Living Wittily

Self Indulgence is OK occasionally

You take two modest sized fair trade bananas and place them in a dry  covered pan, skins on. Five minutes gently griddled and the bananas are warm but not cooked. Meanwhile chop almond, hazel and brazil nuts into big chunks and put them in another wee saucepan to gently roast them, and then add a generous helping of maple syrup (a gift from New England friends over for a visit) and turn off the heat.

Nice long desert dish and place a peeled warm banana on each side, a not small scoop of ice cream in between, and then pour over the roasted nuts and maple syrup, and sprinkle with cinnamon.

No idea what it's called cos it came out of my head - but as preparation for the Euro-Final I had two portions of fruit, some sugar, carbohydrate and protein. Balanced diet, balanced indulgence, eh?

Whitewashing the truth, and true whitewashing

The term whitewash has a long and sometimes ignoble history. At its best it recalls the biblical metaphor for being washed white as snow, and garments washed pure white in the blood of Christ. But it has far less attractive connotations. Poor Stephen Hendry suffered his first snooker whitewash this week at the Sheffield World Snooker Championship - a whole session of 8 frames with no wins. An old friend in Aberdeen recalls his army days when the coal was whitewashed to avoid offending the scrutiny of visiting dignitaries. Gordon Brown attempted the impossible task of whitewashing over the electoral meltdown of last week, and the even impossibler (I know that such a comparative is grammatically impossible, but using it makes it more rhetorically effective) task of whitewashing over the flaws and cracks of a doomed leadership.

Whereas, simple and semantically straightforward blogger that I am, I've spent most of the Bank Holiday whitewashing the house. And all that I'm covering up is 6 years of weathering which has made the house an unattractive off-white - so I'm whitewashing it, - well painting it with Dulux dead expensive, all weather, eternally lasting, one coat application stuff. It'll take a few sessions to do it all - and meanwhile I continue to ruminate on metaphors of clean whiteness, cover-ups, the aesthetic appeal of brilliant white as ethical aspiration, or its ethically dubious flip side of denial of unpleasant political realities.

Station 11A at Glasgow Central and the long walk home

  I don't walk slow. In fact despite my legs being some inches shorter than most of my family and friends I am referred to by the, I presume modestly flattering name, "The Strider". Which is just as well. Not sure how many who read this blog ever have to travel by train from Glasgow Central to Paisley Canal Street. But it now leaves from Platform 11A. Not 11, and not 12, but 11A. And no it isn't a take-off of Harry Potter, but it might as well be.

Platform 11A is a good 5 minutes walk from the entrance of the Station from Gordon Street. Now I don't mind walking - I do it quite a lot. But if a train is 4 minutes walk from the first illuminated timetables it does kind of put pressure on you if you assumed that arriving at the station a couple of minutes before the train leaves, and you've already bought your ticket, you have a decent chance of catching it. Just last Tuesday I watched a number of elderly folk (older than me, and walking slower though trying to walk faster) doing the long walk to 11A - more than one has muttered, not so soto voce, 'Are we walkin' hame?'

Is 11A the longest train platform in Scotland? Should passengers be given a discount for walking the first 500 metres? Is there a case for courtesy buses, or buggies for non-striders?  Or are we just so used to convenience that we need the occasional Platform 11A to remind us that walking is a natural, healthy human activity? And of the 34 million who use it each year, how many are going to paisley canal Street anyway, huh? In any case, First Train aren't going to reconstruct a classic Victorian train station, built in 1879, for the convenience of passengers travelling to Paisley Canal Street.

I may encounter 11A later today as I go to hear my Doktorvater, Professor David Fergusson deliver his second Gifford Lecture. First one on the rise of the new atheism was a good contextual introduction. Tonight we get stuck into the implausibility of religious belief. On the assumption they will be published, I'm not taking notes - just listening, thinking, and enjoying. By the way, 'Stuff and Nonsense' refers to the first part of this post - this last paragraph is why it is followed by the 'Theology' category. Just so's you know!

What's a bit of ageism between friends?

Had a conversation with a couple of the University administration staff on my way out today. A beautiful late afternoon, sun shining and I was on my way home to get changed and go for a wee trot around Barshaw Park. Nothing too strenuous, just a way of loosening up and sloughing off the worst of a day's wear and tear.

