doorway to dreamland

I made a promise to Ken at a public meeting five years ago. He didn't think it would ever happen, and wanted to know if I would be around to walk him through the doors that would join St Catherine's Church to the Hall. So I looked him in the eye and assured him I would do it.

He nearly had a leg amputated last month. But it didn't happen, and today I kept my promise. I walked him through a door that didn't exist. Didn't exist.

It does now.

After the 2005 interior renovations in the church, I was grateful that we had finished and I had no more building projects. The next thing we had to do was employ a children's worker - not that we had any children; that's why we had to employ a children's worker. And I knew who I wanted, but they lived in the wrong part of Wales. No problem - her husband was duly put through the ordination machine & sorted for training at Llandaff, and Naomi needed a job.

All I needed was money, an agreeable PCC, and enough rope to hang myself.

And just after Naomi began working with us, I walked around the back of church one day, between the church and the hall (which at the time we never used - the main room was rented out full time to Social Services; and the top floor had been condemned and was unusable) at the point where the two buildings were closest together, suddenly I was standing in a foyer that joined the two together. I was actually standing in this thing. And I realised what I was going to do next...

Oh my poor church wardens.

It was an arduous journey. We wondered why we would join the two together: the benefit for the elderly and for children who used the church was obvious, in that it would create access to loos, but was that enough reason?

So we thought bigger.

What about renovating the hall. What about using the hall. Ourselves. Losing the rent from social services. Doing more for kids. Starting a work with older people. Needing more room.

Should we build new rooms into the vicarage garden? Should we build onto the west end of the church? Of course - we should bring the top floor into use, and make meeting rooms up there for people of different ages, create a parish office, put a lift in so the older members and people with kids in buggies could use it... And so the plans grew.

And the price grew too.

But whilst all that was happening, we didn't stop. Naomi left, and Kirsty took over - using the Hall now for the children's work & growing toddler groups and youth work. Kirsty was followed by Trish. And we started St Caths Plus for older people - outreach for the more mature, based on the model of our children's work, based on our concern that older people deserve better facilities and good places to meet and do interesting things together in our community. First Esther, then Anne headed it up.

There were weeks when we had 200 people coming to events put on by the community projects.

The plans grew. And the price. And the fundraising - that was part of my job, and Esther worked hard there too. There were successes, and failures. The timeline was not what I had hoped. In the end, I felt a tiny bit like King David looking at plans to build a temple in Jerusalem: I knew it was going to happen; I knew I'd done everything I could; it just wasn't going to be done in my time. The final major piece of fundraising news came through just after I left in summer 2011. Yet it came to pass...

And two became one. The church is on the left. The hall is the main structure you see. The bottom floor is a new corridor, joining church and the new loos. (A rather welcome change from the previous Victorian facilities!) The low double stained-glass window on the low jutting structure was previously in the church. That structure is the new foyer that makes the two buildings one.

Peter, the new vicar, has work to do on his garden, which is a right mess. Good job he's a botanist...

Of course, as well as seeing all that is, and that is still to do, I couldn't help but see all who were not there. David the architect, a dear friend to me and to the church for many years, was unable to come, but his work will bless many. There were members of the Hayward family present to recall Ken, and Hilda, who both inspired me along the way. John Murphy would have loved to see this. It would have thrilled his soul. I guess it does as he looks down at us. Seeing Sam, my heart was filled with Ian. Seeing Cherry, I could picture Heather. I was motivated by so many people whose names I am not mentioning and who have not seen this day; but their gift blesses people who come after. And that is how it should be. We are all forgotten eventually, and yet the blessing carries on.

Well. Indeed. For now, much remains to be done. The service this morning was an official blessing by the Archbishop of Wales, with many friends from the wider community present - Owen the MP, Malcolm the QS, Nicky the artist who designed the new stained glass above the door that joins church to foyer, far too many to mention. It was a privilege to be amongst them. The upstairs is almost done. The lift almost ready. The kitchen nearly there. The downstairs has a bit of work still to do. The foyer roof isn't quite finished. BUT - it looks amazing. Looking down from the upstairs office over Pontypridd, you are aware of how fine a building this is, and what a gift it will be to people across the community.

There has been a lot of very hard work done by a lot of dedicated people since I left!

And here's that door. The one I walked Ken through. The one that didn't exist. It used to be a wall & a window. Not any more. The view is from the church to the foyer. Nicola Hopwood's design is on the theme of worship & praise; the words are drawn from the hymn 'My Song is Love Unknown' - and I will claim a little credit for the suggestion, though Nicky then pared them down and put her own poetic take on the final selection.

Art doesn't need explanation. But here is my response - and you should have your own. I see in the swoop of the colours, arms of outstretched praise. Behind - the night; ahead - the day; above - the cross, the highest point of all worship. Flowing from the worship of the church into the day ahead, a seed: a word, a deed, a sharing of the love received in worship. A making real beyond of the realities sung within this place. And with it - an invitation to young and old, broken and joyful, men and women, those who have come long and those who have never heard before:

Here might I stay and sing
This is my friend
Sweet praise
Days
Gladly spend

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

It's been quite a year. And as we enter the final week, with Christmas beginning as the year ends, I've been enjoying the various round robin letters.

