Always Hope

Today sees a rare foray into the field of ancient religion for Always Hope. The mystical White Horse of Uffington, which allegedly represents the spiritual longings of our Bronze Age ancestors, has been subject to the scrutiny of the satisfyingly named Olaf Swarbrick. Mr Swarbrick's iconoclastic conclusion is that the horse thing has us all barking up the wrong tree: what we're seeing is actually a big white dog . Exhibit A: Mr Swarbrick is a retired vet, so unless his memory is suffering, we must assume he knows his horse from his dog. But with due respect to his anatomical expertise, his theory seems to rest on the observation that it doesn't look much like a horse.  Put like this, it starts to seem a bit less original. Most casual observers would have to have the animal identified if seeing it without prior warning because, let's be honest, it doesn't look much like a dog either, or any other recognisable creature of the Oxfordshire landscape.  ...

Sometimes we Christians need to draw on words that aren't much used in normal conversation. The experience of God needs to be articulated by the deeper vocabulary of past ages, of the great theologians, of the Bible itself. That's good, but it can become a problem if we forget to translate for the benefit of people who don't know what we're talking about. Then we end up saying one thing, but everybody else hears something different. Yesterday the Sun website entertained its readers with this story: Drawing this response from a well-meaning brother: At least it makes perfect sense, but probably not in the way he intended.

Another story that caught my eye in the eChurch Christian Blog was that of the Irish Gypsies arriving en masse in Birmingham, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Pope ( Birmingham Post ). But I don't have any comment to add on the incident itself (other than to notice the authorities being totally flummoxed by the fact that people are flocking to see the Pope in huge numbers - this must be one of the few countries where this would cause surprise to the police). What was interesting, to me and probably to a small number of others, was the obscure pleasure of seeing Sarehole Mill get a mention in the press. Sarehole is a restored water mill in Birmingham, a monument to the City's industrial heritage. It bears the name of a long-vanished village now swallowed by the urban giant. But it occupies another niche in history as the childhood home of JRR Tolkien. Tolkien lived in Sarehole at a formative time of life, and remembered it with enormous affection. The Mill in particular...

Yesterday's news brought conclusive proof that "you had to be there" is a verifiable law of Physics. Comedian Tim Vine won the award for the FUNNIEST JOKE at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Suprisingly, the rib-tickling line is not copyrighted and hidden in secrecy, only to be revealed on very special occasions, and so Always Hope is able to pass it on to you now. Please sit down, secure your sides and head, and read: "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again." There you go. It might be just me, but it didn't seem to hit the spot when I read it, and I guess snappy one-liners can't be pinned to the printed page. I could imagine laughing at it, but I just didn't. It's the way you tell 'em, after all. The oddest thing about this is that they also gave prizes for the worst jokes, but if you weren't told which were which, you would be hard pushed to tell the difference. One guy told the worst joke...

A brief news update, largely for my own amusement. First, a couple of local interest stories of a botanical kind, demonstrating as much as anything how good the Cornish climate is for moisture-loving plants. This morning, readers of BBC Cornwall's website were greeted by the headline "plant growth shocks holidaymakers", now abbreviated to " plant shocks holidaymakers ", which sounds quite sinister. Mr and Mrs Godfrey of St Merryn were amazed to find their Agave had grown to 26 feet high in their absence. This is the kind of story that makes you wish that local news could leave their site blank on days when nothing happens, especially when you realise that the Godfreys had been away, not for a week or two, but two months. If I left the the Vicarage garden for that long in the summer, it would generate enough biomass to fuel a small town for a year. More interesting, but only to a very small number of people, is the news that the rare Many-Fruited Beardless Mo...

Respect to the Church of England's premier blogger, The Church Mouse , who has managed to get some column inches on the Guardian's Comment is Free site today.    Read the article to see why Mouse has a beef with Richmond Borough Council, and see the predictable heaps of vitriol poured on the little furry head (in the comments section). I take my hat off to Mouse for his courage (although Always Hope understands this is not his real name) but hope that he was not expecting a reasoned and measured response to his piece.  Half the comments seem to have been moderated out already, a blood-curdling thought, given the level of animosity displayed by the ones that got past the moderator.  The comments section of online newspapers always seem to be populated by the kind of people who you wouldn't want to give free access to the knife drawer.  I just hope the Pope is grateful for Mouse's willingness to take up the cudgels on his behalf.

Off message again, but I can't resist this. I'm just going to have to accept that coverage of odd news stories is going to be one of the themes of Always Hope. There's not much we can add to this one: Man 'up to waist in mud' in Stourport -on-Severn rescued Except one thing - this guy's given reason for being stuck up to his waist in a muddy lake was that he was "out looking for snakes". Is it just me, or does this sound a bit wrong? Is the cold lakeside mud really the natural habitat of snakes? Maybe this lake is renowned locally as a haunt of strange snakes, a sort of scaled-down Loch Ness ? Did the emergency services mis -hear what he said as his teeth were chattering too much? And if not, is lake-snake-hunting really a healthy way for a 25-year old and his mates to spend an afternoon? Was he up to something embarrassing/illegal and this was the first excuse that came to mind? Like a man stuck in a lake for an hour, Always Hope smells a fish...

A bit off message this, but it sneaks in on the grounds of local interest. Always Hope has a soft spot for the traditional British eccentric, and so today we lament the case of the Plympton Owl Man: Man banned from taking owls for walk We should note, in the interests of fairness, that Plymouth City Council hasn't actually banned Russell Burt from walking his owls because, er, they can't. But by intimidating this one man with the full weight of local government, they have effectively done so. What's particularly dispiriting are the given reasons for this sledgehammer-to-nut approach. "Owls live a nocturnal lifestyle" intones the council spokeswoman, demonstrating a grasp of Biology gained from the Ladybird Book of Nature. And, to cap the argument, she invokes the danger of "a large spooked bird of prey running amok on a highway", apparently confusing the Owl with a Road Runner. Always Hope respectfully suggests to Plymouth City Council, in the unlikely e...

Apparently David Cameron has said that there should be no sympathy for Raoul Moat . His anger has been triggered by the way in which Moat has been idolised on facebook pages and roadside shrines, by people who seem him as a kind of hero. But I don't think Mr Cameron need worry too much about a minority expressing themselves in this way. Overall, public opinion is not sympathetic to criminals, particularly the likes of Moat. It will be difficult to find any news headlines bemoaning his death, even though he has evaded the justice of the courts. What he might consider, though, is the reaction of Moat's uncle . Understandably upset, he has said "what he has done is terrible, but he didn't deserve death". This also is unlikely to win many people over. Even those who tend to agree might want to add that he didn't deserve death, but neither did the man he killed, and the others he attempted to or intended to kill. But there is still some truth in what he says....

Sad news from Leicester , where the Lord Mayor has been forced to apologise after dropping his trousers in front of a group of schoolchildren. When I saw the headline, I thought this was something sinister, but it turns out to be completely innocent (if we rule out the possibility of sabotage). As the good Alderman stood up, the trousers simply obeyed the law of gravity. The BBC has been briefed by the Mayor's "official spokesman" who, struggling for a convincing underlying explanation, can only come up with "he was not wearing a belt." What's really awful about this is the way the poor chap is obliged to apologise for "any offence caused", as though this was a practical joke gone wrong. As if any of the hundreds of children present were not entirely delighted by the sight of his humiliation. Free trouser suspension tip: Always Hope recommends the use of braces when wearing trousers that are only kept up by tummy pressure.