Consider this

A student pitches up in my office. She has come to see me before. She is depressed.

When she comes to see me we talk. I’m not a counsellor, I’m not a therapist. I did a course when I was at college but that was nowhere near enough to be able to call myself anything like that.

This student however is in a very bad way. Sleepless nights and not eating. So we spend time together. I give her an hour of my day. She comes back the next day and then the next I start to give her an hour and a half of my day then two hours. The depression gets much worse. Then there is the self harm. She’s hurting herself with all manner of things and it starts to happen fairly regularly.

I know she is under the care of all sorts of people who seem better at this than me. They have more qualifications than me for a start. The trouble is I don’t know what they are doing. I ask the student, she explains they aren’t doing anything. She tells me that she tells them things but says they don’t listen or do anything. I have no way of knowing if this is true. Are they really ignoring her? Or does she just feel they are? Or is she not communicating clearly enough. I don’t even really know who is looking after her.

They one day she comes and she has done something horrid with her hand involving a freshly boiled kettle. She claims that she hasn’t taken any medication. Apparently ‘they’ have taken her off it and aren’t giving her anything else. She wants to die. She’s not sure how to, but she is thinking of several ways. She talks a lot about death.

I’m not easily frightened and I don’t disturb easily. I have dealt with similar before but I’m really concerned so I ask if I can ring ‘them’. She gives me the number of the home treatment team and I ring them.

“Hi I’m the Anglican Chaplain at Southampton University” I explain “I have X with me”

“Oh yes” the person on the other end sounds bored.

“I don’t need you to tell me anything about her obviously she is your patient and you have to respect her confidentiality but I have some concerns here.” I explain my worries. After all I don’t know what they are doing. She doesn’t seem to be getting the medication she needs. She is suicidal and self harming and all of that.

I stop speaking.

There is a noticeable pause.

“That must be very concerning for you.” Says the voice “I would be concerned if I were you.” It’s fairly obvious she is not concerned but I have no idea why. After another lengthy pause I thank her for her time and ring off.

She comes back the next day. She still wants to die and now she looks much worse. There is not a lot I can do so after a couple of hours in my office I just pray while she sits there. She doesn’t want to say anymore, she just wants to go to sleep and not wake up. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t treat her and I have no idea if I’m helping or hindering. After a few minutes prayer it seems there is an answer of sorts. A Psychiatric Nurse rings her with news they have a bed for her at the DoP. They tell her to make her way there. She doesn’t know what time the buses are. They offer no suggestions so I see a way I can be of use. I tell her to sit tight while I get the car.

We arrive a little latter at the hospital. I could have just dropped her off but I decide to walk her to the door. Inside she clams up so I tell the guy on reception who she is and that she is going to be admitted. There is a bit of flustering and calls to the ward and her consultant. Eventually they decide to admit her.

“Take her up to the second floor” he barks at me. I’m just the taxi but it seems I’ve now got to go up on to the wards. We are met by the ward manager. I explain who I am because well I’m not sure what I’m doing there so I pretty sure he doesn’t know either.

“I’m just the taxi” I explain. I turn to her. She looks terrified. I offer to stay for a while. They say that’s ok if she wants me to. She nods and stares at the floor.

We sit for a while on the ward. One of the nurses brings me a cup of tea. I try to chat about stuff...you know shite...stuff that doesn’t involve hospitals and psychiatric wards and one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Suddenly she grabs my hand shaking. One of the nurses looks over. I imagine she wonders what I’m trying to achieve sat on her ward holding hands with a patient. I try and reassure her. Eventually I tell her I have to go.

“I need to let these people take care of you now. I can’t help and they can.”

She is very agitated. As I head for the door I see the ward manager in his office. I knock.

“I’m going now.” I say.

“Riiiiight?” he looks at me confused.

“She seems quite agitated. I was a bit worried about leaving her.”

He looks at me blankly.

“I just thought I’d tell you she is agitated and upset.” I say with a bit of frustration ”I don’t know if that’s helpful or not.” I add rather pathetically.

He blinks at me “Well it’s not unhelpful”

“Right” I say “Doors over there?” he nods. Sometimes I feel like I reach my competency level about 3 seconds after my eyes open in the morning. As I leave the ward I notice a sign on the entrance: Infection Control. Apparently they have an outbreak of the norovirus.

Look at the stars...look how they shine

Just collecting together all my Christmas presents and finding them a new home.

Seemed like a good thing to be doing in January*.