Talking with my two admin friends about the clocks going forward Saturday past, and losing an hour's sleep, one of my friends said it was the next night she felt tired, and was in bed at the ridiculously early hour of 9.30pm. So by way of consolatory conversation, a kind of solidarity with those who go to bed early and get up early, I mentioned that whereas I used to be able to read for an hour in bed at night, now I was struggling to clock five minutes before my eyelids did their portcullis thing.

Whereupon the third member of this conversation said, in tones of unmistakably sincere sympathy, "Aye well - but don't worry. That'll come to us all". Now I don't know if I look older than I am, or if I feel older than I look, or if I am older than I should be for my age!

Anyway - not too old to run round the park for 50 minutes and arrive home still standing and able to hold a conversation, albeit accompanied by heavy breathing! Just about ready to run my first 10k of the year - but only when the weather is good. No point in taking chances at my age.

A man's a man, for a' that'.

No doubt about it.

I saw what at least one Scotsman wears under his kilt.

It happened in broad daylight, outside an Estate Agent's at Cardonald, at 11.55 a.m.. today. There he was playing his bagpipes, accompanied on the pavement by one of the Estate Agent staff who was holding glasses of something liquid for drinking and proffering said liquid to passers by.

Now in the widely predicted and living up to their description strong winds which were battering the West of Scotland, complemented by rain alternating between vertical and horizontal stair rods, two otherwise sensible people were engaged in what I can only guess was a publicity stunt on Burns Day. It takes two hands to play the pipes, so what happens when gusts of wind elevate the tartan, eh? And have you ever tried to balance a tray with filled glasses in one hand, while giving said glasses to passing punters, and the wind threatening to turn the tray into an alcohol laden frisbee?

And the obvious consequence of open air waitressing in a gale, and wearing a kilt in a storm force wind?

Nearly crashed my car.

Why?

Cos I saw what he was wearing under his kilt. But I'll pull a tartan veil over the shocking reality witnessed as an anti-epiphany.

Did wonder though if it was one of the £24.99 Lidl kilts that sold out in less than an hour?

Domestic incident

Two Kitchen Haiku

...

Plastic jug bounces

when filled with hot chicken soup

and dropped on the floor.

...

Dropped soup spurts upwards

in forensic spray pattern

of airborne food stuff.

Written after the fact!

Blogs, birthdays and books

Thought I might mention several thoughts and plans for this blog which will be a year old on January 10.

I've revised the list of blog destinations I regularly visit. The initial enthusiasm for Blogging seems to have cooled off, and some folk are now doing different things, or have other priorities. I've added two theological blogs that I often visit. Don't know the full name of Halden, over at Inhabitatio Dei, but he is writing some important and thoughtful stuff on a number of theological issues I'm interested in. You might want to look in and see if it's your kind of thing.

I've resisted the long lists of "just about everybody who blogs", and rely on several existing bloggers on my own select list for taking me further afield - mainly Ben Myers at Faith and Theology and Cynthia Nielsen at Per Caritatem. If you click on their names in my sidebar and browse their sidebars a very large and varied blogging community opens up.

As I think through what I want to do with this blog for the coming year I'd be interested in suggestions, comments from regular readers and anyone else who happens by. But I reserve the right to go on posting a mixture of the serious and whimsical, the book stuff and theological reflection, and to 'have a view' on some of the issues, stories and happenings that seem to me to be significant clues to what it might mean to live wittily in the tangle of our minds, seeking by so doing to live faithfully after the pattern of Christ.

Now and again I want to take time to write a more substantial post, which I hesitate to call an essay since that sounds too much like an assessment instrument! Yet the essay is a long established and honourable forum for developing ideas, building persuasive argument, educating and shaping and challenging commonly accepted values, tastes, and perceptions - and that process includes the wiriter. I mean the kind of reflective, meditative, inquisitive question-raising such as I posted on forgiveness on Thursday Jan 3rd.

Those who know me know books are an essential element in my humanity, as vital to my life quality as heat and light, food and drink, friendship and work. Books are, as Philip Toynbee once admitted, 'My royal route to God'. Of course not everyone is book daft - not everyone's mind works the same, not all personalities learn best through literary forms, not everyone finds verbalised concepts interesting or that ideas interiorised through reading are easily processed into practical wisdom that is life transforming. But for me spiritual discipline, theological reflection, the journey of self-discovery, sympathetic human understanding, intellectual maturity, and contemplative humility before the mystery of God, are some of the blessings of reading - hence the literary bias of this blog!

