Learning from mistakes

It is the time of year when some women and men will be ordained priests and deacons in our Diocese.
This creates a riot of feelings in me. On the one hand I think this is really important...both for the individuals and the life of the church; on the other hand these things also have a habit of proclaiming all the wrong sorts of things about ministry. In particular the liturgy seems to often suggest it is about power rather than prayer, that it is about authority rather than service.
That is is about exclusivity rather than inclusivity.
It maybe proclaims this because I am so caught up in it...and at times such occasions weigh heavily. So heavily that I cannot bear to go.
At the moment I think I will be OK...but ity will be hot! And we will have to get dressed up, and we have a lot of things to do tomorrow, and no one will ever notice I'm not there...and
Well we'll just have to wait ands see whether or not the guilt/responsibility kicks in!

I keep checking!

It is amazing in a way (and I keep checking) that we have had almost a week of a Labor government and the sky hasn't fallen in. Of course they haven't been sworn in yet!

Beholden!

Curious little report about SA social inclusion commissioner, David Cappo, which says that the new Federal Government thinks the SA model is 'fantastic', with the reservation that because Cappo is a priest this may mean he is compromised because (to quote them) he is beholden both to Mike Rann and to God!
This sort of 'nervous nellyism' always makes me smile. It mainly, and often only, seems to come up in relation to religious people of various hues.
Surely everyone is multiply 'beholden'.
True, non-religious folk are often very suspicious of the religious and not without cause. But if the Social Inclusion commissioner had been a Boy Scout, Gay, a director of BHP or a senior academic would there still be the same sort of objection.
Personally I wonder what people actually think 'beholden to God' might mean....they of course don't mean that at all I suspect...but rather are suggesting that Cappo is a functionary of the institutional church, and a particularly strong brand of it at that.
I must say that while I am not particularly drawn to the brashness of Premier Rann, and often find him arrogant and dismissive of others, he is to be commended for the insightful appointment (some years ago now) of Cappo. The Church is not where he would naturally be drawn, so one must assume that he assessed Cappo on merit and not because he might be able to put in a word with the Almighty (BBHHN)!, or that he was beholden to anyone in particular.

The goose and the gander

You have to laugh (I suppose it is to be expected) that when Chris Pyne announced his candidacy for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Part (here) he said "The new Liberal Party that starts today can't try and defend for the next three years the last 11-and-a-half years, that is the mistake that oppositions often make,"
Umm excuse me, but isn't this the same Liberal Party that has spent the last decade trying to make the ALP account for the previous decade.
I think this wore a bit thin in the recent campaign. there were (after all) voters at last Saturday's election who would not have been alive when Bob Hawke first became PM in 1983!

See, Look, Perceive

I spent last evening on retreat (as I will do on Wednesday and Friday). Called "Glimpses of Glory" and led by Peter Randle who is the artist-in-residence for the Prospect City Council (one of his works here).
Peter invited us to just pay some attention with our eyes. It is always worth noting that when we actually stop to do this sort of thing that we realise that for most of the time we see and hear nothing.

Seeing we do not see, and hearing we do not hear

as one of those old prophets put it.
So today (for half an hour at least...before I forget) I will try to pay more attention

Above the line

My post election gripe is about the iniquity that is "above the line" voting in the Senate. I just don't understand how we allow this to happen. Most people I talk to say: " I would never vote above the line", and yet statistics show that 90% of voters do!
With 46 numbers to fill in below the line on the SA Senate paper it is not surprising that many people choose to opt for just writing one number against the party of their choice. This is great for the major parties, because it means they can prostitute their preferences.
But it disenfranchises small groups and Independents. So well-done Mr X (here)for being victorious against this injustice.
But, why can't we have a mid-way option of still being allowed to vote above the line, but writing as many (or as few) numbers as we like. So why couldn't I vote (for example)

1. Liberal
2. Labor
3. Green
4. Democrat
5. DLP
6. Family First
   
7. National
   
8. CEP
9. Sporting Party
10. Senator on Line
11. Socialist Alliance
12. Shooters Party
13. One Nation

You see the truth is on a long ballot paper there is not only satisfaction in voting for your first preference, but there is also satisfaction in putting one party lower down than another. And why should the Liberal, Family First or Labor party backroom tell me that I should prefer One Nation Ahead of the Shooters Party or vice versa.
Of course it doesn't really matter. I just think the electorate has been duped!

