BBC NEWS | England | Devon | Moor sheep 'killed by occultists'

BBC NEWS | England | Devon | Moor sheep 'killed by occultists'

Similar to reports in January. Same bloke found them. Still resent the generalisation 'occultist' and 'pagan'.

Found: Europe's oldest civilisation

Found: Europe's oldest civilisation

Over 150 large monuments of the same design have been found in Germany, Austria and Slovakia dating to between 4800BC and 4600BC.

The beast of Lytham

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | The beast of Lytham

More strangeness from the north, north England this time, Lytham St Annes in Lancashire. There have been over 20 sightings in the last few weeks of a creature the size of a collie dog with large ears and mouth and a lolloping gait. Dubbed by locals the Beast of Green Drive, it is seen in the woodlands of a nearby beauty spot.

UFOs in North Wales

icNorthWales - Anybody out there

I find this report interesting because it's not a one-off UFO sighting, but has been going on since March. John White (former DIY store manager apparently, I hope it wasn't MFI), has been watching unexplained lights from his house in Llannefydd near Denbigh for the last 5 weeks. He was so intrigued that he splashed out on a shedload on video recording equipment, and so far has about 9 hours of footage. As the report says:

Between one and three separate lights have turned up regularly.
They appear as bright spots changing colours between blue, red, orange and
purple.
The unidentified flying objects sometimes pulse or shimmer and
grow in size before shrinking back.
They also move silently across the night sky.

The MOD have looked at the tapes, but have yet to come up with an explanation. They also declined to comment for the story (though I shouldn't read too much into that - the reporter, Steve Bagnall of the Daily Post, probably didn't speak to anyone who would be in a position to comment).

Interesting story. I wonder what the lights are?

Library strangeness

I noticed the other day that the only book I have out from the library was overdue, so like any responsible person I ignored it. It is now two weeks overdue, but as chance would have it a colleague who works on the technical side of the library system sauntered by this morning. We chatted about this and that, and then I remembered my book. Somewhat cheekily I asked him if he could delete my fine and renew the book for me. I didn't really expect him to, but he said he would.

(It amused me to learn that in the course of testing the system he often puts ridiculously large fines on the accounts of colleagues. The largest fine you can have is £999,999.99. He does take them off of course, eventually, and then the accounting point gets a report of total fines that come in at several million, with several million being waived.)

So later this afternoon I get a call from him. He has looked at my account and according to the library system I have no fines, and no books out either. He took down my card number to double check, and still nothing. I recently had my card changed from an old type to a new type, and wondered if this could account for things, so he checked that I didn't have any other accounts on the system. Apparently not. So then he took down the barcode number of the book itself and checked it on the system. It came up with the right book, but according to the system it is on the shelves, has no holds and no reservations.

Hmmm, very strange. Theory #1 is that when my card changed an error occured, so that instead of updating my lending details, my record was cleared and the books returned to circulation. But as all the cards were updated recently I would have thought that this problem was handled correctly. Theory #2 is that God, a sympathetic angel, the IT fairies, the space brothers (and sisters), or whatever, have been playing with my library account. My helpful and obliging colleague doesn't care. His advise was just to keep the book for as long as I need it and then drop it into the returns box.

Odd dinosaur dream

I had a dream on Monday night (24 Jan 05). Me and Jo were going into some woods. As we went in we were passed by a huge woolly mammoth that was just leaving. It must have been over 4 times my height. On its back were two cavemen wrapped in furs. I was amazed, and pointed out to Jo that mammoths were supposed to be extinct.

We went further, and now saw dinosaurs. They were herbivores so I wasn't concerned, only amazed. However, we then came to a bend in the path. As we came around the bend I saw another dinosaur, but this looked like a carnivore - it looked like a T Rex that stood just above person height. We turned back and went down a different path. My recollection is a bit hazy on this point, we walked until we came to a building or complex of buildings, passing several carnivore dinosaurs on the way.