I'm tempted to join in. But frankly - if you're that interested, you've already read about my trek up Kilimanjaro, my semi-final defeat in the county tennis championships, and my latest concert tour as you've perused the blog during the year. Plus, you've been challenged by the odd sermon and thrilled by the academic breakthroughs I'm making at work.

What's left to add?

Well...

If we add a soupcon of honesty and the bare minimum of humility, I might say that on the whole I end the year as I begin most years. Christmas is a time for gratitude. Simply saying 'thank you'.

I'm grateful for friends and family who have been there for me through some difficult days. A small op which carried a lot of pain. A big loss which still hurts. And I'm delighted to be a part of a lovely church family in Calverley - a real joy; they have blessed me beyond words, in all kinds of ways.

I'm grateful for all kinds of people I've been fortunate to meet this year and all kinds of places I've been able to visit - sometimes quite by chance, and sometimes through work. Skiing with friends, finally doing the Schilthorn, being with Florida family & friends, St Emilion, a gospel choir in New York, a glorious day in DC, and (again) skiing - but this time as part of a wedding. The places - the people - how grateful could I be?

I'm grateful for the way my faith has been challenged and has grown and developed. It's more and more part of who I am that my thirst for a greater biblical understanding has to lie within the framework of grace. I mean, I disagree more than ever with doctrine I read which excludes people (for all sorts of reasons) but I want to remain in conversation with the people with whom I disagree. Somewhere on this blog this year the best sentence I wrote said - I'd rather be righteous than right. Which means - I'd rather be in good standing with you than beat you in an argument. Somehow, I'm finding more of Jesus here. And - listening to others means that I find really good ideas I can pinch and call my own.

Finally, Christmas. Tonight we had the Calverley Carol Service. The fantastic scratch choir worked really hard and sang amazingly. They did a couple of my carols (Christmas Song, and Mary's Song) and now I get to relax. For the first time in a million years I didn't need to stay up for Midnight Communion.

So I'm staying up. Well, why not? I'd feel guilty about missing it!

And in the morning I'm speaking at the Christmas Day service here. On John 1. Can't remember doing a John 1 sermon before...

I took Mum to see Matt's grave yesterday. Strange, Christmas wasn't a big thing for him. Charlie, his predecessor, loved Christmas. Matt enjoyed it, but he'd rather we had chicken. Yet over these days, the house has been full of him. I've felt him, thought of him, been aware of him. And (though there's been a tear or two) actually now the memories are filled with gladness. I smile. I miss him enormously. And yet he is here. My heart.

John 1. The Word become flesh: all those words from all those letters, all those highlights of all those years, all those moments for which to be thankful - and in the midst of every single one of them, Jesus. God is here. Every day. Not just as the year comes to an end. Each of those letters shows me hope and fear and dreams and loss and God everywhere.

Yes. I'm staying up. Can't help myself. Can't bear to miss.

Merry Christmas.

the greatest summer remembered

Remember when Murray won at Wimbledon? When Sir Chris got his sixth? When Bradley lounged on a throne of gold? When Queen Victoria blew kisses? When all the world did the Mobot? And Jess wept and so did we?

The greatest summer ever, wonderfully evoked in this brief BBC video. Ah, halcyon days.

cumber-some

So there we have it. The first teaser trailer for Star Trek: Into Darkness. And in 60 seconds we see a lot of action, fear, and disaster - and Benedict Cumberbatch as the latest Trek villain. And rather splendid he looks too. Home from Holmes.

I enjoyed JJ's first foray into the Trek universe enormously; everything I see here has me Pining for more.

another year

It seems slightly superfluous. The number. All the numbers, actually. I think I will stop having numbers, now. I've had enough.

Suffice to say, today sees the arrival of another. I was shopping in town the other day when someone told me a tale that relied upon them being much older than me. Clearly they were. I mean - clearly. You only had to look. I smiled, marvelled in all the right places, and slowly realised as the story went on that the person was a whole year older than me.

Eek.

There comes a time when investing in a really good moisturiser matters. Those Dead Sea minerals; trust them implicitly.

I guess the secret to getting older is collecting more birthdays; but still, enough with the numbering system already. It's just another year.

purple

There's a rather lovely response to this week's failure of the Church of England's General Synod to pass the legislation that will allow for women to be ordained bishop. It's on the Fulcrum site, a place with which I have a mixed relationship, and it spoofs the "when I am old I shall wear purple" poem.

Have a read.

There's a lot of hurt there. And a lot of hope. And a fair bit of generosity too.

It's not been the best week in the Church of England's life. When 40 out of 42 dioceses support the legislation, but the motion fails, questions have to be asked about the nature of synod. How are these people elected? What is the basis of their role - are they delegates, representatives, free agents etc? Were people clear about how they would vote on this issue in advance, and did they keep their word? How did 40 out of 42 dioceses fail to get this past General Synod?

It's not simply about theology; methodology comes in here somewhere, and that muddies the waters. It's not a Chelsea-esque response (we didn't get our way so let's blame the Ref & take him to court) it's a genuine question coming from genuine bemusement that the apparent mind of the church was overridden by a superbly organised minority.