As I collected them all together on the carpet a disturbing pattern started to emerge. Is it just me or can you see it too?

*Most people follow the pagan practice of celebrating the festival before December 25th and then getting rid of everything in January. Which makes January depressing. I follow the Christian pattern of being all penitent in November which could be depressing except it's not because Christmas approaching it's just too damn exciting...then I celebrate Christmas after the festival when most people are all down and obsessed with diets. I think this is just better.

Left Behind

Rapture occurs in chaplaincy!!!!!

Accompanied by mysteriously unexplained disappearance of wii...

(but of an in joke this one....sorry about that)

BLLLEEEEEEUUUUUHHHHHHHHHH

Not much to blog about really as I have spent the last couple of days being ill.

I mean properly ill. Really, really ill.

Spent yesterday projectile vomiting. It was not pleasant. I'm talking a full room width here. I'm not kidding it was just like the exorcist.

I don't mean with the being sick, I mean with the demonic possession and the catholic priests shouting at me.

Tried working yesterday but in the end I gave up and went home at 1pm so I think I missed most of what went on in Chaplaincy. Spent most of the afternoon watching News 24 intermittently while half sleeping on the sofa.

Any comments to effect of "Wow sounds like did more than usual" will probably be rejected.

Oh dear!

I seem to have completely lost the ability to sleep at night.

As has everyone else in chaplaincy. Last night the place was still full at 3am and this morning when I got to work at 10.30am the place was empty.

It seems like the chaplaincy body clock has gone out of sync. I wonder if this has anything to do with exams?

To conclude

I was in the Students Union the other day chatting to two members of Islam Soc.

We were chatting about wearing veils. Such a controversial subject and not one I have ever actually discussed with anyone who actually wears a veil. One them had decided not to. She is from Saudi Arabia and apparently always wears one when she is at home, 'out of respect for the culture'.

I voiced the opinion that it would be quite a difficult thing to wear a veil because of the prejudice that one might face.

"Yeah" my veil wearing companion said "I got spat in the face last week."

Last week??!?!?!

My goodness.

The impression I was left with was that actually this was not an isolated incident. At the end of the day anyone complaining that they are being attacked or persecuted. When was the last time a Christian got spat at in the street?

I couldn't believe it.

Mr President

Then of course there is the essential compromise that goes with being an Anglican.

I have a friend who is Vicar of parish X. He used to be the Curate of parish Y but when I first knew him it was at Theological College F with me (do you think knowing algebra is having a negative effect on how I communicate?) Anyway he was going round to various interviews with the hope of finally becoming a vicar and eventually he got one.

We met up for a celebratory drink.

"So how was the interview?" I asked
"Well it was alright except for one bit. The archdeacon turned to me and asked what I would do if I had a young gay man in my parish who wanted to be ordained."
"What did you say?" I asked.
"I said I would not support that person."
"Really?" I said. I was surprised. This is guy who had gone on at me about how awful his Bishop was for being so homophobic. What he disliked most about his Bishop was that he felt his homophobia was just a matter of convenience to keep Evangelicals happy and so keep their money in the Church. I couldn't believe this guy could have just dumped his principals like that. I was wrong.
"I knew if I gave the wrong answer I wouldn't get the job." On one level I can hardly blame him it's a good parish and he loves it there.

Compromise seems to be what the Church of England is all about, I don't know how many Vicars there are out there being challenged about their lack of homophobia in interviews but I know there are numerous job descriptions for University Chaplains which state that the person who holds the post must be prepared to work with all people regardless of sexual orientation. That could be because University Chaplains are often joint appointments with University Student Services departments, which are not exactly known for their homophobic tenancies.

Before I get all self righteous here I'm no better. My biggest area of compromise is also in the appointments process. In order to hold office within the Church of England I have to swear an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty. Not a major thing you might think except that I'm a Republican.

And I should point out that I'm not one of those limp republicans who says "Oh isn't the Queen lovely but I don't like Prince Charles". No I actually like Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. I'm one of those republicans who doesn't want any royal bottom on the throne. I'm apposed to the whole thing on principal.

"Oh but you can't be!" many people shout out at me "Surely you can't be in favor of President Blair? The Queen must be a better option than that?"

President Blair, President Brown, President Clegg, President Cameron, President Lord Sutch. Anyone in fact, even President Charles Windsor just as long as they are bloody elected. I disagree with just about all of George W. Bush's life but, say what like about him, at least he won an election (it would have been even better if he'd won two but there we go). I'm a Republican not because it's the best system but because it's the right one. Which is why I will always support the abolition of the monarchy. I'm a proper Republican, I'm even in the facebook group.