Easy schmeezy!

Well that was easy enough. We sauntered down the road and voted at 8.50. All very low key.
Though, it seemed to me that there were a lot of people looking panicky at the fact that they were not getting takers for their how to vote cards.
That would seem to indicate to me that people had made up their minds.
PS it's worth clicking on the how to vote card in this post to see who you are being invited to vote for!

Growth

And you must see this:

Picking it

Lest anyone think I am a wimp I do intend to call the election NOW! This is Friday, 8.30 p.m.
My prediction: that it will be Labor by a landslide of 20 or more That the result will be known by 7.30 p.m. CST.
I would further suggest that should John Howard lose, then he will resign. But he may well lose his seat, so it could be academic!
Peter Costello will never be PM. Poor old Petie!

Dropping the ball

It is difficult to believe at this stage (despite what conflicting polls may tells us) that yesterday's debacle with the phony election pamphlets is not the final straw for John Howard. Making an appalling campaign into a disastrous one, how do you recover?
One savvy commentator noted that the Opposition just has to shut up and do nothing. But it must do nothing! The discipline comes from having the courage to not say "I told you so!", and the discipline to just watch the other side unravel.
Never before has this issue of discipline been so clear for me. What we have witnessed in the Coalition ranks is panic. Being slaughtered all around the troops have gone crazy. At the very time they needed to keep their nerve they have taken the ball into their own hands, and played what ever game they liked with it. Ultimately dropping it with an almighty thump, as they stand back and watch their opponents score goal after goal after goal after....

Falling on your sword

What a good book the present electoral campaign will make in 12 months time!
Chief amongst the observations will be the analysis of how seasoned political players, the PM included, could so badly misjudge electoral intelligence. Evidence for this might be:

• How foolish is it for JH to tell the electorate who the next leader of the parliamentary Liberal will be, breaching all notions of democracy; as if it is some sort of patronage gift!
• The real hubris of out-of-control Liberals in NSW who, in becoming more and more desperate, should finally play the disgusting race-religion card
• The bizarre commentary (equally desperate) of Jackie Kelly that this is a joke.
• The waste of the ante-penultimate day (the day before-the day before) to this side issue
• Pleased to see the absolute disgust of the most senior TV commentator, Laurie Oakes, as he displayed his incredulity at how Kelly could be so stupid!
• Good to see the PM repudiate the trick, but what else could he do.

All in all, it is surely all over bar the shouting!

Life with father

I had a curious conversation with L yesterday about our father. She said "You know I had a conversation with our father..." I could not help but quip "You mean, our father who is not in heaven."
She looked at me quizzically as though I was implying that our earthly father had, for some reason known to me alone, been damned for all eternity! I should learn to keep my mouth shut. Had I known what she was then going to say perhaps I would have.
Any way she went on. "He said to me one day...I don't know if I believe in God."
Self-obsessed that I am I merely observed. "Well you are lucky you actually had an adult conversation with him, because I never did."
"After he died, " she went on, " I was really disturbed by this, and I had to talk to someone about it."
Thick as I am, this didn't seem outrageous to me since I think that doubting faith in God is a really healthy, and indeed inevitable. But this is not necessarily the case (I failed to realise) with someone whose faith is not so precocious as mine.
As I was driving home I realised she was actually telling me something that for her was pretty important for me to know.
Good to have such a conversation with your sister!!

And NO! I was not suggesting that I knew somethign about my father's eternal destiny that God had personally revealed to me.

Ohh the joy

One of the great delights living in a marginal electorate is watching the panic that is besetting the candidates. Our sitting representative, Dr Invisible, here in Boothby is a quiet man; perhaps a little maligned; and essentially a backbencher who will never be anything else

