So long Bill and thanks for all the bugs

I think it is finished. In just a few short weeks...

From this:

To this:

And on to this...

Tis a thing of beauty, to be sure, so it is! The whole thing fits in under 4GB.

Even Bloke (who popped round with Mrs Bloke on Easter Monday) was impressed...and we all know how Mac obsessed Bloke is. In fact he was so impressed he used Ubuntu to play me extreme right wing fundamentalist propaganda.

It was a moment.

Now I just have a tiny bit of tweaking to do...oh and Vista to uninstall.

Fag end of March

Life is a little quiet currently...

So I think it's about time I did some more Maths.

Perspective

As I sat down the pub with an old git, something occurred to me...

We were discussing a mutual acquaintance who delights in opacity. This I suppose reminded me of when I was a teenager. I think some teenagers want to believe they are complex, multlayered and unreadable. After all at, say 17 you haven't really done anything, you have spent vast portions of your life in the same school uniform as most of your friends, you live with parents who know you very well and life is ordinary.

Maybe that's why as a teenager my favorite line was "You don't understand me!"

As the drink flowed the tongues loosened and I realsed something. Now I'm older I don't want to be opaque I don't want to be unreadable, far from it I want to be around people who know me. What I want is genuine deep friendships with people.

The seems to be an age thing. As people get older and life gets more settled actually friends are harder to come by, and you realise how important these things are.


Anyway I must just go and delete last night's entry on the blog.

Special

"I saw this and thought of you...it's an Easter Egg..." she said
"It's um..." I said
"...a bit different, and a bit yellow? Sort of 'special'?" she said.
"Yes" I said.
"Good." she said.
"It's very flat." I said.

BRRRRRRRRR

I'm not sure I was ready for Easter.

I usually have a couple of days off once term has finished and then Easter turns up a couple of weeks later. This year it was in the first week of the holidays.

Last year I did a whole series of deep religious blog posts for Holy Week (the hits dropped drastically) but this year I didn't really have time. In fact we got to Maundy Thursday and I hadn't really prepared and didn't go to a service.

On Easter Saturday I went to walk round some gardens with a friend, in the snow, and I found myself wondering if Easter wasn't just a bit too early this year. As I sat in the cold and munched my Seminal Cake I didn't feel very Eastery. Not very Egg like at all. In fact I'm not the only one. Some media outfit did a story on the economic cost of an early Easter. The bloke on the Radio was going on the other day about this being the earliest Easter since 1916.

Most people know Easter has something to do with the full moon. Most people think that is to do with the fact that Easter used to be a Pagan festival. There is some evidence that there was a Spring Goddess called something like “Easter” and she's given us the name but the dating is a little more complex.

The Book of Common Prayer has a nice little table with the following instructions:

This Table contains so much of the Calendar as is necessary for the determining of Easter; to find which, look for the Golden Number of the year in the first Column of the Table, against which stands the day of the Pascal Full Moon; then look in the third Column for the Sunday Letter, next after the day of the Full Moon, and the day of the Month standing against that Sunday Letter is Easter Day. If the Full Moon happens upon a Sunday, then (according to the first rule) the next Sunday after is Easter-Day.

To find the Golden Number, or Prime, add one to the Year of our Lord, and then divide by 19; the remainder, if any, is the Golden Number; but if nothing remaineth, then 19 is the Golden Number.

To find the Dominical or Sunday Letter, according to the Calendar, until the Year 2099 inclusive, add to the Year of our Lord its Fourth Part, omitting Fractions; and also the Number 6: Divide the sum by 7; and if there is no remainder, the A is the Sunday Letter: But if any number remaineth, then the Letter standing against that number in the small annexed Table is the Sunday Letter.

0	A
1	G
2	F
3	E
4	D
5	C
6	B

For the next Century, that is, from the year 2100 till the year 2199 inclusive, add to the current year its fourth part, and also the number 5, and then divide by 7, and proceed as in the last Rule.

Note, that in all Bissextile or Leap-Years, the Letter found as above will be the Sunday Letter, from the intercalated day exclusive to the end of the year.”

I believe they call that Maths. If you imagine that a degree in theology helps you to understand this then please send someone else with one my way...cos I'm lost.

There is an explanation here and here.