In my defense I could point out that I was an Anglican long before I was a Republican I can also point out that I swear allegiance not loyalty, that I would view this oath as affirming my status as a British Citizen and that all it really means is that I wont spy for the Chinese or support invading Bulgarians. I could go on to point out that until Her Majesty is abolished she remains head of State and indeed I try to keep all her laws. As well as that I could point out that I am an Anglican not because of the Queen and state but for theological reasons (if the thought of someone joining the Church of England for theological reasons doesn't stretch you credulity beyond limit) but the fact of the matter is that I swear an oath of allegiance to something I do not believe in.

That's exactly what the Church of England does to you, it makes you compromise. The whole thing is a compromise bought about by a king who wanted a divorce and joined originally by all the people who religious convictions (be they protestant or catholic) were not so strong that they wanted to be burned at the stake or otherwise abused by the state.

My favorite theologian thought his Church in another country was riddled with compromise. Interestingly enough he felt the best thing the church could do about this was be honest about it.

Honesty, another way of copping with life little ludicrousnesses.

What do you think?

Ridicule

Ridicule.

Harsh word isn't it. As I typed my last couple of blog posts I thought considered that.

I know what you're thinking, "It's all well attacking other religions isn't it Mr Anglican but what about you?"

Yeah, you're right, the Church of England is inherently ridiculous! You only have to google image search Archbishop of Canterbury and look at those eyebrows.

When I went for interviews as a Chaplain there was one question that kept coming up. How would I relate to the Vice Chancellor. The fact of the matter is that the Vice Chancellor is a very busy man and actually the possibilities for 'relating' to him are few and far between. Also we should point out there is only one of him and there are 20,000 students here abouts. I'm actually of the opinion that they should take up most of my time. I firmly believe the Vice Chancellor would agree with me. So why this obsession with him on the part of interviewing panels for Chaplaincy posts. It's simple the Church of England is addicted to hanging round with important people.

It is the established nature of the Church. We may have declining numbers. There might just be more Catholics in England than Anglicans (depending on how you do the maths) but we know Prince Charles. This is ridiculous. Our obsession with important people and things like the House of Lords just shows up how utterly powerless we really are. That's ludicrous.

Then there is the niceness of the Church of England? If not you've been completely ignoring the newspapers, but what's happened? Nothing? A group of radicals wrote something called "A covenant for the Church of England" in which they basically said "We have all the money and we're going to split the Church if we don't get our way" and then they....wait for it....submitted it to the Archbishop of Canterbury for consideration. That's right, the bloke with the eyebrows.

Maybe it's because we're the established Church, part of the ancient landscape of old England that we inherently believe there is something worth saving. Maybe it's because since we are established by law actually it's impossible for us to split people can leave, but of course that takes guts, but they'll always be a Church of England until the politicians get bored (or Nick Clegg wins an election) and disestablish us.

The Church of England is nice, polite, traditional and English. Four things Jesus was not.

Which given that we're supposed to be representing him is...well ridiculous.

In order to work, mockery must contain more than an element of truth, if it didn't Stand Up comedians would just be greeted with bemused silence, when you laugh you get what they are on about.

That is why mockery is such a useful theological tool and the Church of England offers limitless possibilities for it's employment.

A great post that no one needs to comment on

Tis the season of exams.

This time of year my diary empties and my inbox too. I could have far too much time on my hands except for the moderating of comments.

This year seems a little different though. I seem to be dealing with a lot of crises. I do this a lot but it seems like it is more than usual. I’m not sure quite why.

Just lots of people arriving in my office needing to talk. Is it exams? Is it January? Is it me?
Answers on a postcard.

To all my JW readers.

Hello Reuben and Alan!

Thanks for reading the blog and commenting. Yay for JW commentators!

You’re very lucky as usually I just post people’s comments and then forget about them, but you get an actual special blog post just for you.

Reuben! OK you’re right, I said I couldn’t think of a single scholar who would agree with the accuracy of the NWT because I couldn’t. If I’d been thinking a bit clearer I’d have written

“I can’t think of a single scholar who would agree, except Jason BeDuhn and he’s a nutcase.”

Leaving aside the fact that he’s a minor academic at a University I’ve never heard of, it seems to me that BeDuhn has done what minor academics often do when they want to publish a best selling book. They make controversial statements. Let’s be honest if I wrote a book saying that Jesus basically did what the Bible said he did it wouldn’t even get published. However if I wrote a book suggesting he was regularly shafting St Peter it would fly off the shelf. Together with my P45. That’s what BeDuhn did. He wrote a book. It sold.