Change, of course, if always difficult. And change, when it comes must (in the Church) never be a case of the majority winning or the minority lashing out. People are people; but in God's house, people are people following the One who commanded us to love people. All people. Especially the ones with whom we disagree.

So - in the words of the poem - we go the extra mile for grace. Because we go the extra mile for people. Because we believe they would do so for us, even when the evidence cries out it's not so. This is the hope of the community of God. We do not believe the worst about each other, we hope the best.

Tom Wright was a little scathing about the Prime Minister's response to the vote - that the Church had to 'get with the project'. Tom's piece was published in the Times, and again reprinted by Fulcrum. The Church isn't about a liberalising, progressive march to a better future; it's about the redeeming of humanity. Not the project, but the promise. Where all are equally human in God's order. I like Tom's attitude, and I like his put-down of DC. Mr Cameron fails to grasp the depths of difference and integrity that must live in the Church, but which must be wrapped in grace and hope and an ability to change as we have hearts opened to a better understanding of the bigger picture of Biblical truth - not simply current social trends.

But what of now?

What of those feeling desperate this weekend?

What of those who have lost a little hope as a result of this vote?

OK. This isn't my issue. I mean, I have always been pro-women's ministry. So much so, that my priesting was delayed by my diocesan in 1994 because he wouldn't allow two English women priest friends of mine to attend the service in Llandaff. My reply was - that if they weren't welcome, neither was I. Six months later I was priested in Monmouth diocese by Rowan Williams. One of those friends came & took part.

But as an evangelical who self confessedly is hardly the straightest arrow in the quiver, I have my fair share of being on the 'wrong end' of Church politics and bad attitudes. Presumptions about Biblical debates by people who don't know where to look for texts on a subject. Presumptions about me and my attitudes. Closed doors. Glass ceilings. Suspicion, when all I have tried to do is show people Jesus.

So I know a thing or two about weeks like this.

And the answer is - God is good. There is always hope. The story is long, and complex, and I am afraid longer and more complex than we would often like it to be. But people are people. And this wonderful truth means that in God's economy the news is good. Power and control and limitations and disbelief and distrust and fear do not win. He is risen! And the power that raised Jesus from the dead will do more than we can ask or imagine.

Those of us who don't get what we hope for don't take what we have left and sulk; we serve any way. Because we are loved. And because of that love, restoring us, we remember that this is the story of the world: brokenness being restored.

A bad week for the Church of England?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps a typical week. We live in a world where many people live on the precipice of wonderful dreams being dashed out of their hands, and we live to comfort, heal, restore, forgive with all the love which has been and is being poured into our hearts. We can only have any ministry because we are receiving these things. And so we pass them on.

Look - we know what life is like. It's the same for us. And yet Jesus is here; making the world of difference. Even as we make an unworldly mess.

It may look like the dark of night; but a little hope and a lot of prayer - and this could yet become a purple patch for all of us.

minor matters

It's twenty five years since I first bought a CD. I didn't even have a CD player back then - but I was about to get one. I remember a friend at the time asking if I was going to run around with a torch underneath it & see if that worked! Back then (in the mists of time) you have to understand that CDs were a luxury item. A minority sport. It was still the world of the cassette. 

The CD in question was the Bach B Minor Mass. This version. Very English. Very of its period - recorded ten years before I bought it. Stately Bach, with great panache and a certain magisterial style. Most versions now slash a minute off its opening Kyrie. 

(Well, there you go. Fashions change. Somebody will suddenly discover the value of slowing Bach down again at some point and everyone again will fall in love with the romantic effect this produces, after years of austerity.) 

I found this CD on my shelf today and I am proud to say it still plays, and still sounds as bright on my current system as it did a quarter of a century ago - brighter, really. My current system is rather better than the first CD unit my Dad generously bought me (weeks after I purchased that CD) as a birthday gift in 1987. The little Our Price shop where I found my CD at the top of the Cornmarket in Oxford is long gone. The old Phillips player is history. The music lasts.

CDs. I guess these days I buy a mixture of downloads & discs; cassettes of course are consigned to the distant past. And styles of Bach have changed so much over quarter of a century. I decided to celebrate the anniversary of the purchase by acquiring this version of the B Minor Mass on iTunes, popping it onto my iPhone, and on Friday I will drive to Oxford, to complete the circle. My new version shall be the music that accompanies the drive.

I wonder - who can imagine how we'll be buying music in 2037? And how we'll be listening? And how we'll interpret Bach? 

I do look forward to finding out...

songs

So I've been in a song writing mood lately. I've posted a couple to YouTube, and I thought I'd link them here as well.

Song writing is a strange thing. You get ideas, for tunes, for lyrics, for the journey of a song, and then you run with them. I've had songs which have stayed on my back-boiler for years before I've eventually finished them. And songs which have trundled out of my head virtually fully formed. I have dreamed songs; one of the best songs I ever did with the old Groove Heroes band in Oxford twenty years back was one I dreamed in the middle of the night, woke up & pounded out on my piano there and then.