The truth of the matter is that originally Christians celebrated Easter when Passover happened. The Jewish festival which was going on when Jesus died. Jewish people celebrated passover with much merriment and then after it was over the Christians came along and had a solemn fast and all night vigil. Nothing like the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour to provoke Christian misery (I'm not saying we took someone else's fab festival and made it crap...I'm just hinting here)

When Christians ceased to be part of the synagogues they also lost access to rabbinical legal process to determine dates. So they did what Christians do and had schismatic argument. (I'm not saying that hanging round with Jews causes less arguments than hanging around with other Christians...I'm just hinting here). Some Christians wanting to keep the Jewish timing and the Bishop of Rome wanting it on a Sunday. There was a whole lot of debates about when Jesus died. March 25 was the preferred option because they reckoned God like numbers and Jesus would have started and ended his life on the same day (come on guys do the Maths...when does the Catholic Church say life begins?....Remember the Embryology Bill?) So someone in Rome said “Sod it” put Easter after the first full moon of Spring (Because the Jewish Calendar is lunar). Then excommunicated dissenters, Spring starts with the equinox which is about March 20^th.

So Easter can be any time from March 21^st to April 25^th.

See nothing Pagan about that.

At least my chocolate isn't melting.

Human Embriology

Keith O'Brien, leader of Scotland's Roman Catholic Church, has decided to use Easter not just to speak about Jesus' resurrection but also to weigh in on Gordon Brown.

So many people are worried about the future - the possibility of banks failing; the increased cost of living with regard to food, petrol and many of those things which we find essential; our concerns about climate change and global warming; our increasing worries about the dangers of nuclear disaster.

Nothing like being positive there Cardinal!I think if people are worried about these things maybe a word of encouragement might be more appropriate. This message of 'everything is going very Pete Tong' is overly melodramatic "BUT" he goes on, (and it is a very important 'but').

But I think that a fundamental concern of all of our people at this present time, and one which we ourselves as Christians must take very seriously, is that concerning the future of human life itself.

Just pause here for a moment. What the Cardinal is saying is that the financial system could fail, which, in it's unlikely event, would obviously bring misery and poverty to millions. There could be an increase in prices which could have far reaching ramifications for the economy. Global warming could be a huge problem, and there could be nuclear Armageddon (I think the cardinal just puts this in to frighten us). In spite of all of that it seems what Christians should primarily concern themselves with sexual and reproductive ethics.

Jesus places the avoidance of religious hypocrisy at the top of his list. The oppression of the poor seems to concern him as well.

I want to agree with the cardinal but I think his argument that this bill is all bad news seems, like his list of worries, overblown. This is such a dense bill and concerns such complicated scientific matters that it is extremely difficult to take a clear ethical stance on it. I lack the levels of scientific knowledge required, so do most people.

Take for example the creation of human and animal embryos. Bearing in mind there is already experimentation on human embryos I'm not sure that this is any worse. It could be argued that it is better. The Cardinal though, is concerned that we are creating human animal hybrids. Beings that are not human or animal but a mixture of the two walking around among us. That seems to be deliberate scaremongering. Stop anyone in the street and say "Should we allow pig-humans to be born." the answer would be no (unless you stopped a sick and twisted person), but what the Bill proposes is research of the sort that already going on.

The argument the Cardinal is making is based on natural law and assumes that nothing which violates what is natural should ever be attempted. The trouble is, unlike the Cardinal, because I live in a world of airplanes, hospitals and space ships I'm not 100% certain what 'natural' is. Likewise I'm less concerned with the sanctity of something called human life and more concerned with the sanctity of human lives, including those not yet born.

I'm not saying that I'm on the government' side either, this isn't being done because the government considers this right or ethical, or even to cure diseases, this is being done to keep us at the forefront of embryonic research. This is about business.

Having said that though, this is another example of quixotic thinking on the part of Christians. Once again, like S.O.R. before it we are setting ourselves up for a showdown on an issue we cannot win. Once again the e-mail campaigns are in full swing, once again Christians are being mobilized and told what to think and once again I am far from convinced on what I'm being told.

On the Human and Fertilisation and Embryology Bill the honest answer is 'I don't know'. We all seek moral certainty, it's not always possible, pretending it's there when it isn't may do more harm than good.

Maundy

To Winchester, for the annual renewal of ordination vows.

Arrived a few minutes late. I was not wearing a dog collar and had plumed for my usual jeans and hoodie. I got turned away by the bloke on the door, since the cathedral was closed to sightseers, there being a service on.

I explained I was there to renew my ordination vow and I got a dirty look from the woman on the door. I suppose she doesn't think that clergy should dress like that, they let me in though....just.

Afterwards we always have alight lunch of soup in the North Transept. I chatted to the Dean. He expressed some concern about tomorrow.

"What you doin'?" I asked somewhat flippantly. Apparently there is this thing called the Winchester Passion which I had no idea was happening a fact that, I think, worried the Dean. Unfortunately I live in Southampton and stuff happening at the posh place up the road often doesn't permeate down. Anyway faux pas over I headed off to speak to people. I met the former chaplain of Southampton University. I asked him if there is life after Uni Chaplaincy.