This comes as something of a shock to us who have been used for generations to living in an electorate with fairly high profile members over the last fifty years all members of the Liberal Party..Sir John McLeay, his son John, Steele Hall and now the good Doctor Southcott. I actually think he is somewhat maligned. He is a backbencher. But what's wrong with that. He does seem to work quietly for a few local causes. No one seems to quite know if he has actually achieved much, but I suspect thta there are individuals who would recognise that he has helped them with their pension problems. His local media profile suggests that he has focussed on areas that are actually State and Local government responsibility like road crossings and traffic management. Why has he done this? Because as a backbencher he has to face the reality that his electors don't actually think that he per se can do anything about climate change or the economy. He may be able to advantage local schools, or get the train re-routed..or at least bring a little pressure to bear.
But he has been more or less invisible.
So it is remarkable that I have seen him six times in the last three weeks. Last time in the local coffee shop only yesterday. My colleague and I had just been bemoaning his blandness.
He duly rocked up with his two Young Liberal apparatchiks. Same ones as last election. Same ones who posed in the public meetings for the last elections to ask embarassing questions about drug policy of the Greens.
Any way dear old Andrew looked bewildered. All this campaigning a bit too much for him!
Not so young Mr Pyne, the more precariously threatened memer for Sturt. He is an arrogant little pup, but in a likeable sort of way. Though you sort of want to smack him every now and then.
He appeared (quite legitimately) at last week's commissioning at Glen Osmond of the new Rector. He informed us in his welcome to Fr Simon that St Saviour's was a polling booth "And usually quite a good one for me" . The assembled Tory Party loved it. Though no doubt Cheeky Chris like many of us wondered if he would be there next time!
And I do warn you with regard to a prior post that invites you to examine yourself with the intent of discovering who you should vote for (here); that yesterday I tried really hard to answer the questions in as conservative a way as possible. The first time it told me that I was best suited to vote for the Labor Party.
So I tried even harder, even having to overcome internal revulsion to say that I completely and utterly agreed that coroporate taxes were too high and that internal terrorism laws weren't strict enough.
Still it told me (but with a slightly reduced compatibility) that I should vote for the Labor Party.
I did warn you that it was a Trotskyite plot!
Or does it actually mean that the ALP is now almost as far right as you can go.
Perhaps I should just try and work it out for myself, rather than rely on what others tell me.
I have never felt so undecided before an election.
So, Andrew, if you are reading this my vote is yours to buy. (Father is now rolling in his grave!)

Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story!

As the election reaches its climax it would seem that some of the more ridiculous and illogical claims will just be hammered and hammered.
Like the strange claim that Rudd will dismantle the Western Australian Mining Boom (not quite sure how you would do this, let alone why?). Rudd seemed to be saying that WA needed to also think beyond the current boom, and that would seem to be obvious. Indeed when Costello was asked on radio this morning if he hadn't also thought beyond the current boom, he blustered and didn't answer the questioner.
I mean WHY would a government dismantle such a lucrative and buoyant section of the economy?
Likewise, but perhaps trickier to unravel...the suggestion that the main aim of Unions is to destroy the effectiveness of business and industry. Now, if you were a working person why would you want to do that? Why would you want your employer to go through the hoop? The short answer is...you wouldn't!
If letters in the Advertiser this morning are anything to go by then the electorate is not buying this anti-union stuff. While one would be hard pressed to justify the claim that the Murdoch press is 'balanced' nevertheless they do seem to publish a range of points of view in their letters. They obviously don't like being flooded by one viewpoint or another, so it is noteworthy that in this morning's paper at least there was not one letter (out of six or seven) which suggested that the Unions are the bogey the Coalition wants us to believe they are.
Can't wait for Saturday!

Here's a clever little thing

Well I'm not pretending that Get Up is not a front for the Trotskyites, but I am sure that filling in their questionnaire about how to determine who you really want to vote for should at the very least amuse you in this torturous election campaign

Go here http://www.howshouldivote.com.au/ to find your best fit. What a hoot!

skirting the issue

AAP reports (here)

There are some policy places even Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd won't go.

One is whether his deputy owns a skirt.This "vital" election issue was raised by Bob, a farmer and talkback caller who preceded Mr Rudd in a long interview on the John Laws program on Southern Cross radio on Thursday.

Bob, a professed Liberal voter, said Julia Gillard was a communist, claiming he read that in the rural newspaper The Land, and queried whether she actually owned a skirt.

He also said she would end up running the country while Mr Rudd was off in China jabbering in Mandarin and asked why no Australian flag featured on stage during the Labor campaign launch on Wednesday.

What ever side of politics you are on you should be a little scared to realise that there are people, perhaps a lot of them, who just completely disregard the facts when making up their mind about who to vote for. Worse than this, they don't even begin to realise when they are talking insane rubbish.
It also goes on

Bob also wondered where was the Labor frontbench in place of former Labor prime ministers Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating who were all present at the launch.