Even if he’s utterly sincere it changes nothing. One scholar on his own does not make something true. It’s like evolution. Can I find a scientist who believes that the world was made in 6 days? Yes I can, his name is Duane T. Gish, PhD and he operates out of the Institute of Creation Research in the US. He’s a proper scientist with proper qualifications. Does that mean we can just stop teaching evolution? NO! Because I can find thousands and thousands of scientists who accept evolution. I can find significantly more than one without even leaving campus. The same is true of BeDuhn, there are literally thousands of scholars who disagree with them. If you think the NWT is the most accurate you have to believe they are lying.

You say I’m only looking for a way to attack the people of Jehovah, please understand, I want nothing less than to attack you. If you feel attacked then I can’t apologise enough. I’m not attacking you. I’m ridiculing you and that’s entirely different. Look, today I’m wearing a Beanie. I’ve been ridiculed by practically every student who’s walked into chaplaincy. Does that mean they don’t love me? No! And I love Jehovah’s Witnesses just like I love everyone. In fact I probably love you extra specially because you people make me laugh and laughter is a precious gift.

There is not enough religious satire in this world. I wish more people laughed at religion. The people who blew up the tube on 7/7 needed ridiculing. It would have shown up the ridiculousness that they were. Instead of laughing at their ludicrous beliefs lots of people started seriously hating all Muslims.

Alan! I’ll turn to you now if I may!

My comment on JWs viewing the watchtower magazine on par with the Bible is a half remembered article I once read which quoted official JW documents saying it was not enough to just read the Bible you needed to have JW material to make sense of it. Having said that please understand I’m not trying to make a rational argument here. I’m the kid at the back of the class pointing and sniggering. Your attitude to the Watchtower isn’t the really ludicrous thing about you, it is blood transfusions. Just for the record the Bible says don’t DRINK blood, mostly because of the use of blood drinking in pagan worship. Making that bit about medical treatment is just bizarre.

Originally, actually I wasn’t attacking JWs I was having a dig at scientologists, Mormons AND JW’s.

Look at Mormons. What do you think of them? What do you think of the idea that Jesus went to America and hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus the whole continent was full of Christians. Admit it...you think they’re silly, don’t you?

They are silly. Scientologists with their Xemu and Galactic federation are silly. Fred Phelps believes that Sweden is inherently evil and that's silly. I mean SWEDEN!!!!! They’ve given the world meat balls and Volvos, but they also gave us Abba so the county is not a complete write off.

What you share with all those people is a world view which says that only your faith is the only true faith whereas what I think an essential component of sensible religion is the ability to say “well I could be wrong” and to recognise other people could be right.

So I’m unashamedly making two piles of religious people and I’m putting you guys on the silly pile.

I understand you probably don’t like that, but it’s a cold harsh world out there, and you should probably take a coat with you when you go out.

And a hat.

I recommend Beanies. They are very warm.

People might laugh at you, if you look like me.

Group Embrace?

I was looking at the postgrad prospectus the other day and one line about the chaplaincy struck me:

“Embracing all faiths the chaplaincy welcomes all students”

Now the second part of that statement I agree with but I found the first part troubling. Firstly it’s just not true. The chaplaincy was founded as a Christian Chaplaincy nearly 50 years ago when Christianity was the only game in town and it could only change to a multi-faith chaplaincy with a lot of work. None of which has actually been done. One of the most important things that needs to happen is someone needs to build a muti-faith centre and they cost about £1,000,000.

I was more concerned with the idea that I embrace all faiths. Clearly I don’t. I’m not talking here about Muslims or Jews or Sikhs or Hindus. These are all respectable faiths; I’m talking here about the Scientologists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Mormons. How can we embrace their doctrine?

Some things people believe... well, they are just weird aren’t they? I’m not being a blind bigot here. Can anyone seriously expect me to take a world view with Xemu the alien ruler of the Galactic Federation depositing souls here on interstellar Douglas DC-8s as seriously as... say... the Quran? Can I put the Mormons on the same footing as Hindus?