"Well life has not been nearly as interesting after that." he says with the deepest sign...Oh crap! I thought. I saw the Bishop who remembered my name and then tucked into the spread.

Finished the day by getting told off by another female cathedral volunteer for scoffing down all the free food.

I'm sorry but where I minister that sort of behavior is considered normal.

Bad day at the DOP

I am writing this to you from the kitchen of my house while my dinner of Calve's Liver and Waffels bubbles away on the griddle.

I am operating, for those of you who care, wirelessly via a BT Home hub using Ubuntu. It's getting quite hard to see the screen however what with all the smoke.

Today was my first day back at work. Having not had a day off for the last 3 weeks I decided to take three days off back to back. So today being the first working day since the holidays started I expected it to be a bit quiet. That being said, I did have an appointment with a student for 9am. So I pitched up at chaplaincy at 9.15 determined to clear my desk and then be back at home by lunchtime-ish. Maybe.

The student left me at about 10.30 so I then said my prayers, answered my e-mails and moderated my blog comments. I then (ouch just burned myself) went to tidy my office. Well...actually I went to make a cup of tea, when a student appeared and asked to speak to me. Spent a hour talking to him, while talking to him the phone rang. It was a member of staff who wanted to come round for prayer. So a hour later I decided to turn my attention back to my desk.

The phone rang again. This time it was the Paul O' Grady show, believe it or not, wanting some clarification. Then at 2pm another student turned up. A hour later and that most enigmatic of chaplaincy groupies The Todd turned up to show me pictures of naked women (some days it's like that with the Todd) at 4.30 I cycled home and switching (something like a transformer from the 80s) to car mode I made my way to the Department of Psychiatry.

Today was a bad day of the D.O.P.

It's no fun being on your own when all the other students have gone home for Easter. Here's a question for you: What do you do when you're looking after a student who is already receiving major treatment and therapy and it isn't helping today? Answer...nothing. There's nothing you can do, so you ask what she did today and sit there and try not to be too shocked and then you chat about Jeremy Kyle (a TV favorite in the D.O.P.) I think we ended up laughing and joking about self harm and suicide.

I stayed for about 2 hours and headed home £3 worse off (parking charges) then I burned the liver.

Not bad for a day at work after all the students have gone.

Vocab

We have now been pushing back the boundaries of the English Language.

The other day we coined the following:

"Mathsdebation" n.
1. To gratuitously engage in mathematics on one's own, purely for enjoyment.
2. Process of engaging in solitary maths.
3. To question or vigorously discuss numerical concepts.

cf US Eng. Mathdebation.

As in the following:

"I wanted to see the chaplain but he was in his office Mathsdebating"
"I walked into chaplaincy hoping for a chat but everyone was mathsdebating" "My girlfriend was mathsdebating last night so I spent the evening downloading porn instead"

I think it must be nearly the end of term.

Bishop

The end of term is fast approaching.

Just to end things off properly my boss the Bishop of Southampton has decided to make an Episcopal Visitation to the University and Chaplaincy.

To do the job properly he is bringing along a bunch of his mates. The Moderator of the URC, the Chair of the Methodist District, the Divisional Commanders of the Southern Division (Salvation Army) must practice my salute and the Catholic Dean of Southampton.

Obviously I'll have to dress up or be on my best behavior. Or both. Probably just dress up actually.

They are coming to see the people who run things round here. To have official meetings with The Registrar and Chief Operating Officer the Deputy Vice Chancellors and The President of SUSU. I can imagine what effect this will be having in their respective offices. Probably a quizzical look in the diary at the words "Bishops' Meeting".

They also want to meet the students.

I did suggest to them that they might like to do this last. Not that I'm accusing them of playing to type, but I did want to give them the maximum amount of time to get out of bed.

Unfortunately the Bishop wants to see them first.

Hopefully there will be some who turn up at 10am in the chaplaincy. Tomorrow.

Like you for instance...I mean if you are a student.

Speaking of playing to type. Saw this on the news.

In praise of Alex Tanfield

OK, you're probably thinking this is a piece of sheer sycophancy.

"Oh look" you're saying to yourself "Yellow is trying to suck up to the New Union President."

Well let me declare a couple of things up front.

1) As far as I'm aware Tanners does not read this.
2) As chaplain it is my job to work with SUSU and develop a good relationship with those who run the thing, so obviously I'm going to be nice to Tanners but that's not why I'm writing this.
3) I know Tom Constable and I like him a lot, whereas I hardly know Tanners so actually I think I can be objective here.

