Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

The 'crossing' at Oxford Circus

Of course any religious symbolism that can be read into the new pedestrian crossing at Oxford Circus is entirely coincidental but even so, in today's pc world - a world where I was gently chided the other day for using the phrase 'Brownie points' in a lecture - it is good that this has been allowed. Having been stuck for nearly 20 minutes at Oxford Circus the other day, squeezed between hordes of frantic shoppers, none of us able to move an inch, I pray obeisance to the wisdom that inspired Boris Johnson to let this through. Even if accidental, there is now a strangely Christian symbol at the very centre of  the capital of British consumerism.

Blogging the treebog

This picture shows the Bishop of Crediton Bob Evens after 'blessing' the Church of England's new Shrinking the Footprint environmental  initiative, a compost loo at the remote rural church of Escot in Devon.

After, presumably, sprinkling holy water at the twin 'treebog', Bishop Bob posed for this photograph with the Vicar, the Rev Cate Edmonds.

'Rural churches with no running water are improving their facilities with the installation of cost-effective compost toilets,' says the Church of England press release this morning. The Vicar says she's had problems hosting special events at a church that stands in the middle of a field. Alternatives used in the past were costly portable loos or ‘inviting’ visitors 'to take a chance' behind a tree, not much fun for us ladies.

Who stands to gain most from credit crunch?

We've been hearing so much about the losers in the present crisis, I thought it would be fun to focus for a few minutes on the winners. Feel free to add your own suggestions.

1. Gordon Brown. He suddenly looks electable. The Tories, having only yesterday offered prosperity, are now warning of tough times ahead. Coming from capitalists, this feels quite scary. Do we really want proponents of the free market running the country after what the free market has done to us? A canny, wiley, Presbyterian Scot with a reputation for fiscal prudence bordering on meanness today seems quite a deal more attractive than he did even a week ago. It is after all partly if not mostly thanks to him that we are bearing up better than the Americans. I keep thinking of his recent visit to the US, and the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. I think some in my business  might have been a bit to hasty in writing this old tortoise off.

Karl Marx 'right' to condemn capitalism, says Rowan

See our news story on Rowan Williams and Karl Marx. The Archbishop of Canterbury has today delivered a video message on the Millennium Development Goals.'We feel very deeply that the witness and generosity of one church can inspire and change us all,' he says. More Rowan videos at his channel, LambethPress. Tomorrow, Thursday 25 September, the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu is joining Bill Clinton and Gordon Brown on the platform at an emergency session at the United Nations to discuss the MDGs.

The deadliest of them all

Which for you is the deadliest of them all? For me it is not gluttony, which is why I can cradle this enormous chunk of pure chocolate, christened the Absolution Bar, and then give it away to my colleagues and the newsdesk. See our faith page for the latest on the Pope and the Seven Deadly Sins. I agree with Kieran Proffer in today's letters page, that the 'capital vices', as the seven deadlies are known, are actually the root causes of sinful behaviours on which the Pope has now enlarged. 

Addiction - a spiritual disease

This is Chimchar, my favourite character on Pokemon. He lives in a little red and white ball, and emerges on command to 'fight' the Pokemon of other trainers. A couple of days ago he 'evolved' into Montferno. 'Explorers of darkness' is what comes up if you go the website linked to above. This game is addictive.

I'ld like to buy a glass or two for whoever it was that first uttered the phrase, 'the demon drink'. We've moved on from Sharia this week, but one of the little-discussed aspects of Islamic law in this whole debate was the ban on alcohol. There are few Muslims who belong to Alcoholics Anonymous in the West. So could it be that Sharia works?

Archbishop warns on 24-hour drinking

When I first began blogging, I wrote about the dangers of the new 24-hour drinking law. Linking it to George Bush was the idea of my colleague Sam Coates, who now has his own top blog, Red Box. Some scoffed, as they are wont. Today, lo! We have the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, warning of the dangers of 24-hour drinking. And behold! Reuters is reporting that George Bush has been speaking movingly at an Episcopal care centre of his own battles with alcohol.

I'll resist it.

No, I can't.

'I told you so!!'

Money for nothing

Paul Grignon's Money as Debt video explains where all the cash comes from that we borrow each year. It seems to come from nowhere, as the subprime and Northern Rock scandals illustrate. Last century, Sir Josiah Stamp, a former director of the Bank of England, said: 'The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.' In fact, though, it doesn't come from nowhere. The tragic irony of modern commerce is that the money does in fact come from the poorest in society, the bottom strata in this country, and almost entire countries in the indebted developing world. The Church of England today on its website launches its campaign, A Matter of Life and Debt, urging clergy to preach on getting out of debt, and advising individuals to subject themselves to a ten-point debt check, which I've reproduced below, along with an extract from Grignon's film. Our report in the paper puts it in the broader economic context.

Teddy Bear: Archbishop of York sells out

Here's another teddy story for a blog stocking filler. If you are stuck for something to give the Archbishop of York for Christmas, try one of these. He's been unable to get one for his own tree because York Minster has sold out. Just 200 of the £6.50 six-inch Archbishops were made in Thailand and were sold out within minutes of going on sale in the Minster shop, as the local paper reports. (Worth following that link, just for some of the comments... ) I understand you can still get the Canterbury Bear of Rowan Williams at Canterbury Cathedral however.

Woe, woe, thrice chocolatey woe

I must feast my eyes on these, because that's the only way I can feast on them again. Like many, if not most inhabitants of these British isles, I'm a chocaholic, and my chocolate-of-choice is Guylian. Altogether, we Brits spend about £4 billion a year on chocolates. But now the Archbishop of York, who a couple of days ago was awarded the title of Yorkshire Man of the Year, has decreed in his William Wilberforce lecture in Hull tonight that we chocolate lovers must buy only Fairtrade chocolate. Read our news story on the Faith Page. And also in the paper on Wednesday.

