Taking a break

Sometimes you just need to get out of the situation.

Sometimes you just need a break.

I feel like getting in the car and then just drive and drive and drive.

I could be at Milton Keynes by daybreak.

Tick Tick Tick

Today I got my pay slip for January.

Five to go.

Just for the record

I didn't do it. I was at home. In bed. With my assistant.

He didn't do it either.

Good that's that one delt with. Everything plausably denied. There will be no roumous circulating now.

Response

There are various ways in which you can respond in any given situation.

How do you like to respond there, people of the internets? Shall we take a moment and consider the things we do when present with difficulty.

(At this point, just sit quietly for 30 seconds - normally I like to time pauses for reflection for the congregation, but as I'm not actually there you'll have to do this for yourself

You could try this video



although you may find the sound distracting you reflections)

Now I'm going to try the one response you probably weren't thinking of. I'm going to respond to the current situation in my life with surrealism. The next thing I do is going to be thought out and executed with four legs and a neck and persistence of memory. So tonight I'm going to take my assistant out for a spot of illegal activity.

Watch this space. And indeed this one too.

Chapter 4: In which our hero attempts to write his CV

Hmmmm... so I don't know if I'm job hunting yet or not but it seems the right time to get your CV up to date.

I check through on the computer. My CV describes me as a curate and college chaplain. That wont do. It's got the wrong address on.

Now what should I put on it?

I look up one of those how to do your CV guides online. It says to start with your name, address and phone number. That was easy. I have them written down.

Now what comes next? Apparently according to the site I need a brief paragraph about my career goals. Short and snappy. Crumbs! I'm a priest am I even allowed career goals? Surely I should just write 'The will of God'. Perhaps 'Will only accept advancement under duress, if personally communicated with, by a minimum of 10 angels (or 1 crown appointments committee)'. How about 'Career goals, as of 2010: Not sleeping in a gutter and having a salary'? Hmmm, that's not overburdened with hubris, is it?

Maybe I actually need to put myself forward. 'Career Goals: Canterbury, York, Oxford, Durham (Will settle for Sodor and Mann)'. Well that was snappy! Perhaps less lofty goals: 'to be chaplain of a university...almost exactly like Southampton Uni' Nah, never does to scream 'I can't let go!' from the pages of a CV. I think I'll come back to this bit.

Next thing I have to do a paragraph on what sort of person I am. 'A highly motivated salesman with a track record in the duct tape sector' that sort of thing.

How about 'Bringing colour to the University, in a very literal way, since 2005'? This is probably going to be read by a Bishop, so maybe 'If they made you redundant how many 18-22 year olds would object? Would it be more or less than a thousand?' Actually that's cheating I know more 18-22 year olds than my Bishop. Um....thinks....'Thousands of students searching for a non existent tunnel. Nuff said'. Something a bit more narrative, like say:

"Described as 'interesting' by students, and 'off the wall' by staff members, as 'oh yes I've heard of him' by the VC and 'expensive' by the Diocesan Finance Director. Occasional star of stage, screen and the Church Times blog'."

or

"He's small, he's round, he's yellow, with a huge appetite for life, able to navigate through the maze of the University, avoiding trouble where necessary but able to deal with whatever spiritual nasties come his way - basically he's Pac-man"

Or shall I just start with a brief list of my previous jobs?

Yep. That's what I'll do.

Yellow not Blue

The latest meme sweeping the web is David Cameron's poster currently hanging ominously close to somewhere near you.

Click here and then see my offering below.

Grass roots

Politics isn't just about what goes on at the national level it is also about what is happening down here at the grass roots level.

I live in one of the country's most marginal constituencies.

Judging by the numbers this should be a shoe in for the Conservatives. So why when there are only 125 votes in it between them and the Lib Dems, are the Conservatives campaigning so hard here? Why does David Cameron keep writing to me?