Look at Jehovah’s witnesses. On the surface they are just a bunch of slightly conservative Christians. Dig a little deeper and actually they view the “Watchtower” magazine on a par with the Bible. Then there is the Bible itself. They believe that only the Jehovah’s Witness’ authorised translation (the so called “New World Translation”) is accurate. But there are many translations of the Bible and I can’t think of a single scholar who would agree. Indeed what JWs end up having to believe is that on courses where they teach you how to read the Bible in the original, there must be a special lecture at some point. All the doors will be locked and then lecturer says “Now we all know that the JW Bible is much more accurate than all the rest but let’s all keep that a secret.” Presumably Alex Jones (the chaplaincy resident Bible translator) has been to this lecture. Of course she hasn't! THAT WOULD BE LUDICROUS. As is believing it happens.

I’m not saying that these views are not held sincerely. Nor am I suggesting that those who hold them are in any way bad or morally deficient. I’m not saying Mitt Romney can’t stand for US President, I’m just pointing out that he’s the only candidate wearing God-pants and that’s a bloody good reason not to vote for him.

I do not believe all religions lead to God, nor do I believe that all beliefs are of equal value. That’s not a problem because, if you’re being honest, you don’t either.

Despite Richard Dawkins making out that we are all nutters self evidently there are some beliefs that make more sense than others. I have to draw the line somewhere. I choose to do it on this side of “weird”.

So I shouldn’t have to pretend I embrace all religions. Should I?

Nah, I didn’t think so either.

Well I suppose

I suppose it is a bit cool.

Although what seemed cooler today was that is was located under it's own mathematical lake

Which I couldn't really capture on my camera (who says photography is easy?)

It's also quite cool that they seem to have located Maths entrance halfway up a building

Whoa! What a long way down! And other such exclamations!

The Abomination of Tessellation

Tessellation. It sounds like something Captain Kirk would do to the dilithium crystals before rebooting his warp drive. Sounds complicated.

Of course it isn’t it is simply the fitting together of geometric shapes, at least that’s what I think it is.

Without tessellation there would be no tiling or mosaics and probably no wallpaper either and that’s far from uncomplicated. (I sat in chaplaincy the other day and watched a maths undergraduate attempt some sort of project or course work on wallpaper patterns it was so complicated she didn’t even get it.)

Fit this shape to that shape and this one. I sat there one evening trying to do this with a pencil and a brain. Fitting together octagons and squares pentagons and stars. For a while I wondered if this was what the prophet Daniel was going on about when he spoke of the “abomination of tessellation”.

Then all of a sudden something strange started to happen. I started to enjoy myself.

“Explain without drawing” my maths books said “why it may be possible to make a tessellation using a combination of equilateral triangles and regular 12 sided pologons”

So I did by working out what the angles on a 12 sided polygon were (150 degrees) then putting two of those together with an equilateral triangle (60 degrees) to make a tessellatingly possible 360.

“Now draw the tessellation”

So I did.

I decided to make the sides 20mm long and then spent hours carefully drawing out the shapes with my ruler and protractor. When my first the 12^th side of my first polygon met the first I felt a huge amount of satisfaction. Even more when having drawn the second polygon there was two sides of an equilateral triangle. The space for the third side was....wait for it....almost exactly 20mm wide.

The thing is though as satisfying as that was, actually what I really liked was mathematically proving it would work first.

Therein lies my problem.

I’m a wordsmith, an ideas man, a dyed-in-the-wool BA (actually I’m a BD but that is close enough)

I once visited Imperial College in London for a chaplains’ conference and was marginally impressed by the place until I thought “Yeah but this is all just for Maths and Science and that’s boring.”

What if I’ve changed? Behold! I am become geek! I’m not sure I’d like that.

In the past when some fresher came into chaplaincy and told me that there was a tessellating pattern on the pavement outside the Maths Department and that “that’s really cool!” I found it hard to agree purely because I had no idea what the word “tessellating” meant. They might as well have said there was some “pentomonchasm” or “gigglebumwhacking” or “dgissy-twatz”.

I don’t get excited because some experiment works. I don’t read XKCD. I don’t know how to code.

Musicians are cool. Great original tele is cool. Stuff that makes me laugh is cool. Mathematical proofs are not cool.

That’s just the person I am and, I think I like the person I am.

New Term

So week 11 of the academic year. Back at work. New term: day 2.

The students are back and I am busy putting together a to-do list of things I need to do now term in underway.

1 Organize a visit by several Bishops
2 Write to University Estates Big Wig about Building
3 Finish off the chaplaincy web site
4 Learn about Circles and probability
5 Fund raise for Chaplaincy assistant
6 Write to Guinness Book of Records for advice/ adjudication

Looks like being a busy term.