My viewpoint then changes to a ceiling view inside a rectangular building. There is a doorway in the middle of one of the long walls, and opposite the doorway a woman in attached to the wall, crucifixion-style, with blood dripping from her. I have the odd idea that she has done this herself, perhaps something a bit kinky? But I also think that the smell of her blood will attract the dinosaurs.

My viewpoint then changes again. I am now the woman, though I'm now actually myself and not a woman, and I'm not attached to the wall but am crumpled in the the corner of the room, covered in the blood. Jo comes into the room, and I warn her to go before a dinosaur comes. Just then a dinosaur does come in. Jo runs to the other end of the room, and the dinosaur's head follows her almost as if it is herding her. But then it turns it attention to me, comes across and begins to tuck into my groin area. I feel my face contorting with pain, though I don't actually feel any pain or fear. Then after a few seconds I woke up normally (that is, not in the way one normally wakes from nightmares).

I think the Jurassic Park films have been on TV very recently, though I haven't watched them.

Ritual abuse of sheep on Dartmoor?

BBC NEWS | England | Devon | Dead sheep found in 'occult star'

Seven sheep had their necks broken and were arranged in a seven-pointed star on Sampford Spinney, Dartmoor. The story describes the star arrangement as being significant in occult ceremonies. Although it may be indicative of some sort of sacrificial ritual activity, it may also be someone messing about. Is there any other evidence to show that a ritual was being perfomed? And if there was, to describe it as 'occult' doesn't mean much. Are there any known rituals which specifically call for this specific activity? To say 'occult' is about as meaningless as saying 'religion'. Furthermore, there are lots of people involved in the 'occult' who would be sickened by this abuse of animals; actually, I think most 'occultists' would be.

In memory of my Father-in-Law

The Christmas and New Year celebration was dampened for us by the death of my father-in-law Geoff on Tuesday 28th December 2004. He was 70 years old. Strangely enough, his death happened on the fifth anniversary of his heart attack, when he was clinically dead for over 10 minutes. It feels as though our prayers back then for more time were answered with an extra 5 years - no more and no less. It turns out that Geoff had a collapse in the bathroom the week before, after which he was experiencing some mobility problems. The hospital believed that he might have had a minor stroke, but he died before they did any scans. So far as my mother-in-law Hilda could tell he was just having problems moving about, he seemed OK otherwise, so she didn't say anything to us. He wasn't in any pain at all, and just died somewhat unexpectedly in his sleep.

So far as I have gathered Geoff lived his whole life in St. Helens, Merseyside. His mother's side of the family was Welsh, and he still has cousins living around Llandudno (apologies if this spelling is incorrect). His father's side of the family was Scottish. He did a couple of years national service in the 1950s. He played rugby league for Liverpool City and Warrington for a brief spell. Most of his working life was spent at Triplex (part of Pilkington Glass) as a fitter. He was married to Hilda for over 40 years, and they had one daughter who I am now married to. After his heart attack five years ago his short-term memory was never very good, though it seemed to me that it had gradually improved over time.

One of the things that amazed me about Geoff was that whenever we went out somewhere on our visits to St. Helens, Geoff would always be bumping into people that he had worked with years before. This also happened occasionally on Geoff and Hilda's many trips to Blackpool. Judging by this he appears to have been popular, and this is borne out by the number of cards that Hilda received and the number of people that turned up at the funeral.

We have been in St. Helens for most of the last two weeks, though we're now at home. I think Hilda will be OK; she has good neighbours and good friends who will look out for her better than if we brought her back down South. I don't think she will bother watching her blood pressure though, we're just glad that she's eating at the moment. We had to feed her party food for the first few days.

We're both back at work now, but feel very tired. I don't know if it's just the accumulated strain of the last weeks, or whether we've grown unused to getting up before 6:30 in the mornings.

Goodbye Geoff. You're missed by a lot of people.