These are love songs. One is about meeting someone out dancing and never quite getting the chance to make it work. One is about feeling unable to put into words the emotions that are going on inside. Of course, when I write songs there's something of my experience that goes into them. But if they were simply autobiographical I wonder if they'd work? It might be curious to hear a song about something I did, but is that what it's really about? I mean - the point is that the love songs that stay with us do so because they strike an emotional chord with us as we listen, their journey is one that we too can relate to.

And it may just be that we have never been on a ship that hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage. We never have fallen in love with our bodyguard. We may never have lived in Sherwood Forest.

Yet these songs work because they aren't about one time, one place, one person (two people, even).

So you tell a story, explore an emotion, work through an aspect of life and love that may have been kicked off by something that happened to you or that you read or that somebody said. And see where it leads, hoping it wasn't just you after all.



That was a story song; and this - this is about an emotion.



The very observant amongst you will have noticed one was a guitar song and the other a piano song. Honestly, that's just how I wrote them. I think the feeling of them dictated where I started, what instrument I went to as I was working on them. But I can't say for sure. I may have started the Dancing song at the piano, actually, but I quickly realised that wasn't working. Whereas, when I try the Tongue-Tied song at the guitar, it feels wrong somehow. I don't get it there - I'm probably not good enough a guitar player to do it right. The instrument I'm playing does shape how I write a song.

Anyway - thanks for listening. And I hope you enjoyed! These are still songs in process; even with YouTube videos in place, I haven't stopped working. It will take me a while before I'm finished. I think that craft should never be quite satisfied! And as I look at the songs that (for me) really work, I think that my efforts have plenty of room for honing yet.

aftermath

I'm beginning to re-find Matt.

After he died, the shock, the pain, it robbed me of him completely. All the joy. All the love. All gone.

Of course he's still gone.

I mean, I've commented before about the tricks of grief. The noise a chair makes - a noise that exactly replicates the sound of Matt turning as he would make himself comfortable. And there's no-one there. I just look at it, and feel alone.

But now...

There's a shop where I'm buying a lot of my food. It sells ready meals, frozen, so I don't need to cook. they are home made, not like the sort of thing you'd buy in a supermarket. The guy who runs the store always chats with me. Asks how I'm doing; if I'm getting over Matt.

When Charlie died, years ago, I ate rubbish for a year. I couldn't bear to cook. So I gained a ton of weight. At least this time, similarly unable to cook, I'm doing better on the diet front.

And yet - I'm beginning to be ready to cook again.

I think of Matt and I can smile.

I see him looking at me in my mind's eye. The way he'd wait for me to be ready when he wanted to run in the park. The way he'd get excited when I'd come back from shopping and he knew I had something he loved in my bag. The way he'd be thrilled when guests were ready to leave...

He loved it when we went for a drive. Last weekend I went for a walk with a friend. I haven't been for a walk really since he died. I don't walk alone. We went to the woods just across the road - it was OK. I missed him. I haven't yet been to the park around the corner; that will have to wait.

The point is - the sharpness of the pain, the inability to understand how I could live through the next day, these things are fading. Grief moves on. When I think of Matt my eyes still fill with tears. That remains. But the range of emotions that come with the tears is growing.

So I am re-finding Matt.

Finding his fun. His stubborn-ness. His charm. His energy. His excitement. His love.

It's been four months. I miss him beyond words. When Charlie died I had photos put in frames and filled my walls with them; I still haven't yet done this for Matt. But I will. At first it was simply too hard; too searingly awful. And now, life after Matt is becoming - possible.

The after Matt. The aftermath. It doesn't get better; but you get better at dealing with it. Mostly.

essential

This is a clip of a BBC Proms performance of the Bach Double Violin Concerto, with Andrew Manze and Rachel Podger. They share the same duties on a CD of the Bach Violin Concertos which I have (permanently) in my car. The CD was a gift to me from Dan & Kirsty Jones some years ago, and probably remains one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever bought me.

For this music has become the essential music in my life.

I know, that might surprise some. You might think of me choosing some jazz piece for that honour. Or some worship music. Or (with the kind of narcissistic edge that wouldn't at all be out of character) something of any nature, as long as it was by me.

No.

I listen to the Bach Violin Concertos pretty much every week. At least once a week. Usually more than that. And it's this recording that does it for me. This recording that has become part of the stuff of life for me. I used to have an old Academy of St Martin in the Fields version (I still have it, somewhere) but the Academy of Ancient Music has replaced it.

In all honesty, whilst I know each piece pretty well by now (you'd think), as I listen to them on endless cycle and without a CD cover in sight, I still couldn't tell you "Ah, that's the D Minor" or "Oh yes, the E Major". I just love them. Deeply love them. They are for me, with their endless invention and ceaseless surprise, perfect music.

There was a time when I was not well. Some years back. And in that state, I could not cope with stress or pressure or any such thing. In those days, I listened to this music constantly. It centred me. Made life possible. Helped my troubled brain find order and peace. It sounds melodramatic, but really, it helped me live.

It's hard now even to remember that time. Yet this music still retains something of the same power - it finds in the sometimes unstructured mess of life a path, an order, a sense which brings beauty to the dullest day. And if my head is whirring too much, or I'm getting frustrated in bad traffic, or I just need to relax or stop a moment or remember what matters and find myself again - then I turn off whatever other music is playing, or abandon the news-life-sport-commentary of Radio Five Live, and go back to Bach.

