Sorry...

I'm finding it hard to be my usual frivolous self today. The reason is here (for those who haven't already followed the link from Bryan's blog). Although I've never met in the flesh the man who sustains that glorious blog, this feels like a death in the family. In a sense, it is.

Learning From the Past?

The spectacle of the Anglican Communion tearing itself apart over homosexuality is depressing indeed. Whatever the issue is here, it is surely cultural rather than dogmatic. Homosexuality is barely even marginal to any form of Christian faith. It's spoken of in proscriptive terms in a few places in the Old Testament and (by way of Judaic carryover) in Paul, but Christ has nothing whatsoever to say on the subject, and it's surely safe to state that his teachings in general overwhelmingly favour loving inclusiveness. No mention of the issue in any of the professions of faith either, as far as I know. ..
But anyway, the up side is that this might yet be settled by something along the lines of the Elizabethan Settlement, a masterpiece of accommodation. It's good to see Anglicanism reaching back into its distinguished past - a past which is, to a large exent, the point of it - to find, perhaps, a solution. I hope it works.

Palladianism and Global Warming

Here's a thought (admittedly not an original one). Do we in chilly Britain owe the Palladian buildings of the Georgian era to a spot of 18th-century 'global warming'? The early years of that century saw a remarkable run of hot, d ry and sunny summers, leading to bumper crops, which in turn led to overflowing coffers for the landed gentry, enabling them to rebuild their houses. But would they have been so attracted to fashionable Palladianism - a sunny weather style if ever there was one, with its airy colonnades, shady porticoes, small windows and light-and-shade effects - if the English summers at the time had been more like the gloomy norm?

Labour: Not a Norwegian Blue

This Milliband business - are we meant to care? I mean, are we - really? So he writes a piece in the Guardian (where else?), says the party must 'find the confidence to make its case afresh' (yeah, that'll do the trick), and doesn't mention G. Brown. The commentariat promptly gets into a foaming lather, while the word that occurs to most of us, I suspect, is 'pathetic'. That nice, well behaved prefect Milliband 1 - always so nicely turned out - fires his popgun at the beak. Is this the best they can do? Well yes, it probably is, for the simple, blindingly obvious fact is that no one in their right mind would want to inherit this leadership. As poisoned chalices go, this is surely the most venom-rich around. A change of leader would mean a general election , which Labour would lose. Stick with Gordon and this pathetic spineless useless bunch can hang on to their seats and their perks till 2010. They know the game is up. The only question is whether the party itself or the electorate deliver the coup de grace. The Labour parrot is dead, it is defunct, it has ceased to be. It is not a Norwegian blue pining for the fjords.

Belatedly, Beatrix

Yesterday, the heat having effectively knocked out my mental faculties, I missed the birthday of Beatrix Potter, despite the fact that Google had Potterised its homepage to mark the occasion.
Here's an artist who divides opinion sharply, some loving and some hating her works. The haters usually accuse her of anthropomorphic tweeness and a difficult, child-unfriendly use of language. Well, there is very little tweeness in Potter's work, the best of which has a decidedly dark edge; her animals are always liable to eat each other, or fall foul of human pest control. And her use of language is bracingly uncondescending and highly individual, with a peppering of songs, rhymes and dialect words spicing up the more correct and formal discourse. That the books are a joy to handle and look at goes without saying. She was an astonishing watercolourist and her meticulously beautiful pictures manage the magical feat of making her animal characters at once fully humanised and fully their animal selves. No wonder her works have lasted - indeed have continued to generate a small industry for a century. Many aspects of that industry are regrettable, but surely the works themselves are, in their unique way, true classics.

Re-image?

A branch of the rather good Costa coffee shop chain where I often pop in for a quick espresso was closed this morning, with a notice in the window giving the reason: 're-image works'. What in tarnation can that phrase possibly mean?

Panting, Lying

The frogs of Britain are in trouble, keeling over from a variety of mysterious ailments. The admirable organisation Frog Life has launched an appeal to the public to report to them any findings of dead frogs. Readers of the Pickwick Papers will inevitably at this point think of Mrs Leo Hunter and her affecting Ode To An Expiring Frog...