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KEV67

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Everything posted by KEV67

  1. Only went to one church today, the Church for bigots on Castle St. The vicar did say something in his sermon which troubled me a bit. He said there was a parade of sin through town the day before. I wondered if he meant there had been a gay pride march. I looked it up on the interweb, and there had been something like that. I don't think I will tell my lesbian friend about that; she would not be happy. On the other hand, St Mary's Minster about 100 yards away from there is displaying a LGBTQAI+ banner again, as well as refugees welcome banners.
  2. Actually, it is not that bad. It is a lot better than Alexandria Quartet. I wonder if all her books were about the African ex-pat experience.
  3. I am running out of churches to go to in my area. The ones that are left are a bit out of my comfort zone. There are the Seventh Day Adventists. Their church is actually the one closest to me, but I would be the only white person there. There are the Mormons. I would be wary going there. There are several Orthodox churches, but they all speak foreign languages. I went into a Greek Orthodox service once. They were renting an Anglican church and I got my times wrong. There is a Romanian Orthodox church at the bottom of the hill who share another Anglican church. I attended the evening service at St Mary's Castle Street, Church of England (Continuing). The vicar's wife was not there. The pub historian was doing her job of handing out the prayer books and taking the collection. Not that there were many people to collect from. Apart from the organist (who is improving) the vicar, and the pub historian, there was myself and two Hong Kong Chinese couples. Someone came in about half way through, but did not listen to the whole service. The vicar told me he opened the door to the pew, kneeled and crossed himself, but then the door closed, so he opened it again and knelt and crossed himself again, and that this happened about four times. Then he left without taking his cap. The vicar referred to Jacob wrestling with the angel again, then about an expedition to find the source of the Nile. He had a bit of a rant against some of the other churches. He did not say which ones, but I suspect the Church of England, and possibly some of the churches who play a lot of music and appeal to the kids. He said just because a church was well attended it was spiritually full, and neither alas was a poorly attended church. I wondered what the Chinese couples made of that. I had not seen them before. I wonder if I will again.
  4. I am about 60 pages in. I am worried I may have made an Alexandria Quartet sized mistake. Doris Lessing did write in the preface not to read stuff you don't like, so I cannot entirely blame her. I read one of her other books I found in my father's bookcase. The cover made it look like a romance. I think he liked it in part because it was set in Rhodesia and the protagonist's lefty politics resembled his own in his youth. My father lived for six years in Zambia where he was a teacher. The Golden Notebook looks like the one Lessing got the Nobel Prize for, but I am concerned it will be a ton of self-flagellating introspection. And I don't share her politics.
  5. I am not sure I would read Watership Down again. It was one of my favourite books as a boy and aspects of it are great. For instance the rabbits' religion. The ending is one of the best I have ever read. I tried reading it once as an adult and it suddenly seemed very dated. It was as if all the characters were voiced by actors in a British WW2 film. I image John Mills would play Hazel. Trevor Howard would be there, maybe he would be Bigwig. The does would speak like Miss Moneypenny. I am no male feminist or white knight but it suddenly seemed embarrassingly sexist. It was not an entire surprise when I learned Richard Adams had been a soldier during WW2.
  6. I started reading 1984 as a 15 or 16-year-old. We had read Animal Farm in class. I got about three-quarters through and I could not see how Winston Smith could win. There were not enough pages for him to escape and lead the counter-revolution. I should have read Fahrenheit 451 instead. When I was about 40 I read it again and I thought it was genius. By then I had read most of his other fiction, non-fiction and essays.
  7. In the next episode Stan is put in charge of the canteen. He appoints an Indian driver's wife to be the cook, only the drivers have never had curry before and are all gasping for water. Only the inspector takes it in his stride because he served in India during the war. He can even talk Urdu. Honestly, he's wasted being a bus inspector. Last episode of series 1, Stan and his friend unwisely challenge two female clippies to a darts match. There is a bit of horseplay which would get you marched to HR in these enlightened days. Before the match Iris nobbles Stan by getting him drunk and getting him excited, telling him her landlady is away. Obviously Stan and his friend are £5 down by the end of the evening. Iris was going to make it up to Stan, but he can't take advantage, because he had to take his mother home.
  8. The gardening tools were explained a little further on. Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit. If I understood correctly they then have a game of doctors and nurses. What I do not understand is that the only real knowledge this fruit of the tree of knowledge has given them is that they were not wearing any clothes. Why does it matter? There is no one else around. They have already seen each other naked. God already knows and the angels are above that sort of thing. I suppose it is a metaphor for something.
  9. In what way does your C of E parson behave more like a Methodist or Baptist?
  10. The Christadelphians are more like what I thought the Unitarians were like. I think maybe the Unitarians were like the Christadelphians generations ago. Wikipedia tells me the Christadelphians reject the Holy Trinity and the pre-existence of Christ. That would make them like the Arian Church. There was a big conference in 325 about whether Arius was right or Athanasius of Alexandria was right. The Athanasian view won by a landslide and the Arians were declared heretics. When I was more religious than I am now, this bothered me because Nicean Creed did not really match up with what I read in the Bible, and I wondered where they got the extra information, and why was it considered valid. Also according to Wikipedia, the Christadelphians do not believe in an afterlife, at least not one that starts immediately after death. I think they believe in an earthly resurrection following the second coming. Actually, the exact nature of the Resurrection and the afterlife always puzzled me too. The Bible is not very consistent. The Old Testament Jews supposedly did not believe in an afterlife at all. But even they are not very consistent.