I don't know if anyone else has music which has become "essential" in life. But somehow I have; and the music that found that place for me has never yet once grown tired (and I cannot say how many times I have listened to it in these last few years). That's a token of the quality of the gift right there. It is music that has brightened my mind and brought peace to my soul. Again - some gift. It is music that has accompanied me on countless journeys, so that tired and weary, I have not been alone as I have travelled. It fills the gaps. It is there at the moments that matter. Can music be a friend? It has befriended me.

Bach famously ascribed all his music to God's glory. This corner of his output, and this performance of this corner of his output, makes his words for me for an always answered prayer. And as I listen, I am always drawn with profound gratitude to hear the ever-speaking voice of God and to that deeper prayer and to that deeper music of which these notes are but an echo. A glorious, life-giving, essential echo.

So I listen again.

It doesn't come alone

I read in The Times today of a birthday that shocked me.

When I was at college, at Merton Oxford as an undergraduate, I had a tutor who was the archetype of the young academic. He was just a little bit edgy. Just sufficiently sarcastic to leave you unsure where you stood. Intense. Very very bright. I guess I thought he was in his early thirties back then, if I thought about it at all.

Already well published & well respected, he had to endure those students who didn't quite get his brilliance. He had to cajole me. He pushed me through the History of Political Thought paper. Not my finest hour. Philosophy & I were never on intimate terms, and often, in those weekly tutorials I would find that nuance was a stranger and the sledgehammer my greatest friend as I wielded my infamous prose style over Rousseau and Locke and Hobbes.

My tutorial partner was Germanic in his control of detail. I was George Bush next to him. Though with Boris Johnson's style. After a rip-roaring dash through the Social Contract, my tutor puffed out put his cheeks and said - "Well, that was a tour de force". Nuff said.

After finals, we had a historians drinks party. I had been silent about my last essay, my last throw of the dice, my final risk. But news had travelled. This particular tutor sauntered over to me, glass in hand in his particular insouciant manner and uttered one word: "Poetry?"

I smiled and demurred. My essay in rhyming couplets was already gaining its notoriety.

We were young. It was a long time ago. How long? Yesterday. I was a kid. A stick thin kid with more hair than I knew what to do with. He was hardly any older, drinking in the student bar. Age does not come alone. If he has gotten old what does that mean for me? 

I read in The Times today of a birthday that shocked me: Professor Robert Gildea, historian, 60.

Many happy returns.

best summer ever

From the torch relay that took forever, through the Diamond Jubilee (and that famous OAP boat ride), to the nearly Wimbledon & the moment Andy Murray became human - even without the weather, the summer of 2012 was always special.

And that was before Danny Boyle found our soul & celebrated it so wondrously the night the Olympics began.

The whole nation learned to smile as one, to celebrate, to love dancing horses & achievement with endeavour, and valour was valued once more.

Well, now it is fading. The September night closes the Paralympics which themselves close this amazing season. It has been the most beautiful dream. And I know that (in those words which Sir Ken intoned back in July) when I wake, I will cry to dream again.

(Postscript)

Of course, when I woke, it was like a dream: Andy Murray - US Open Champion! A Brit winning a tennis grand slam for the first time in 76 years. This feeling will last for ever...

Or until England drew 1-1 with Ukraine. Now is the glorious summer of sport become our autumn of discontent...

twelve

Matt would've been twelve today.

I meant to get up early. As it turned out, I couldn't quite face the morning. My alarm rang out; I lay still and waited. It took a while.

Eventually I braved the day. Washed. Breakfasted. Readied myself for work & headed out the door into the fresh September sunshine. As I walked down the path from the house to the street, I saw a guy who has just started to go to the village church. We greeted each other. He was heading down to church to read a book John the (now retired) vicar had given him. I told him I was heading that way too, so we chatted and parted at the churchyard gates - him to the church, me to the yard.

It was a beautiful autumnal morning. I'm sure the temperature will warm up later, but the first chill in the air told the story that the summer has left us, and the year is turning. When Matt died the summer was young, but that was three months ago. They say it gets easier; they're being kind, but of course they know full well it doesn't. Matt still doesn't greet me with that enormous smile of his, those eyes that speak love, that embrace that warms me on the coldest day.

I walked down to his grave. And, standing with the fields behind me & the Calverley angel before me, I spoke stories of my days to the earth that covers his remains, and then covered those with tears.

There are moments when I feel him close by. The other day I was home, in my front room, and the chair next to me made the noise it made when he would turn on it as he sat there. I stared at it. Empty, of course. There are nights when I would swear his weight rests on my legs. The tricks of grief. The arrows that open up a wounded heart to check it yet may bleed a little more.

Back to my car. Back to work. And as I drove, I thought of that passage in the Old Testament, in 2 Samuel 12, where King David loses a son. Before the boy dies, as his life slips away, he begs, pleads, prays the boy might live. When he is lost, David washes himself, dresses, goes to temple and worships. He is questioned about this and his reply is basically - what else should I do? What else indeed. So I switched on my iPod. Chose some music. And worshipped.