This at least made me think that there are heroes on the "left" in the way that there are not (currently) on the right. We all know that Malcolm is not a fan of little Johnny, but it is worth opining that John cannot muster the Frasers, the Peacocks, the et al (admittedly some are dead...but even the grand dames (their widows) didn't appear to be present) What this means I am not quite sure.
It is both a plus and a minus, as while Hawke , Keating and Whitlam are indeed significant figures they inspire not only admiration and dignity but also hatred and loathing. Have you ever stood next to a Liberal voter who speaks the word Keating!
To Rudd's credit his response to 'Bob' showed that he is good in choosing not to exploit this sort of meaningless rubbish, in a way that most others would not be able to resist

On the issue of the Labor frontbench, Mr Rudd said he believed it important to show proper respect to the former PMs, adding that all his frontbench were in attendance.

He said he believed it also important to be able to speak to a major trading partner.

"This is really important for Australia.

"If I can use whatever language skills I have go to boost the exports of Australian farmers to major emerging markets like China, let me tell you, I will yabber my way through any lunch speaking whatever language I can," he said.

Hope, not springing so eternal

Incomprehensible letter from Telstra today, about something called VGDL-Voice Grade Dedicated Line. The gist is that this service is fantastic, but no matter how fantastic it is, it's actually going to be discontinued.
This is how Mr Trujillo (here)gets and keeps his millions it seems, by structuring the company to offer less and less service for more and more money.
Any way despite the fact that the letter came to the Church of England (I have been trying to tell them that we have not been the C of E for 30 years but it's too hard) Any way I also wondered where we had this service, which looks like a direct line from one premise to another. It does actually list point A and point B: They are respectively 203 Flinders Lane, Melbourne & Bishop's Court, 120 Clarendon Street Melbourne.
Now did I fall asleep and become the Archbishop of Melbourne while snoozing? Have I been mysteriously transported to Victoria and not realised it?
Of course it could just be a mistake. My point? This sort of minor mistake obviously indicates that they have not got control over their systems.
Should I now spend what will probably end up being an hour of my time trying to find out if this will cause me or the Archbishop of Melbourne any further trouble. By my reckoning if I charged at Sol's rates, an hour would cost at least $7000!
Have a nice day!!

Kerboom!

I feel I am just exploding with political thoughts, and in a way I don't want to harangue the loyal readerships. So some snippets only:

• Getting fed up of hearing Kev say "I am an economic conservative!"
• Listening to Matt and Dave on the radio broadcasting from the marginal electorate of Sturt and it sounds more like a Saturday morning fete (car park caper!!) than a key election focus
• Almost burst a gut when Kev was being asked this morning "Is the Labor party still a party of the left?" and he would not answer. And he was asked again "Is the Labor party still a party of the left?" and he would not answer. And yet again: "Is the Labor party still a party of the left?" and he would not answer but obfuscated...I think we have to move away from left and right or up and down. For goodness sake St Gough of Woolahra (sitting with his fellow Labor Prime Ministers at the launch yesterday...knowing he was too old to be stabbed in the back) would shudder. Still I have already declared earlier this week that I am just a silly old lefty...obviously one of the fee lefties left
• Am enjoying watching Johnny dropping his bundle and failing to hit the correct political mark. It is interesting to see, that given that he is without question a if not the consummate performer in the Federal sphere, that he just seems to have lost sight of the target.
• I like an election where the candidates are known by their first names...little Johnny, Kevin, Malcolm, Alexander.......though the onslaught of Mr X may bring a change in this
• I hope that the Federal sphere will be enriched by the said Senator X and that he is not just swallowed up by the big pond...as it were.
• If I go back to school will they give me a new computer.
  

Stunning recital

Sarah's recital last evening was stunning. Her interpretation of the Schumann song cycle Frauenliebe, which traces the course of a courtship through marriage, and ultimately to the point of the devastating death of the husband was stunning.
It will be interesting to see what it's like in ten years time when there is some emotional trauma to back it up.
Am I too much of a father too, when I say that she has got the "Wagner" in her? I definitely heard it...power and emotion, love and tragedy. It's there.
She needs a few French lesson but her Faure songs were delightful, but topped off with the raucuous Polly songs from Threepenny Opera. I think she will get that too as time goes on, but they are powerful, powerful songs.
She slipped into her own when singing Cole Porter's "I Hate Men" crowned by slicing the top off a cucumber at the finale. I gave D the offending piece and told him that I thought this belonged to him!!
Great stuff girl!

signposts

These Spring weeks all have something of a sense of excitement, as the days lengthen and lighten there is a new found sense of energy. The jacaranda begin to bloom...and it sends a shudder up anyone's spine who has ever taken a serious end of year exam, as that is the sign that it is that time of year in Adelaide.

