would ever do a traditional language service but lapse into the modern Lords Prayer. However the reverse is quite common, including in most services at St James. Basically the entire rest of the service is in modern language, and yet, for no reason other than because “everybody knows it”, we drop into traditional language for the one prayer, and then switch back to modern language for the rest. To my mind, quite apart from the bizarre shift, it is also a misnomer that “everybody knows it” as for many years, it has not been taught in most schools, so at any services we hold when non-church goers attend, if the text of the Lords Prayer is not printed, people don’t know the words!
Anyway, the sign of hope, considering the actions of one of their previous Bishops, was that in the Sunday Service book, the cathedral not only was using a modern language service, but was using the modern language Lords Prayer. More than that, the optional drop back to the traditional form had been removed totally. Whilst it is a small change, it does give me hope that if a Cathedral can move its services forward, then maybe the Church of England can stop trying to be like on of those Charabangs, struggling up the hill ignoring the sign…
The Beginning of a New Era
On Monday the interregnum at St James finally came to an end with the licencing and collation of Rev Dr Richard Warden as our new priest-in-charge. I had planned to write about the service earlier in the week, but I’ve been waiting for the video to be loaded up online so I could link to it. At this point it still hasn’t appeared, so I’m posting my thoughts anyway.
Interestingly it was the first licencing service I’d been to, as the services I had attended before were induction services as the priests were being given the freehold to the parish. Technically Richard cannot be called Rector or Vicar as he is only priest-in-charge, currently the diocese has suspended the living in our parish – and may others locally, so they employ a priest to fulfil the roles usually carried out by the Rector or Vicar. The priest is employed on a five year contract that is renewed after five years subject to the agreement of the parish, the priest and the diocese. It is also possible for the diocese to give the priest-in-charge the freehold, ending the suspension, as has happened in some other local parishes.
Anyway, back to the service. Not unexpectedly everybody was keen that the service would be absolutely right, especially with the Archdeacon, the new Bishop of Reading and a number of other clergy in attendance. As a result there were the usual frustrations of people doing things, and then someone else changing them. For example I helped out by putting out chairs in the parish centre for the overspill from the church, who watched the service on a big screen. (The Bishop described them as ‘the cheap seats’) I put out as many chairs as I could, which I did double check before I did it. However when I came in on Monday night half the chairs had been put away again! There was also the ongoing candle and altar positioning – seemingly every time I went into the church on Sunday and Monday there were different numbers of candles on the altars. In the end we used the side altar as the main altar, positioned in the centre of the chancel with the choir behind, and the main altar was moved from the sanctuary into the parish centre. The normal candlesticks from the main altar went with the altar as they are really too big for the side altar – however the silver cross obstructed the projector so remained in the church. In addition the old lectionary that usually sits on the side altar went over the parish centre and was placed on the main altar. On the side altar in the church we had the smaller pair of oil ‘candles’ (basically oil burners in a long white tube) on the altar, and the acolytes carried the other two instead of their usual torches. The two torches went over to the parish centre and stood either side of the altar. Choir wise we had practiced all Sunday afternoon, although I was still pretty nervous about having to sing a solo – the first significant solo I’ve done since my voice broke!
I arrived straight from work at just after 6pm. This meant that I managed to get in before the car parking attendants turned up, so the car was up in the main car park rather than in the rather soggy field opposite the church that we use for big events. Oddly enough I was fairly closely followed by the two press reporters – one from the Bracknell News, the other from the Wokingham Times. The Bracknell News photographer was only around until just after Richard arrived, however the Wokingham Time photographer hung around until the service started, so got a great shot of Richard and the Bishop which is on the front page of the Wokingham Times this week!
The church was absolutely packed, and very warm, although only one chorister didn’t make it until the end. The Bishop preached a good sermon, starting with the words “I’m returning to a favourite topic – things I would like to change about the bible!� – Probably a fair bet that would be a theme in his next book! Music wise the Youth Group item went off without a hitch, although many people said that they couldn’t really hear it all that well. However due to various logistical problems we ended up doing ‘Rejoice In The Lord Always’ with everybody listening, and me stood out the front for the solo. The problem with the anthem from a nerves point of view is that there are very long organ sections between the singing, as a result there are long periods for me to worry about the solo. As it was by the time it got to the interlude before my solo, I couldn’t hold the music in my left hand without it shaking! Anyway, we got through the anthem, in fact all the music, without any real problems at all. We had a number of people come up and say well done, and the Bishop hadn’t realised the size of our choir and thought it was an augmented choir formed for the service. (In fact we were four people short!) I won’t bother to go into any more detail, as hopefully you’ll be able to see the service online sometime soon.
The main thing is that Richard seemed to really enjoy the service, and again seemed particularly touched at how much had been done for him. I guess this is one of the trade-offs between being a chaplain and having a parish. He seems to have jumped straight in, and in this first week after the service on Monday, had a standing committee meeting on Tuesday, came to a planning meeting for the Deanery Youth Weekend with me on Wednesday, and then did a Baptism preparation session and came to part of choir practice last night. I think one of the most important things we as a parish have to do is to remember that he has a family, and make sure that his workload is properly managed and we don’t expect him to do too much.