I'll praise Him for all that is past, and trust Him for all that's to come.

O my beautiful Matt. Happy birthday lovely boy.

crushing bore

You know that magical moment in the movies when the two protagonists catch sight of each other for the first time across a crowded room, sparks fly, and though their journey will have its ups and downs (and someone-else-will-inevitably-get-in-the-way TMJane Austen) you know everything will end perfectly?

It's rubbish.

I mean, fun, and I love it, of course. But it's rubbish.

Well - to be fair, it's rubbish if you are me. Because if you are me, there's a problem: I just seize up.

Whenever I'm on the verge of opening up emotionally at a really crucial moment, something in me simply stops working. Some of us are made that way.

Confession time: I met someone. Ah there's nice. Of course, yes. Quite right. And it was pretty much a glance across a room & a bolt from the blue thing. I'm not usually that person either, but that's what happened. And we actually got talking, which is pretty amazing. My heart did a thing. No, really. There were smiles.

So far so good.

And then I blew it.

All my fear stuff (I keep it for special occasions you see) just kicked in. So I turned & started talking to other people. Dancing with other people. Hoping we'd reconnect. It didn't really happen. It was probably never there in the first place. It was just a boring crush; to push myself forward would be to be a crushing bore. One sided. You know.

Hopeless. I deflated. Not breathing well, but wanting to speak, I froze. Cold, and on the wrong side of the room, I walked away.

Classic me.

Classic.

Except, though I spent days convincing myself it was pure folly & entirely in my head, and the result of the wrong kind of wine, that spark moment -

The movies do it for a reason. And when it hits, it hits. If it was one way (I'm sure it was one way; of course it was;) it was glorious. So the spark refused to die quite as fast as it should. The eye, the heart, the quickening, the momentary loss of the senses...

I did have a phone number. I left it a couple of days. I risked it.

I called.

Are you excited? Don't be.

There was still a problem. This script still involves me.

And I need some strong kind of magic to get me over the misery of the mess I made of those six awful telephonal minutes. Perhaps that's a knock at my door right now -

Perhaps not.

Though it was nice to discover there's life in the old dog yet, some of us end up single for a reason. It's safer for everyone else that way. And I can laugh at myself even as I torment myself. I've had plenty of practice. And don't doubt I'll get more.

After all, there's always hope. Now there's a thought to make a man despair.

who?

So - spoiler alert - I've seen the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who, and I'm going to talk about it: questions, answers, jokes, tears, and lots of class.

First: the surprise. We got to see the new assistant. Or did we? We got to see the new actress. And she was excellent. Her character clearly has something to do with what is to come... though perhaps some timey-wimey thing will rescue Oswin, & somehow I think we will not see a Dalek travelling around the Universe in the TARDIS.

Next: Rory & Amy. I have always enjoyed the Ponds. Rory in particular has grown & grown through his character arc for me. The tender scene as they fought and understood and communicated better than clearly they had done for some time worked its magic well on me. I'm a sucker for a good bit of romance, and in all the humour, action & make-believe of this show, romance matters. The best episodes often carry some kind of fairy-tale element (Matt Smith's first episode; or the Girl in the Fireplace in David Tennant's tenure) and romance is vital in a fairy-tale.

Matt Smith has confidence and class oozing out of him as he eases into this third season. He does a wonderful thing where he carries his youth without it being an issue, and at the same time acts old without it being a caricature. The result - I find him wonderfully ageless. Which is what I want to see in the Doctor. I don't want a callow youth. But actually I don't want to think of "Matt Smith" either - and to be fair that's not my reaction as I watch. I just enjoy watching the Doctor.

And thanks to a great memory swiping ruse, we have the first question now asked, and safely unanswered, in its original context. Daleks, destruction, confusion, inbound attack, and a legend (re-)born. Nice touch!

Doctor who? Can't wait to find out.

ethics boy

My team at Leeds have accused me in the past of being a bit "definite"on my views regarding the ethics of fundraising. Well, I have a problem. It's not simply my former career. It's my academic training. Unlike most fundraisers (straw poll in a room of fundraisers this morning - not many had any ethics training per se) ethics was very much part of my academic background. It was a fairly major part of my second go at Oxford.

And it wasn't the theory or history or philosophy of ethics that I was any good at. It was the logic, the sense and the dynamism of ethics that fired me. 'If you do 'A' then 'B' will apply. Given that, what should your response be?'

Fundraisers are simply not ethics professionals. Very few possess the ability to think with any kind of ethical complexity. Why should they? That's like saying they aren't veterinary professionals, and can't operate on horses. Except, of course, that the occasions when fundraisers are expected to operate on horses with any degree of success are (in my limited experience) unusual. The occasions when fundraisers are expected to operate with ethical understanding are daily.

So I was interested in the session this morning at CEAC2012 on the ethics of fundraising. It was a very serious and considered review of a terrible situation faced by LSE and a discussion of what happened afterwards.

In that terrible situation, a furore happened because not quite good enough questions were asked which meant that the fundraisers were crucified due to the mistakes of others. Now, on the other side of all the fuss, the fundraisers won't be caught out so easily; there are better firewalls.