SPCK: one man and his shop

A contributor to my last blog on the sorry doings at SPCK notes that if anyone wants to talk to owner Phil Brewer, they need only go down to the bookshop in Exeter, pictured here. All the staff have resigned, as we reported, after being faced with contracts that demanded they work on Sundays and do some cleaning. And so apparently he is running the show all on his lonesome. So if it is a book you want to order, or some information, or merely just a look, you know where to go. Meanwhile, it is worth remembering that the publishing arm is separate from the bookshop. Among recent offerings was Katharine Jefferts Schori's A Wing and a Prayer. Read our review here. 

Manchester Cathedral Sony game nominated for 'Bafta'

Incredibly, 'Resistance: Fall of Man' has been nominated for a Bafta gamers' award. The award, the PC World Gamers's Award, is the only one in the Bafta's that will be voted on by the public. As we report today, the winner will not receive the iconic mask but a special gamers' award. Still, the Dean of Manchester has condemned it as a 'disgrace' and called on the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to withdraw the game from the nomination. Some of our previous coverage can be found via an earlier post. Read on for the Dean's statement in full.

Choir for sale on ebay

The choir of St Stephen's Church in Bristol has appeared as an item for sale on ebay. 'Venerable Anglican scarlet-robed choral tradition (SATB), of St Stephen's Church, Centre of Bristol. Good condition,' the text reads. 'Reason for sale: The choir have (with extreme sadness) decided that even though they would have liked to have assisted with the future plans for the church, they essentially have no place in the new worship arrangements that will soon be imposed, and that little opportunity for negotiation now exists.'

Failure to prophesy profit of Biblical proportions

Our story today of the Bishop Phillpotts library at Truro, sold to one John Thornton for £36,000 last year and which has already generated more than half a million pounds for the London bookdealer in auction rooms and private sales, is heartbreakingly familiar. This is St Mary's Gratwich, a Georgian gem where my father was priest-in-charge and then incumbent in the 1970s and 1980s. In the eighties, they moved to Llanyblodwel on the edge of the Lichfield diocese. The diocese sold the nearby huge Queen Anne vicarage where we grew up for about £18,000. At the same time, I bought a tiny two-up two-down cottage in Twickenham for £57,000. Similar cottages in Twickenham now sell for about £350,000. A few years ago, Gratwich Rectory sold for nearly £800,000. It must be worth more than £1 million now. At Llanyblodwel, the diocese had at vast expense to build a brand new vicarage for my parents and their five children. The splendid neo-gothic Rectory adjacent to one of the country's most beautiful churches had of course been sold years before, and was occupied by the late John Biffen and his wife Sarah. Has the Church learned its lesson? It would appear not.

Atonement

Yes, I've changed the title. This is because Atonement, the film based on the book, is topping the search list of Times Online and I want to piggy back on Ian McEwan's novel, which I didn't enjoy, to get my own readers back again and some new ones after the break. Previously this post, which is actually about atonement for our environmental sins and the launch of a new Catholic Eco-Confessional by Dom Anthony Sutch, was titled 'I'm begging you please, on my knees.' This is the phrase that has supplanted the ubiquitous 'I need' among five-year-olds in Kew. I can't resist it, perhaps because of the Prayer Book overtones of kneeling humbly on my knees to confess my sins. But now a new form of guilt has come into my life, a guilt that I have in common with surely every other literate Westerner. It is the guilt of living an eco-unfriendly lifestyle, a guilt reinforced by the 'green lies' we all tell to convince our friends and neighbours we are greener than we are as our green eyes take in their water butts, solar panels, their city-bonus-black £40000 Lexus 3.0 congestion-charge free hybrid 4by4's and their dim, expensive (like them) but ultimately eco-lightbulbs.

Call for laws to protect holy relics

The sale of relics on eBay has been contested by the International Crusade for Holy Relics (ICHR) for ten years but since a boycott and cyber-petition against the online auction site got underway on Good Friday, the campaign has turned political. Three US Senators, and a US Supreme Court judge have lent their support to ICHR.

Chocolate Jesus

With only two days of Lent left, this may be enough to make you give up chocolate all year round. This statue of Jesus, cast in chocolate, was meant to be in New York's Lab Gallery this Good Friday but protest from Christian groups called off the exhibit. 

St Nicholas visits Sloane Square

It's December 6, the Feast of St Nicholas, and a highlight of our year as we go down to Sloane Square and the wonderful Arts and Crafts church of Holy Trinity Sloane Street for the annual Sloane festival. The little Boy Bishop in this picture is my son Arthur. The girl is the daughter of a real estate executive who happened to be watching from the crowds when, to her delight, St Nicholas plucked her into the carriage. Can you guess who the saint is? Answer below. Meanwhile, thank you to David below for remininding me of the venerable tradition of the Naughty Santa. There is much ho-ho-ho'ing in the blogosphere today over the sinful sacked Harrods santa. Here's one for taster, to see some of the rest click on the Technorati tag at the end of this post.  St Nicholas will be in Canterbury on Saturday and Cambridge on Sunday.

Britain 'a nation of George Bushes'

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous are fond of the citing the following: 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result.' Yet that is what we in Britain are about to do, with the new 24-hour licensing law that comes into effect tomorrow. We've been here before, but noone seems to realise it, and the potential results are terrifying.

Back in 1830, the Beer Act freed up trade in the selling of beer in the same way that 24-hour opening could be about to do here. The results were the predictable increases in crime and drinking that even the Government has admitted will be similar short-term consequences here. Only they weren’t short term then, and they won’t be now.