The Media

The "Tablet" Catholic weekly magazine has been completely
revamped over the past few months and is now usually a great read.
I disagree with some of its editorial opinions but overall
there are many interesting articles to peruse, not all of which
by any means, concern religious issues.
Take 9/11 and BBC TV. The Tablet 17th February 2007 commented:

[quote] To adapt the old saw, when a man stops believing in his government, he doesn’tbelieve in nothing, he believes in everything. The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 (18 February) is about the willingness of people in America, particularly, to pin the blame for the 11 September attacks not on a group of terrorists but on the US Government.The rise of the modern conspiracy theory
is often blamed on the internet, but this programme points to the assassination of PresidentKennedy as the source of the phenomenon. What the internet has done,however, is to make it possible for amateur investigators and theorists with modest resources to bring their ideas to a large audience; what’s more, their lack of professional qualifications or expertise is taken as the guarantor of their good faith and plausibility. This film does not impugn the conspiracists’motives; in every case, they appear to be true believers in the version of events they are propounding, however bizarre. Their plausibility, however, is less gently handled. The method of the conspiracy theorists is to pile up small discrepancies in the official accounts of an event, and to expose puzzling anomalies to the ignorant gaze of “common sense”. There is no doubt that much about the attacks is counter-intuitive. The way the TwinTowers fell did look astonishingly neat, as if they had been deliberately demolished rather than falling; and the plane that crashed into the Pentagon did appear to leave a very smallhole. From those beginnings, the theory builds step by step, passing almost imperceptiblyinto absurdity, as, for instance, when it suggests that the passengers on United 93,the jet that did not reach its target, were abducted by the Government. The intrigues supposedly surrounding 9/11 are vast and labyrinthine, and the programme cannot challenge them all. Instead it sticks to a small number of key points: the “controlled demolition” of the towers; the“small hole” in the Pentagon; the pattern of debris left bythe United 93 flight that crashed in Pennsylvania; and the supposed warning to Jews working in the World Trade Centre to stay away on the day of the attack. What it reveals, in every case, is that these things are easily dealt with by those whocome to the evidence with recognised expertise or who were present at the time. The leading theorists, on the other hand, are just that: a retired professor of philosophy; a radio presenter who considers the US Government an arm of a sinister “new world order”; and a 23-year-old amateur film-maker busy turning his internet conspiracy movie into a blockbuster for theatrical release. Their analyses are assembled from published quotes and news clips; they look less impressive when confrontedby real people willing to answer questions about what they were doing on that terrible day. The coroner who attended theUnited 93 crash flatly denies ever saying that there were no bodies at the scene; an air force pilot, accused of having remotely directed an airliner into the Pentagon, looks quietlybemused.The programme has the clever idea of asking a scriptwriter from The X-Files for his take on the conspiracists.The X-Files was an entertaining but fundamentally silly science fiction programme positing the idea that “the truth is out there”, hidden and waiting to be discovered rather than in the mouths of officialspokesmen. The writer, who also created a horribly prescient hijackers-crash-jetinto-Twin-Towers TV movie, duly points out that cynicism about the American Government has become pervasive. “One of our first instincts is that we are being lied to,” he says.
And it is hard not to agree that the Americanauthorities have fostered the conspiracytheories themselves, by slow and reluctant disclosure of the facts and, in a broader sense, by telling lies about the world. And yet, it’s along way from distrusting the Bush Government’s statements about Saddam’s weaponry to believing that it deliberately set out tokill 3,000 of its own citizens. The film stops its analysis of the conspiracy craze right there: but I wonder whether there isn’t something more distinctively American at work. From the time of their arrival in the NewWorld, the Puritans inhabited a symbolic universe, the real meaning of which was not availableto mere observers of purely surface events. The habit of looking deeply into things – sometimes perhaps too deeply – has never left them [/quote]

Caledonian Sleeper Train

The internet fare of £29 for overnight train journey from
London Euston to Inverness, Scotland must be one of the best value
train fares in the whole of the UK, especially as the fare includes
a good bunk bed each, in a twin bedded sleeping compartment; coffee and
croissants for breakfast; travel toothbrush etc; as well as ample supplies of bottled Scottish spring water;
on top of course, of 600 odd miles train travel.