  11. I attended the Christadelphian meeting this morning. There was a bit of confusion. They wanted me to sign in the visitors' book. Then they asked me to write where I was from, so I wrote Reading. This confused them, until I told them I was Church if England, not from another branch of the church. The congregation was mostly white British and Iranian. The Christadelphians are involved in some sort of campaign over these Iranians' immigration status. On the screen there were English and Farsi projections from biblical texts. Otherwise the service was quite traditional and more like what I imagine Dissenter churches used to be like. A woman played an electronic organ. The hymns sounded traditional. The women wore hats or headscarves. There was no stain-glass or ornamentation. There were no pews, just chairs. The Eucharist was slightly different: chunks of French stick were passed around and the congregation picked bits off. Then the wine, which tasted more like Ribena, was passed around on trays in little plastic thimbles. One reading was from Job and another was from Mark about Christ's arrest and Peter's denying of them. Overall I was impressed. I intend to go to St Mary's Castle Street this evening. I fear we may have lost the pub historian. I went to his local on Thursday. He was not there, but I overheard two locals, one of whom I know to be his friend, murmuring about someone who was either very ill or had died. On the way out I saw his friend looking into space. I will find out this evening, no doubt. Edit: the vicar says he is fine, just away on holiday.
  12. It is weird. I have been searching for records on my Irish granny. Half the county turned up to her funeral and I can't find a thing. It is as if she never existed.
  13. Thanks for that. If I understood correctly, my cousin's son, Jacob, is my first cousin once removed, but I am his second cousin once removed. Edit: I looked at the diagram and I would be his first cousin once removed too. Edit: which means the people I thought were my second cousins once removed are actually my first cousins once removed. I cannot remember actually ever meeting a second cousin.
  14. I think you may be right about the census, but there are other records too. Electoral rolls are useful. Interestingly, my mother tells me one of my father's cousins I was confused about is still alive but gaga. She had an illegitimate daughter as a teenager and a legitimate son later on. The daughter was brought up by her grandparents. I dimly remember my father telling me that the boy who knocked her up offered to marry her, but he was only sixteen so they said no. Both the illegitimate daughter and the legitimate son had children of their own. Her brother, my father's cousin, was a reprobate. He was married several times, but still managed to have several illegitimate children, and none legitimate. His mother outlived him about two decades. So things are not a complete washout in that quartile, although tracking down illegitimate, distant relatives is tricky. I asked my father whether any of this man's former wives came to his funeral. He said no, and that they would not have been welcome. It seemed strange to me. I wonder whether any of his 'persons of dubious parentage' did.
  15. Does anyone understand the 'second cousin once removed' definition. I thought I worked it out. I thought it meant you shared two great-grandparents but that you were separated by a generation. Therefore, my great-aunt Eileen's two sons are my second cousins once removed. (I am assuming a great-aunt is your grandparent's sister). But what about my first cousin's son Jacob? My grandfather is his great-grandfather, so is he my second cousin once removed or my first cousin once removed. I have never heard the term first cousin once removed so I am guessing he is still my second cousin once removed.
  16. I have seen more recent censuses online than that, I think.
  17. It looks like one of my father's first cousins on his father's side may still be alive, possibly two. I think I met one of them, but I am confused because I thought she was on his mother's side. I heard some garbled story about a teenage birth which may have involved her. She does not seem to have married and I am not sure she is still alive. The other cousin was one I had not heard of before. She seems to have been alive last year, that she married in the 60s, and that she has one son. That would be the only second cousin I have on my father's side (I could have up to four second cousins once removed).
  18. Hopefully this is an inherited disease you are not prone to.
  19. My father was interested in it. I have a second cousin once removed who is very interested. I just signed up with a genealogy website because I wondered what relatives I have on my father's side. My father was an only child and my grandfather could hold a grudge. The first time I heard he had any brothers was when his wife was being buried. He said three of his brothers were buried in the same cemetery. I am looked up his side a bit. It looks like one of his brothers had one child and another had two, one of whom may still be alive. I see no evidence of them having children, but it appears to be more difficult to work down than up. Living people's details are often locked, and I am not sure more recent censuses are available. My father's mother was on better terms with her siblings, but while two had children, none has grandchildren, at least so far as I have seen so far. Things are a bit better on my mother's side. Two of her brothers are childless, but the other has three children and they all had children themselves. However, my mother comes from Ireland and records there seem much poorer, or else not as many Irish people are as into genealogy or use a different website.
  20. OTOH there was quite a heart warming story about a family run agricultural engineering company that has been in existence for two hundred years.
  21. I think Classic Tractor might take some beating. I just read an article about how an agricultural college freed up the clutch in one of their lesser used training tractors.
  22. How would you translate this into modern English: "la fortuna è donna, et è necessario, volendela tenere sotto, batterla et urtarla."
  23. God made Adam, then he made Eve in Book VIII. Now in Chapter IX they have to spend all their time gardening. Doesn't sound much like paradise to me. I am not into gardening. What are they gardening with? Surely they have not had time to develop metal implements yet.
  24. The actors in The Inbetweeners were about 8-10 years older than their characters. In On the Buses, Reg's sister Olive looks like she is in her 30s. Her husband looks late 30s at least. Reg is 23 years older than his character. I thought 30 was quite old to still live at home with your parents. I know housing is very expensive these days. I did not think it was quite so expensive back then. I think Reg should have tried a bit harder to keep his promotion. He will be retiring in another 12 years, and he doesn't look like he has much to show for his decades of bus driving.
  25. I have heard of Mr Sandman, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, Rock Around the Clock, and The Yellow Rose of Texas. Not bad as I don't know what has been number 1 for the last ten years at least. Do they still have number 1s?
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