My reason for writing this is that for the most part I talk about Chaplaincy on here. I talk about me. I also talk about things that interest me in the wider world. I don't think I've ever really commented on the student politics that happen just up the road, but I do think I've got something to say and for once I'd like to go all local on you.

For those who missed it we had a student union election round here. A lot of the posts went more or less as expected. A lot of the candidates were so good it was hard to choose between them. To take one example; with the Vice President Welfare and Societies post all the candidates could have done the job very well. In the end I think it came down to Tim Berryman who was running as Welfare and SOCIETIES or Dan Fran who I felt was running as WELFARE and Societies. If you get what I mean. I could be being unfair to Dan here and I'm sure he'll give Societies a fair hearing I just felt his emphasis was more on the welfare side.

With the President we had three very different candidates.

Tom Constable who was eminently competent and had vast experience across all areas of the union, on committees, in societies, in union council and finally as Societies Officer.

Joel Braham who did not have as much experience as Constable but never the less ran an absolutely stunning campaign mobilising hordes of people and presenting something that was certainly fun to watch. Indeed Joel came up again and again in my vlogs just because he did so much that was interesting to look at (and I don't just mean his sister). He also had a lot of great ideas. We shouldn't gloss over the fact that Joel also had a lot of experience in Halls.

Finally the third candidate was Alex 'Tanners' Tanfield. She won.

Lots of people have expressed the opinion afterwards to me that they are worried about the union. That they think she'll do a bad job and that they think that she only won because she was pretty. I'd like to engage with these opinions.

It is true that Tanners has limited experience within the Union. She has never attended Union Council. Or any committee meetings. She has not got involved with student politics while here. She has however been a member of the Union and several societies within it. It seems to me that you cannot make an argument that someone will be crap on the basis that they haven't done anything. Tom Constable has been Societies Officer. It's reasonable to take that into account when deciding who to vote for. If he had won we could also say "He'll be crap look at what he's done" or "He's Great" based on the past but Tanners is entirely fresh so you just don't know.

Lots of people have expressed the opinion that Tanners only won because people who fancied her voted for her. That opinion is usually voiced to me by men. Given that 90% of the population are straight I'm not surprised that they thought she was the most attractive candidate. I must point out that all the people who have voiced this opinion have also vociferously pointed out that they didn't vote Tanners because she was pretty. So in actual fact the only people who have raised her looks are people who didn't vote for her.

If you are of this opinion you are discounting all the women who voted. Perhaps you have overlooked the fact that they are entitled to vote or maybe you only think that men should vote. Then of course there is the slight misogynistic tendency that this type of thinking reveals. What you are basically saying is there is no reason to vote for a pretty girl other than she is pretty. She can only be your equal if she's ugly.

Tanners had ideas. Her manifesto was full of them. Like her Sexual Health Awareness Week. (I believe it's actually going to be called Sexual Health Awareness and Guidance. I think 'Week' sounds better I have no idea why they went with 'Guidance'). This has been tried at other Universities and is very successful. People might have wanted this one here. Maybe that's why they voted for her. Maybe they liked her campaign. Tom mostly focused on lecture theaters and Halls. Joel focused on the Concourse. Tanners did both. She clearly has energy and enthusiasm.

Or maybe there was another reason.

Thanks to the people in SUSU Media it looks like this election was the most high profile there has ever been. Usually between 2,000 and 3,000 people vote. This year 4729 votes were cast. Go back and read that number. It is significant.

The fact of the matter is that this year a record number of people voted. People who would not normally vote.

The fact of the matter is that elections are political affairs and the people most interested in them are political. Student politics like student religion is an acquired taste. The received wisdom is that to succeed in student politics you have to be involved. SUSU President is not seen as an entry level job. You need to be involved in your Hall JCR, or on Union Council. You have to be Sites Officer or Societies Officer (one of the unpaid Union Posts) before you can go for a paid Sabbatical Position. However most people are only here for 3 or 4 years and it's hard to get that experience unless you start right from the beginning. Often you need to be JCR President in your first year.

You see if you don't get involved right from the word go it's very hard to get involved afterwards. Time is short and it's very easy to miss the boat of Student Union Politics. Of course anyone can stand just like the Politics in General, but the only people who do are usually insiders. That's why we hate politicians. It is also why we keep voting for people who are not part of the system. Even if they are complete nut cases like George Galloway.

Alex Tanfield is not an insider she is an ordinary student like many of the people who voted for her. She had ideas, enthusiasm and gt up and go. She got more votes than everyone else, actually no one else came close. So let's see what she can do.