Only today I spied a member of the shadow cabinet striding his way up and down my road. From the look of how quickly it took Sir George Young (for it was he) to get from one end of the road to the other - he spent just 57.3 seconds at the couple over the road's house, and even shorter time at those either side: Just 6.9 seconds at one, and at the other the woman didn't even answer the door (she was on the phone - still he waved at her through the window, nice man!) - It seemed like a lot of people were quickly expressing their disinterest.

Consequently I should say this election is anything but a foregone conclusion.

He didn't speak to me, probably because I was busy charging up and down the road on my bike trying out the new stop-watch feature on my cyclometer. And I was also dressed head to foot in Libe Dem colours, which was nothing to do with politics really, but more to do with my having a slight predisposition to the colour yellow and a fairly major predisposition, with me not becoming intimately acquainted with a car windscreen.

Small and not so small mercies

Kierkegaard once talked of a dash, like one you would get in a sentence, but it was a sort of existential dash within his life that mark a hiatus in his existence.

Here we are in January and the time is ticking by. There is now very little I can do except get on with my job and wait until my next meeting with the Bishop. He is doing all the official fund raising and I have no idea where he is up to with it.

But in the meantime I have received some good news. At least one church has now firmly committed to supporting me and has given money to the diocese. The students have now raised pledges worth about £4,000, and then just before Christmas I opened a letter that had been put on my desk, not knowing what it contained. I wondered if it wass from a church offering support but it turned out to be from an indivudual enclosing a cheque for £500 'for my support'.

I was touched by such a generous thought. Equally I have been moved by the many messages I have recieved from far and wide and the offers of prayers. Including a few Atheists who have got in touch to tell me that they are keeping their fingers crossed and hoping that blind chance will enable everything to work out alright.

Yep, it is a strange hiatus. In some respects synod is old news and seems like a very long time ago. In other repects it is sometime too present a distraction from the real work, of serving those I was put here to care for.

Snow Day

Last weeks schools and colleges were shut all over Hampshire....but then yesterday Big School finally ran out of grit and the Registrar closed us down for a day,


SNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOW DAY!!!!!!

No work. No work at all. I mean I could have met some students but if I start encouraging people to come on to campus and then they fall over they could sue. I tell you what I think, this isn't health and safety gone mad it's health and safety gone Kraaaaaaaaazy. Who hoo....

So....video....computer...no....wait.... friends! Yes that's it. I'll spend my snow day playing with my friends That's what everyone does on a snow day. I fling open my address book and flick through it.

Matthew works in a bank, Bloke works in a school, BGD just busy. Sanjay paperwork. Tim is busy retraining as a minister. And so on and so on.

Damn! All my friends seem to have jobs. This just not fair. So made another snowman and then spent the day watching News 24.

Should have rung the Dave really and gone round his flat and had some fun. Only I have a suspicion he doesn't have a phone...or a flat...or the ability to have fun. Maybe I should have done something with Mrs Bloke. (Just nibbling at the ankles of inappropriate, there). Still, we should have more days off sledging. It would do us all the power of good as a county. Especially when the weather is better. Then we just need to lube the sledge. (I always have loads of lube in my office, as I believe I have pointed out before now)

Unfortunately salt arrived in the University Monday, so back to work we go.

Brrrrrrrr....

Oh gosh, it's cold!

That's all!

(This post is only included for historical purposes for those searching the archives in 2011 onwards and wondering if I had anything to say during the coldest winter for 30 years.

After all this is so much worse than ever before. Compare this photo taken on the common yesterday



with this one taken last year



See completely different.)

Knock Knock

I am considering something very radical.

A bit of a point of departure in my life. I have knocked at a door and the door has opened.

The question is do I go through it?

St Roger

Happy St Rogers day.

St Roger of course, the patron saint of Beige slippers, beaded seat covers, easy listening and people who have damn good sex.

That's all true, I'm not one of those fly by night bloggers who just make stuff up, oh no. I look stuff up in a book.

It has pictures and not many words, but it's still a book, damn it!