I simplify, and that's unfair, but honestly the last thing that seemed to have happened was that anyone was educated ethically. Maybe I missed that bit. What did happen was that processes were set in place so that when people did their job (i.e. get donations from rich people) it clearly wasn't their fault if some of the rich people turned out to be dodgy. Others were given the responsibility for making that call.

I'm being harsh - but I'm being harsh with a purpose.

A question was asked at this conference, right at the start in the fundraising  plenary. If there were qualifications for fundraisers, what would you put in there as essential?

Ethics. I'd make teaching ethics essential.

Here's a basic issue: I wonder how many institutions make first contact with potential donors to their universities by talking about "involvement" and never mention giving? Just how ethical is that?

There's a simpler way of asking that question:

How honest is that? Or try this: How transparent is that?

I'm not going to rehearse arguments here. Please feel free to disagree. Please be offended by me. But be offended by me because you have a well thought out ethical understanding that has a good response to the things I have questioned. And if you do - as a fundraiser I am going to posit that you are in a minority. Which is a shame. A shame on our profession.

I was naughty in the session I attended, and I didn't get the opportunity to apologise to the speaker, who did a great job at talking us through what had clearly been a terrible time for her & her team. I was naughty because I asked a question which cheaply pointed out that there was ethical work still to be done.

It remains.

For the head of that department to put a slide up at a conference with a recommendation that we should 'use the ethics thing to embed our work deeper into our institutions' demonstrated that there is a lot of work to be done to help fundraising professionals truly understand ethical issues. I say that again not to belittle a situation but to demonstrate that process is not understanding. That department in that university went through hell; their process in dealing with the same situation is now much better. The ethical understanding of individuals is - well, I have no idea. But at no point were we told - everyone was sent on a professional ethics course. Everyone was educated. Everyone understands more.

The university where I'm employed is doing enormous work on professional ethics. CASE Europe might well turn to the guys at Leeds and ask for some input. It's not just bankers and geneticists who need that help.

What can I say? I'll get off my soap box.

Those of you who know me well know that at heart I'll always be an ethics boy.

awkward friends

I'm here at the CASE2012 conference in Birmingham - a gathering of over a thousand people involved in fundraising in higher education and its related concerns.

I came last year, when I'd just started at Leeds, and when I felt like I had no idea what I was doing in my new career. Now that I'm fairly confident I can fool some of the people all of the time, it's great to be back - to listen, to learn, to meet others involved in the trade.

The conference kicked off with a plenary session at which Mark Damazer, former head of Radio 4 and now Master of St Peter's Oxford, spoke. His main theme was the necessity for creativity in what we do, a creativity which can appear messy but which produces vital results.

However, during his address he said something which has been rattling around my mind all afternoon & through the evening. I've been listening to others, chatting with people, consuming wine & sociably munching nibbles - and this has been churning away within me.

Mark made a point about how the value of an academic subject was not simply economic. There is still a point to studying the purely esoteric - for example mediaeval history - even if it doesn't add to UK plc's bottom line.

His example is what has made my mind whir away all day.

My undergraduate college at Oxford was Merton. But for my mediaeval history, I was tutored at - you've guessed it - St Peter's. I'm pretty sure my old tutor Henry Mayr-Harting still haunts the corridors there.

And I would want to suggest in the strongest terms that mediaeval history - any history - is not an esoteric pleasure to be indulged in by academic Byronists, but is as necessary to the effective running of UK plc as any more obviously mechanical subject that one might care to mention. Listen, this is what happens when there is no history taught:

Someone makes it up.

Throughout history, tyrants in need of quick legitimacy have simply resorted to burning the past, sacking the history teachers, and employing new creatives to re-write something more palatable instead. Long dead Persians, popes and protestant Tudors, as well as proper evil men of the political left and right in the all too recent past - all of them knew that if no-one really knows what actually happened, propaganda wins.

Propaganda should never win. Historians are the awkward friends of freedom.

History is not an esoteric subject that is allowed to remain in the syllabus out of nostalgia; it is a social necessity. Unless freedom, perspective, honesty, understanding, morality, and careful restraint on those who would condemn us to cheap future slaveries are all things we hold lightly, things for which UK plc  has now no nor ever will possess any need.

Memory, and the nuance it gives to society, has a very real economic value. And a very much greater societal worth. Without it, you might teach all the physics you like but the physicists with any creativity get locked up. You can teach all the maths you like - except you won't, for fear that someone will eventually realise that when the state teaches that 2+2=7, there is a basic logical flaw.

It's not Mark's argument with which I disagree. Good argument. Badly made. Mediaeval history - any history - is at the core of the wellbeing of a free state. Without it, the loudest voice gets to set the framework for all of our lives. With it, truth quietly wins.

That's not esoteric. It's essential.

rattle and hum

I read this review of a new recording by Sir Simon Rattle & the Berlin Philharmonic of Bizet's Carmen the other day; with a weekend of driving ahead of me, and noticing that it was available on iTunes at the bargain price of £10, I downloaded it to my Mac & then onto my iPhone ready for the journey.

(I was travelling to the wedding of good friends - what could be better than a cautionary tale of falling for the wrong woman, betrayal, lust & murder, all set to some of the best tunes known to humanity?)