Kenny Richey Walks

From the desk of our Crime correspondent:

Briton Kenny Richey was sensationally set free tonight after serving nearly 21 years on death row in the United States. The Judge presiding at the Federal court in Ohio, ordered Richey be released after new evidence came to light that he is in fact white.

The judge allowed the appeal of Edinburgh born Richey, after it emerged that his 'incompetent' lawyer failed to point this fact out to the jury of 12 red necks at his original trial. Important DNA evidence had been overlooked the judge said.

Meanwhile the average American stopped in the street admitted he had absolutely no idea where Scotland was but felt it was "...probably a black neighbourhood" He went on to say that Richey didn't sound much like a white name, adding "He sounds kinda, like Lionel Richie's cousin"

Our legal correspondent Chucky K.K.K. Stuterbeckear VII talked to us live from New York.

"Under United States Law Blacks are much more likely to be executed than whites." he explained "Especially if the black folks are retards and it's election year. More whites though are in favour of capital punishment. So it kind of balances out in the end."

Mr Richey was tonight planning to leave the land of the free, forever.

Present

I got this from my sister over Christmas.



Doesn't look too impressive until you put it next to one of those regular sized mugs that you probably drink out of.



And some of these.



My sister really knows me!

Ah yes 'tea' we know but what is this 'morning' of which you speak????

Just sit here and watch

Sometime at the beginning of January every blogger has to do a blog of cosmic significance, usually about the turning of some corner.

Thems the rules.

You can look them up in the blogging manual.

Today however I thought I would use my home based computer network to look at at this site. Real time world statistics. You can just sit here watching people being born. Since it counts both people born and dying today and this year it seemed a good thing to do at the beginning of January. Yesterday when I looked about 212,000 people had been born. Just this second there have been 898, 737 but of course by the time you look at the screen there will be many more.

Scroll down and look at time spent on the Internet, movie visits and then books published. Hmmmmm....I think literacy is screwed!

You can just sit there for hours watching the world go by.

900,000 people born this year.

Spider without a Web

Not quite my usual office!

Back to work at the University. Not just me the entire place is back on today. Just missing the odd student or two but they will pop in sometime next week I expect.

However today all is not as it usually is at the University of Southampton due to the Information Systems Services department switching off the entire University network. That being everyone’s file store, e-mails, websites and the network connection which means that you can’t access the internet anywhere in the University.

This of course makes this cyber based clergyman’s job quite hard. I can’t blog for a start. Nor can I use other essential tools of my trade, such as facebook for example.

It does seem to be a strange thing for the computer department to do, just switch the entire thing off.

Here in these parts whenever ISS is mentioned talk always gets political. You wouldn’t think it would you? Here we have one of the finest Electronics and Computer Science departments in the world. So good in fact that it was a real shame when someone accidently burned it down a couple of years ago. Still they are rebuilding it so don’t let that put you off applying for a place. Many people (most of them students because, let’s face it, they have the time to have these conversations) suggest that there is something of a rivalry between ECS who research, study and teach it and ISS who do it.

Interestingly enough while most departments of the University; Geography, Maths, English, Chaplaincy, have all their computer needs met by ISS. ECS take care of their own.

My own mole deep inside ECS emerged, blinking myopically in the sun shine last week and over a pint of larger he scratched his furry face and complained grumpily. He reckons this is ISS’s way of reminding everyone what they do, after all if you switch on your computer and the internet is just there you sort of take it for granted don’t you? So now we all know what they do. Apparently they also want some new fangled backup thingy-ma-jig servery whattsit. Whatever that is? I admit I had a bit of trouble keeping up with the conversation at this point due to it being held with a highly train and computer literate individual, who was also a mole- I’ve never been very good at communicating with the fauna and flora. You need Bill Oddie if you want that job doing properly.

Myself, as I finished my pint, and the mole began to slowly dig through the floor in order to get back to ECS, I was much less convinced by this bitter talk. I mean if you want a realistic idea of Liverpool’s performance this season you don’t ask a dyed-in-the-wool Everton fan do you?

No I think this is essential maintenance and it’s perfectly reasonable to shut down the entire network, in fact, I think ISS do a simply marvelous work. Hard working, technically skilled always there when you need them. This gives us all a chance to talk more. Go and see people rather than send an e-mail. What’s more the carpet in my other office is thicker. Yes well done ISS! Three cheers for ISS! Hip hip. HORAY!

Did I mention, by the way, that they take care of all the chaplaincy computer needs?