In the last week or two I've come across several claims that such and such a book is a theological classic. Confining suggestions to the 20th Century, there are those in the blogosphere who nominate (with varying degrees of enthusiasm) P T Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, H R Mackintosh, The Person of Jesus Christ, H R Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, Elisabeth Johnson, She Who Is, G Guttierez, A Theology of Liberation, J V Taylor, The Go-Between God, D Bosch, Transforming Mission, and T F Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God. I suspect most of these reflect personal enthusiasms, but none of them are lightweight either. Suggestions - either supporting some of the above or other nominations - which books would you argue is a 20th C theological classic?  Of course at some stage we have to define 'classic' - but for now just go by your own definition.

Dr Who and Chocolate Gu

I don't usually watch Dr Who, but since our Christmas meal was around our usual tea-time and I needed an interlude between Main Course (which I cooked) and Dessert, I joined the hardened fans in our family and watched the Christmas Special. Glad I was using it more as a mere background context during which to savour and relish and generally appreciate the warm gooey Gu chocolate souffle accompanied by luxury custard, which was entertainmemnt enough and more. In contrast to the rich, life affirming inner glow created by this well conceived coincidence of ingredients, warm soft chocolate and custard you stand a spoon in, the Dr Who episode was an ill conceived coincidence of cliches that did little to divert my attention from the main feature of my early evening, the aforementioned dessert.

Knowing the nutritional information on both the pudding and the custard it would be a bit rich to claim that the dessert did my heart good in any literal, physiological sense. But in the figurative and emotional well-being sense, it did indeed do my heart good; it was deeply comforting, therapeutically life enhancing, and spiritually formative - cos I  now know what it would be wrong to have too much of, and I'm off to knock off twice the number of calories consumed in said dessert on the exercise bike - Oh but it's worth it, every laborious minute sat on the cycle seat..............it is, indeed, worth it!

Rationalisation, excuse making and library fines

Today I had another one of those threatening but courteous reminders about an overdue library book. Just so that I know, and don't forget, and therefore will be in the words of the Authorised Version, "inexcusable O Man!", I am being reminded of the cumulative nature of the library fine system, and being forewarned that I may soon face my very own personal credit crunch. Thing is, the book cost £4 about 12 years ago, so unless I return it soon I will be paying the purchase price without actually buying it. Then again, why not just return the thing - but life's been too busy and a wee fine seems a fair trade-off to attend to other priorities. Or why not renew it online. Well, can't renew it online once it has hit the fine trajectory.

But the genius of the cumulative fine system is that it pushes returning the book up the priority list, the speed of ascent directly proportionate to projected expense. I have found by previous experience that mitigating circumstances have neither relevance nor purchase power with the library staff. The same courtesy that informs the tone of the emails is discernible in the non-negotiating, smiling but unyielding insistence that, yes indeed, you do owe an arm and a leg, and until you pay it, the amount increases at an alarming rate. And once it reaches a certain level of impressive indebtedness, your library access will be suspended.

So, as well as last minute Christmas shopping, and as a contribution to peace on earth and goodwill amongst all people, I'm going to return the blessed book, pay my dues, wish the librarian a happy Christmas, and maybe even include a wee box of chocolates for those vigilant guardians of literature, scholarship, literacy and culture. Anyway being charged for keeping a book longer than the agreed borrow date isn't so much a fine, as a legitimate rent payment, a modest charge for the hire of educational input, huh? Rationalisation - one of the more obvious signs of excuse making, when to re-quote Paul, "You are inexcusable, O man!" I'm off to the library..........

University, education and millionaire shortbread

Waiting in the queue for my Chai Tea Latte (aye, dead sophisticated me!) a colleague from the University came over and we debated about the pros and cons of going halfers on a 2 inch square of millionaire shortbread. Now I've sat on Learning and Teaching Board, on Validation Panels and on various other ruminative, deliberative and generally talkative committees with this colleague - and none of the debates were as animated as our discussion about whether the base should be shortbread or cheesecake in content and texture; how thick the caramel should be relative to chocolate; and whether either of us was prepared to admit to cleaning out the condensed milk can when millionaire shortbread was being made at home. Now that's what I call an academic discussion, a robust exchange of viewpoints, a collaborative forum in which the discussion outcomes were no less significant than some of the other discussions we have had to witness / participate in / sound informed about.

In the end we decided to leave the discussion at the level of theory, though with an assumed action point that post-Christmas, the discussion should be resumed with the acknowledgement on both sides that a firm conclusion may only be achievable if the differing opinions were subjected to practical testing (tasting).

Amazing how you learn what you learn these days at University.