The somewhat ancient EWS diesel at Euston's platform 15, on St Valentines'
night, with its sombre looking sleeping cars and lounge carriage,
contrasted sharpely with the sleek commuter and express
trains on the other platforms. Nonetheless our sleeping
compartment was comfortably old fashioned. The catering though was
thankfully not reminiscent of the old British Rail days and indeed
the wines on offer were inexpensive and very drinkable.
For more solid refreshment,
Scottish snacks like a kind of haggis and potato casserole, were the order of the day
and cheap too at £4 and after a couple of half bottles
of flavoursome wine to wash it all down with, sleeping overnight
until a stewardesse's wake up call at 8am the next day, was far easier than
I was anticipating. The sight of snow on the meadows around the
train tracks at 8am was quite unexpected as the temperature in London
when we left at 9:15pm the night before had been about 8C.

Speaking of Easy, the Easyjet flight back from Inverness to Gatwick
a couple of days later (£38 fare still good value
but pricier than the train) reminded me of how
unromantic plane travel is these days. Gone were the stainless steel
knives and forks and china plates at supper time that added to the
atmosphere of the train travel. Instead, there was
the tedious routine of airport
security, followed by a dull plane interior and plastic tea.

Of course the flight is far quicker. I should add that
the attendants on both train and plane were all first class.

More Green Issues - Cheap Trains

The best value train fares in the UK must be the overnight sleeper
tickets for the Caledonian Express from London Euston to Inverness
in the Scottish Highlands.

For the pricely sum of £29 each we shall experience if not enjoy,
tomorrow night's express train from London to Inverness. The ticket
price includes twin bedded berths and morning coffee. Not
bad for the UK at least, if it works - on which perhaps more
later.

Green Issues and Energy Audits

The green issues of low cost airlines
have been debated b4 and
I agree with the need to make the cost of air travel
more adequately reflect the damage flights cause to the environment.

Meanwhile I'm off to Dublin for dayjob today and
will not be back until Tuesday. So far I am impressed
by Aer Lingus. No only is the cost ridiculously
cheap (although day job is paying, clients prefer
low costs where poss) but also for the first time
I have been able to check in, choose my window
seat and print off boarding pass from the comfort
of home

On a longer term point also dayjob related, I follow at the office
the example set by the former headteacher of a local prep school
attended by our children. Sister Brendan used to say that to give her
the energy to respond to the challenges of heading
up a busy school for young children, she drank about 5 cups
of coffee each morning.
Until recently this meant that I personally used and discarded
some 20 or so plastic cups each week (I re-used some of course but also took
tea in the afternoons) not counting any
additional waste from the occasional foray into say Starbucks.

A 2007 new year's resolution to switch to a china cup has
so far avoided that waste but china cups raise different
green issues:

1. They need to be washed - washing out the cups uses perhaps
a gallon or two of water each week, which the throw away plastic did not.

2. Unlike their throw away plastic cousins, china cups start off cold
and unless heated first, risk yielding a cool coffee rather than a hot one.
Filling the china cup with boiling water first overcomes that problem
but at the expense of the extra energy used.

There is a need for a simple audit to inform people
of the cost of these ordinary changes in the daily rituals of life
so that the worth, or as the case may be, of making a simple change
from the green point of view, is made plain.

Health and Saint Blaize

Jogging over Wimbledon Common these days is invigorating once more
with crisp clear skies overhead and crisp crunching frosty earth underfoot.
Previous lack of energy feelings are gone too so the 'great
to be alive' atmosphere prevails.

However I caught a common cold type ailment last week at the office.
Offices are a little like schools for spreading aches and pains, as are
the SWTrain journies travelling to and from work but equally they seem good for building up
the body's immunity system and for preventing minor ills from becoming major ones.

A physical ailment which seems to linger on longer than most (for me anyway) is a sore throat.
I have had this irritating ailment for the latter part of the week. The usual symptoms include a feeling like sandpaper at the back of the mouth; drinking
orange juice becomes akin to swallowing H2SO4 and as for singing...

However I was pleasantly surprised at morning Mass today to be reminded that
February 3rd is celebrated as the Feast Day of Armenian martyr St Blaize.
It was especially pleasing that the tradition of blessing the faithfuls' throats
with prayers and candles was kept alive today. Having had my throat
blessed I returned home to coffee and pronounced my sore throat on the mend.
Older daughter asserting her Master of Psychology (Exeter Uni) said
it was all in the mind.

Possibly she is right but I do also believe in miracles.