There are a fair number of great recordings of Carmen around. Three things sell this one: at £10 on iTunes it's a budget price for a brand new recording with star performers. The EMI acoustic is what you'd expect - lots of 'bloom', but also some real detail, and actually I found it worked especially well in the car (better than on my home system, strangely). Second, Jonas Kaufmann is simply superb. His baritonal tenor at times feels deeper than you know the part actually is, and then he reaches up and thrills you with some glorious top register notes. Fantastic, grin-inducing singing. I've never seen Kaufmann 'live'; clearly I've missed out. I love the Alagna recording (always at his best in French), but Kaufmann is right up there with him. Finally, and this is the real winner, Rattle & the Berlin Philharmonic are stunning. I'm not always a fan of symphony orchestras pretending to be pit bands. They usually have the wrong sound for opera. But this works. Big time. From start to finish - perhaps especially the finish; Act Four is wonderful.

I enjoyed the current Lady Rattle as Carmen. Some of the reviews are a bit sniffy; different people want different things I guess. For me, Carmen will always sound in my mind's ear like Julia Migenes, and I guess we all come expecting certain moments to sound in certain ways. It's that kind of opera. Magdalena Kozena for me didn't always maintain the passion level - though much of the time I was totally sold. The Micaela of Genia Kuehmeier is constantly beautiful, and again I see why some of the reviews particularly pick her out for praise.  

Driving from Leeds to Kendal, and then back, I had a great time following the tragedy as it unfolded. I thoroughly commend this recording to you. There are other great recordings of this work out there, but this should disappoint very few. The CD is more expensive than the download. But if you don't own a Carmen - this is not a bad place to start.

(And as for the wedding I attended - it went very well, and unlike the Opera, there was lots of dancing but no-one was murdered as far as I could see!)

Just a final note: as I downloaded it onto the Mac first, when it copied onto the iPhone, it made a mess of it & didn't separate into different CDs, so the track listings got confused & mixed the Acts up. This is not good for an opera recording. Or any classical recording. I sorted this by creating playlists from my Mac. If there's another way of avoiding this, I'd be happy to receive tips!

home coming

The problem with going away is coming home.

I used to have a rush of Springer Spaniel love hit me as I entered the door. Smiles & wags & sheer joy to greet me wherever I had been, however long my absence. As Matt grew older, he didn't always hear me come in. Sometimes I could get in, get my coat off, sort myself out & creep upstairs to find him still asleep on the bed. But then he'd wake. And the pleasure would hit, and the joy take root, and I'd truly be home.

A couple of weeks ago I caught myself looking for him as I came home. I realised I was actually searching for him. It's been more than two months since he died.

Without question last week I had three great days at the Olympics; and then I came home. I think the Friday evening at the Olympic stadium will stay in my mind as one of the greatest things I have ever done. The warmth of the evening air, the occasional breeze, the noise of the crowd, the excitement of the races, the disappointment of Team GB's relay squad being disqualified, the sight of the pole vaulters defying gravity.

And then the home coming. Silence. Emptiness.

When I am home, I miss Matt. But sometimes I am beginning to get used to how life now is. And then there are moments when the sadness, the grief simply bites hard. Opening that door and stepping in alone is one of them.

I am grateful for the gift of having had Matt. I guess the play of emotion through these days will just roll on. I miss him. Moments magnify that. My dear friend, my shadow, my companion, my beloved dog. My heart.  

public service broadcasting

I'm hardly alone in making this comment, but still I want to make it: The BBC's coverage of the Olympics was astounding.

I watched their coverage on my iPhone, on my Mac, on my works PC, on my TV, and I listened on various radios analogue & digital too. I read reports & followed the medals table on their website.

Astounding.

They promised that we wouldn't miss a moment. And with BBC 1 and BBC 3 exclusively devoted to the Olympics for the duratuion, and with twenty four HD channels broadcasting live from every venue, they kept their promise. Red button access, or specific channels on Sky, meant that everything was easy. It's claimed that 90% of the UK population watched something. Over 50% of us were watching regularly.

Did commercial TV bother broadcasting during the last two weeks? I didn't notice. I'm not sure anybody did.

Clive James in the Telegraph was a little sniffy at the use of language employed by some of the BBC's TV presenters. Almost a fair point; in the context of the technical brilliance we were being shown, I will forgive pretty much anything.

This is how digital broadcasting works. And add to it social media commenting on everything, with everyone joining in - this was a quiet and quietly thorough revolution.

Astounding. And all without an advert or a sponsor coming anywhere near it. Why do we pay a universal TV license fee in this country? So we can show the world how to do this kind of thing, and so we can lead the way. Our US friends could only dream of having what we have just seen. They could only dream of it. I'm not sure that, on reading this, they can even begin to imagine what we have just enjoyed. And in our own context - it just knocked Sky Sports out of the park. They have great multi-platform opportunities, but for limited audiences and with pay-walls and advertising. This far surpassed their limitations. 

Hats off. And please - more sport on the BBC, and done like this. Bring back Grandstand! And FIFA, this is why you give a major competition to a major country. Everyone owns it. A World Cup in Qatar? Really? After this?