Other milestones:

• This week SClark3 will give her final recital...her mother and I remarked thank goodness she doesn't do this professionally (yet) as she is so tense...though her kind Mum noted that she is better than she was! She will sing Schumann and Faure, Gershwin and Weill...really looking forward to it.
• The blog ticker will reach 20000, (goal achieved!)I imagine, in the next couple of days. Thanks to all those of you who read.
  

The latest biscuit from the barrel

I couldn't believe my ears (when wondering what to blog about this morning) hearing that the latest biscuit to be pulled from the barrel was funding for kids TV to the ABC. (see here)
I actually think this is a good idea. But like all these "good ideas" why are they only being done now...if they are good now they were good a decade ago. And yet the eve of the election is the cynical trigger.
The Friends of the ABC remain unimpressed (as big a group of lefties you could wish to drink with) their spokesperson making the interesting observation

"This act, while on the face of it seems to be really positive, is in fact a further abuse of the independence of the ABC," he said.

"The Government has denied the ABC funding in the past. It's packed the boards with members of right-wing think tanks and the Liberal Party and now it's actually giving away ABC services as election gifts."

I think this is an important (if nuanced) point.

The independence of State owned TV is a major justification for its funding. As soon as funding becomes tied to government policy (however benevolent), then we have not free to air TV but propaganda.

This policy while seemingly good, can only work if accompanied by the total and deliberate unfettering of the funds from government control. One cannot imagine either party, but certainly not the Coalition, agreeing to this. They have steadfastly and ruthlessly failed to fund the ABC either as a news broadcaster or a producer of drama, or children's TV at anything like the real level that was the case in say the 60s or 70s.

I am not a sociologist of note (or anything of note for that matter) but I am a sociologist by training (and indeed by inclination) and I know that the transmission of values is complex and it is key to developing healthy and intellectual society. It happens whether we fund it or not. It is true that advertising works and transmits values...like consume more and fat is good (If it were not so would not the advertising gurus have told us....incidentally I think the correct plural of guru is guruo..... and why would people bother to advertise)

So it could matter that the public broadcaster is funded well enough to at least provide alternative values rather than narrow market-driven values.

So, let's go for it, accept the $68 million if offered unconditionally...but it actually seems like a pathetically small amount any way.

But what would I know, I have already declared I am not a commentator or anything else of note!

Apology

It is interesting to note how many commentators are picking up on the PM saying  "Sorry" for the interest rate rises.

Though both the PM and Abbott yesterday said that saying "Sorry" is not to be taken as an apology. (see some commentary from Julia Gillard here). Gillard rightly accuses them of playing with words.

But we shouldn't be surprised, after years of it,  to find that Howard is confused about what sorry means. He almost seems to wet himself at the possibility of mouthing these words, so you could have bowled me over with a mushy orange when I heard the taboo words pass his lips.

It is such a stubborn, narrow and old-fashioned, old-man thing. It looks like never being able to admit that you have been involved in something that didn't quite work out.

It is this I think the electorate hates. In the end it reflects a failure to receive criticsm, which is a recipe for disaster. well electoral disaster any way.

By way of an aside if we look back a dozen or so decades when writers were in the habit of writing what were styled  apologias. As indeed the pictured handsome academic J H Newman did, they were not apologising at all for their lives. They were explaining. I think that apology needs to be understand as a key dynamic in explaining what is going on, and politicians should explain.  

I don't think Howard does this. He excuses himself...it's the former Labor Government, it's the generations before us, it's the world economy.... and the electorate is fobbed off not with explanation but buck-passing.

What we want, or I do any way, is not buck passing but accountability.  Vision not opportunism, and apologia not excuse.E

What do you have to do?

I am not entirely clear what you would have to do, but I think I could probably do it?
That is, what would I have to do to make the $22 million that Sol Trujillo is about to be voted by the Board of Telstra (here) even despite the shareholders voting it down.
It seems incredible that a Board can ignore a shareholder directive in this regard, but apparently can.
Any way, back to the job. I would be quite happy to do the job for a year, even six months or even just until Christmas. Even pocketing the $3 million that that might make me would mean that I wouldn't actually need to work again. I could do that!!

