Image of Big Bang seen in piece of toast!

Hot news:

“I have always been an Atheist and to see my life choices validated on a piece of toast is truly astounding,” said one guest at the Huddlesfield Arms Hotel.

It must be a sign…

Today’s News in Limerick Form, #4

A face from the Old Middle East
in the lid of a breakfast-time feast?
Is he saying, I ponder,
to this family in Rhondda:
“Beware of the Pharisees’ yeast”?

Intelligent life?

So the boffins have been using computer simulations to estimate the chances of intelligent life arising on some of the 330 exoplanets so far discovered.

While researchers often come up with overall estimates of the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe, it is a process fraught with guesswork; recent guesses put the number anywhere between a million and less than one.

“It’s a process of quantifying our ignorance,” said Duncan Forgan, the University of Edinburgh researcher who carried out the work.

Less than one form of intelligent life in the universe? Quantifying our ignorance? Well, I had my suspicions…

Today’s News in limerick form, #3

“Go Jade, we have made our decision:
save Royaume-Uni from derision!”
But despite all those votes,
can a song with six notes
really go on to win Eurovision?

Today’s News in limerick form, #1

He’s old, yet he’s young. Big hair too.
His vehicle is boxy and blue.
Change of actor again
in two thousand and ten -
but all I can say is: er, Who?

The true meaning of Christmas songs

Interesting research reported on BBC News tonight:

According to [Durham University's] head of music Bennett Zon, O Come All Ye Faithful is actually a birth ode to Bonnie Prince Charlie…Prof Zon, said there was “far more” to the carol – also known as Adeste Fideles – than was originally thought.

He said: “Fideles is Faithful Catholic Jacobites. Bethlehem is a common Jacobite cipher for England, and Regem Angelorum is a well-known pun on Angelorum, angels and Anglorum, English.

“The meaning of the Christmas carol is clear: ‘Come and Behold Him, Born the King of Angels’ really means, ‘Come and Behold Him, Born the King of the English’ – Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

Well, dear reader, in the spirit of academic endeavour, shall we explore another seasonal ditty thusly? Yes, let’s.

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We’re happy tonight.
Walking in a winter wonderland.

Notice the subtle spin with which the writers present this midwinter scene. The grim reality of weather-related travel chaos (hence “walking”) is brushed aside. And there’s more than a hint of didacticism in the parenthetical “are you listening… we’re happy tonight”. Clearly this is a song aimed at telling us what to think. But who’s behind it, and where is it heading?

Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird

Here the writers declare their hand. The blue is gone, the new is here. It’s Britain, 1st May 1997. Election Day. The Conservative party, with blue as its colour, is ousted from government. New Labour. New bird.

He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

And now the depiction of idyllic winter scenes begins to make sense. The last time Labour had been in power, the country endured the notorious Winter of Discontent – wage disputes in the private and public sectors, power cuts, uncollected rubbish, restricted hospital admissions. But now, in a heroically audacious piece of PR, the writers attempt to excise the memory of that winter in favour of an altogether more palatable hibernal mythos with which New Labour can associate itself.

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown.

Now, this is clever. A reference to Tony Blair in the song would have been just too obvious – but in any case, in May 97 His Blairness didn’t really need bigging up. Gordon Brown, on the other hand, was never the most media-friendly of faces or voices. So the writers create a nice jovial cameo for the incoming Chancellor, nicknaming him the Parson as a nod to his child-of-the-manse background.

He’ll say: Are you married? We’ll say: No man,
But you can do the job when you’re in town.

An extraordinary piece of perspicacity here, looking ahead a full 7 years from the 1997 Sitz im Leben. For in 2004 the Civil Partnership Act in the UK made available to same-sex couples a legal standing equivalent to marriage. New Labour would, indeed, do the job while they were in town.

Later on, we’ll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid
The plans that we’ve made,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

The song finishes with a paean to the principles of media management. It’s your basic joined-up blue-sky thinking that sings from the same hymn sheet and knows a good day to bury bad news when it sees one.

So there we have it. Winter Wonderland is actually a song about the Labour victory in the 1997 UK general election.

Just don’t tell Perry Como.

Theological aphorism of the day

Trying to explain the Trinity is like trying to describe the sound of three hands clapping.

That Doctor Who cliffhanger

Lots of speculation after Saturday’s cracking penultimate episode The Stolen Earth. Is this a genuine regeneration? And if so, who’s going to be the 11th Doctor?

After literally minutes of rigorous conjecture, I believe I have the answer…

A bold move, but the pictures speak for themselves.

Dr Barth and Dr Seuss

The erstwhile Ben Myers has been reading, and asks what Karl Barth and Dr Seuss might have in common. Hmm…

Are your books of any use?
Are they? Are they, Dr Seuss?
Rhymes divine, but logic flimsy:
aren’t your works mere idle whimsy?
Cat in Hat, Things One and Two -
do they speak of what is true?

True, my friend? You ask what’s true?
True is what’s revealed to you.
Logic is not here or there.
Logic won’t go anywhere.
Sometimes what you read won’t fit.
Sometimes that’s the point of it.

Look, here’s Karl. Now gather round:
he will show you what he’s found.
Word is spoken (can you guess?):
God’s big No and bigger Yes.
Yes, I like the Son of Man!
Yes, I choose him, says I Am.

Seuss and Barth and Barth and Seuss:
sauce for gander, sauce for goose.
Thus a simple children’s rhyme
holds a truth to last all time.
Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.

Who’d have thought that Fox in Socks
might be neo-orthodox?

My dog’s got no nose…

… how does it smell? Awful.

Inspired by Scott Bailey’s take on an age-old question, here are some Biblical and theological snippets ripe for redaction. But go read Scott’s, it’s better.

Moses: Take a dog, a male one year old without blemish, and bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting. There Aaron shall cut off its nose.

Isaiah: And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a dog of unclean nose, and I live among a nation of unclean noses…” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my nose with it and said: “Now that this has touched your nose, your sense of smell has departed and your aroma is blotted out.”

Amos: And the LORD said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A dog with no nose.” Then the LORD said, “See, the stench of injustice rises in the midst of my people Israel, yet they smell it not.”

John of Patmos: Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great dog, with seven heads and ten tongues, and no nose on any of its heads.

Origen: But since our present object is not to make inquiry about every case, but about the passage before us, let us, adopting a figurative interpretation, consider who we may say the dog was, and what was his nose which was absent, and what is meant by the dog smelling.

Augustine of Hippo: Canis extra ecclesiam naris non habet.

Bultmann: Our task is to demythologize such accounts of noseless dogs.

Girard: Mimetic rivalry dictates that a dog must be singled out. The one with no nose is the obvious victim; see how quickly a pretext of its foul smell is adduced as evidence of its guilt! Through this mechanism of scapegoating and violence, harmony is restored to the community until the mimetic cycle begins once again.

Hauerwas: In the colony, the community founded upon non-violence, the stinking dog has no need of a nose.

Jesus: Let those who have noses, smell.