Smurfification

"Are you doing anything on Monday the third?" asked a student who had just walked into chaplaincy.

I have a lot of these conversations my answer is always never no. Even if I'm actually doing something on the night the student wants me for. After all when someone asks me this I never know where it is going. What I'm going to end up doing and that, my dear Internet based friends,is the adventure which is life.

Maybe you should say yes to something new today.

"What do you need from me?" I ask. "We need you to for the smurf record."

451.

The official record for the most amount of people in one place...dressed as smurfs. Currently officially held by Warwick University. In order to do the record they need everyone in the building to be dressed as smurfs. This means blue makeup, white hats and white trousers. They need a respected member of the community to certify that fact. Luckily for them the folks at Guinness have never read this blog so they still respect me.

I turn up dressed in my blue 'dog collar' shirt at 9. I arrived to find a bank of volunteers with a table of blue makeup. I have a little chat to them and as I do so one of them starts dabbing my face, I realize she is armed with a blue makeup soaked sponge. Someone hands me a white hat and I have been transformed into Padre Smurf. I decide to have a look at myself in the mirror so I nip off to the loo. One glance in the mirror reveals the truth. I look ridiculous.

I decide to head back to the makeup table to rectify this. Maybe they've got some remover.

While there I get called over by this bloke called "Abs".

"What you doing?" he asks.
"I'm the official adjudicator" I say.

Abs (and I wonder if that is actually his name) it turns out, has just got a new job. He used to be a dancer and a salesman but now he works for Lilly Savage's insides. Insides you and I know and love by the name of Paul O' Grady. Abs' new job is a sort of roving reporter for Paul O' Grady's afternoon show. As such he has turned up here, on his first job remember, dressed in a white pair of shorts and a very silly floppy white hat and is covered head to foot (as much as I can tell anyway) in blue body paint. To search for truth and report the facts for O' Grady's viewers.

He is accompanied by a director with a camera and a sound girl and he's very, very excited to be given this chance. So recognizing the importance of this I leave him to track down wacky or attractive students in the name of light entertainment.

I head back to the makeup table.

"I look silly." I explain.
"Yes you do" says a sympathetic makeup volunteer. "They've done an awful job on you. Lets sort that out." with that she grabs another sponge.

Few minutes later I am fully smurfified. For the next hours I spend my time watching students sign in to make sure that everyone who is in the building and looks like a smurf has recorded that. The evening wears on. Abs pops up from time to time.

"How we doing?" he asks nervously.
"I'm not sure." I tell him honestly.

It's a tense evening as the smurfs file in. I'm not sure we'll make it, but we might, after all I haven't seen this much blue since election night'87. The numbers creep up 200, 300, 400 The director appears up near where I am counting.

"You could be out there doing some hard hitting journalism." I say.
"What instead of this?" he points the camera at about 5 very drunk girls. "Ok cheer...that's it...keep cheering...still cheering...cheer....cheer...and...cut!"

He has got a point.

The evening wears on and I have to send two smurfs out to get hats, but other than that, for the most part, it's uneventful. Most people are playing by the rules so I'm really just there for show. Midnight and we take the final count. 500, 600, 700,

720!

We broke the record! In fact we smashed it!*

Which is just as well as it gave Abs something to report when he returned to O' Grady HQ. So the evening ended we came, we smurfed and it was Smurftastic. As I enjoy a celebratory drink I notice Abs outside being filmed doing a little Smurf dance. It's about 2 degrees.

"Once more Abs." says the director. Followed by "Going again." and "OK from the top once more." This bit takes about 10 minutes. Abs' blue colouring seems to have take on an almost ontological flavour. Finally they stop and Abs can put on a dressing gown. Before carrying the bags to the taxi.

Working in television, there's only one word for it: Glamorous.

Smurftastic. Smurfifilliant. Smurfingly gorgeous.


*there are remours of a record attempt by Chester University. At the time of witting that record attempt is not yet official.

Epilogue

Finally

I came I saw, I filmed. Then Nick Culley told me he was coming to get his camera....

But

To B or not to B and to V instead

Hello. remember me? I'm a line of text. I used to be an integral part of this blog before Video. Video is great isn't it?

I love video, even though it killed the radio star.

But the journey is almost at an end. The elections are over and there are just two more videos to go. Then Nick Culley will want his camera back and vlogging will cease.

Unless of course we find a way to keep it going. But what do you think? Is vlogging the way forward is do you find naked unadorned text really sexy? I'm after some feedback here. Since this is all about an election vote 'B' for textbased blogging or 'V' for Video based vlogging.

Tell me what you think.