What price election freedom?

We were struck when we visited the UK earlier this year about he number of security cameras you see [watchers of The Bill will observe that almost every crime can be solved by finding the CCTV (closed circuit TV?) footage which seems to cover 99.9% of the country...even out in rural areas we noticed!]
The security against terrorism issues is a big attention grabber if not necessarily a vote winner (which it may be)
So it was not a surprise to see the re-emergence of the 'dob your neighbour in' adverts last night.I imagine we will see them increasingly between now and election day. The incumbent Government are clearly under the (mis?) apprehension that Australia feels more secure with wee Johnny than with Mandarin speaking Kev.
The Washington Post has a couple of interesting security posts. One which reveals how easily telcoms can 'cooperate' to give access to to the email system...(I really wonder if we would even begin to tolerate interference with snail mail in the same way) (see here)
The other, (here) a perhaps darker story, about the extent of Yahoo's cooperation with the Chinese government with regard to access to internet records.
Eric Blair (here) was perhaps thirty years out with his timing for the absolute intrusion of the State into the very fabric of everyone's lives. But we are well and truly within the era now.

And a reminder that in his literature the plain truth as spoken by our masters is almost the reverse of the real truth. I think we are living in that era now!

Not feeling very afraid

An interesting campaign (which is presumably based on some research) against Peter Garret. Today's press says how the senior mobsters, Downer and Costello et al, are warning the electorate to be 'afraid, be very afraid' of Peter Garrett. The imputation being that some how he has an hidden agenda which has not yet been declared which is going to turn the country upside down if and when they get elected.
Well I don't feel particularly afraid. Indeed most Garrett aficionados want him to have done more, but there is a political reality about this that has to be faced. Attractive to people because of his greener credentials, some could well be afraid that he will be decidedly more attractive to younger voters than Malcolm Turnbull. Younger voters think the green stuff matters!!! I don't think the stuffy older set (on either side) have got this through their incredibly thick heads.
So yes, Downer and Costello should feel afraid; but I don't!

Unelieveable except for the fact that it's election time

Could you believe the poe-faced Costello running out to point out to the electorate that Peter Garret's off the cuff remark that all would change when the Labor party is elected meant that you can't trust anything. (here)
Drawing the longest bow possible Costello was suggesting that they would most certainly change, tax-cuts, climate change, water, energy...heaven knows what else.
Now Costello might have some high ground to stand on if it wasn't for the fact that the last two Liberal governments have broken promises hand over fist, and weighed in with the IR laws for which they had no mandate.
So earlier in the week ....oh what's the point they are all much of a muchness

Acknowledging death

The continuum of thought goes on today, perhaps a bit more mundanely, about death. (All Soul's Day). Perhaps we have got away from this, but in times past these annual times of requiem were pretty important. To be sure they still are, but in the stupid 'know it all' 21st century way we often allow these sort of things to fall by the wayside as being old-fashioned.
But in the last few years we have had a number of different types of memorial services. Sometimes on November 2nd we have had a quiet dinner for those who are still grieving the death of a loved one, they have brought photos and sometimes family members along. And it has been good to talk about someone who has died with fondness and sadness.
Denial, the seeming strategy of the 21st century for dealing with death, doesn't (indeed NEVER) works. Whether it be the funeral industry who seem to do everything they can to make funerals about anything other than death....if I go to one more funeral in which the 'director' says "The family don't want this to be sad they want this to be a celebration of life!"...I mean why can't it be both?
And why don't funeral professionals (usually anything but) stop conspiring with our death denying culture and help people to realise that the way you get through it is by embracing it not by pretending it didn't happen. People do not PASS AWAY, they die.
I am conscious I am sidetracked.
We have also held a pre-Christmas service (sometimes called Blue Christmas) for those who can't face the jollity of Christmas this year but who shouldn't be denied Christmas...indeed must not...if they are to embrace stable life again.
What more could be said of annual services in hospices which I have attended, which have been wonderful celebrations of the lives of people who have died. Filled with sadness, but also great thankfulness for the wonderful care of Hospices like , Mary Potter, Daw House and Modbury, QEH and Lyell McEwin.
Much to think about today.

Hearing yourself

Did the PM hear himself on TV this morning say (of Abbott)

At least he is a big enough man to apologise!

Yes, John, you need to be a big man to apologise!