Strange nocturnal experience

On the night of Monday Jan 10th 2005 I was lying in bed awake as I often do. It is normal for me to wake up a lot during the night, and sometimes I am then awake for several hours. On this occasion I suddenly heard this sound in my left ear; I don't mean that the sound was to my left, but the sound was experienced as being localized in my left ear. The sound was like that of a radio tuner looking for a station, loud static rising and falling in pitch. This continued for less than a minute and then the static stopped and was replaced with a male voice speaking. However, though there was no static, the voice was buzzing as though it was a bad line on a phone, and I couldn't make out anything that was being said. The speech was not a continuous stream of words, but consisted of several short sentences, punctuated by pauses. After about a minute of this the voice went and was replaced by the static again. After a few seconds of this the static disappeared again and there was silence once more.

I make no judgements about what was going on, I simply report this as an unusual experience.

Time - goddam you're looking old!

My my, it's been a long time since I made an entry on this blog. Not that anyone was ever reading anyway. I've been too busy with things to want to update it, and the things I've been busy with never seem interesting enough to write about anyway.

My own blog-reading habits have changed in the 9 or so months since I last wrote here, and I think that has had an effect on my own blogging. With the odd exception I've got bored looking at diary-style blogs. Unless they are very well written they start getting quite tedious quite quickly. My favourite blogs at present are Scaryduck and The UK Today. Neither are 'what happened to me today' type blogs. Scaryduck is mainly humourous tales, The UK Today is a commentary on UK politics. There is a diary-type blog that is entertaining, and that is The Bottle Shop. It's been inactive since Easter however, and some think the reason it's so good is that it isn't genuine at all.

Still, I think I'll keep this blog. I have a Theology Journal which is devoted to my passion for theology. I update it quite a lot, though most of the more recent posts are still in draft. I use it as a store for keeping notes and ideas.

So since I last posted I've bought a house with my wife, and we currently have the builders in. It overlooks a lake and is very nice, even if it hasn't been decorated since 1974. That has mostly been my life since then. Light is at the end of the tunnel however.

Weird Shit Happens

Here is a Richter Scale of the Remarkable from The Independent, showing how weird things are bound to be happening all of the time.

Tigger

I have just read the sad news that Simon's cat Tigger died yesterday. I have known Tigger for a long time, along with Simon's other cats Lara and Ben. Having not seen Tigger for over four years since moving to Plymouth, I saw her again less than two weeks ago, when I was in Brentwood for my great uncle Jack's funeral. She was mostly sleeping in an armchair near the television, which was on for her benefit . There was a shoebox in front of the chair, which served as a step to help Tigger onto and off of her seat. In the kitchen was a copy of her 'Cat of the Year' certificate that the vet had awarded earlier this year. She was 21, beating Lara (17) and Ben (by a whisker - sorry).

I liked Tigger, though I could never remember her correct gender. In fact I liked all Simon's cats, even Ben who could be a bit arsy sometimes. If there is an afterlife for cats I hope they're all chasing birds together, or doing whatever cats like doing in the afterlife. Finding a really warm spot and sleeping on it probably. Goodbye Tigger.

More Ghosts

I managed to collect a few more family ghost stories when I was in Essex a couple of weeks ago following my great uncle's death...

To begin with I must report that my father has been getting around again (see my earlier entry on ghosts). This time he appeared to my great uncle Jack while Jack was dying (as we now know) in hospital. My great aunt Grace, Jack's widow, has a neighbour who would go to the hospital with her, a very nice lady in her 60s called Dorothy. On one occasion Grace had left Dorothy at Jack's bedside for some reason (seeing the doctor/nurse or going to the loos I imagine). Jack looked past Dorothy and said something about someone having left their jacket on the back of a chair. Dorothy looked around but saw nothing. Then Jack said that there was a man standing 'over there' and asked Dorothy to ask him to go away. Dorothy looked about but there wasn't anybody there. Then Jack told her 'Ben came to see me'. Dorothy had no idea who he was on about, and on the way home she asked Grace who Ben is. The only Ben that Grace or Jack knew was my father, so she told Dorothy that he had been her niece's husband. Dorothy told her what had happened. Grace asked her if she wasn't sure that Jack had said 'Hen' or 'Henny' (one of Jack's brothers), but Dorothy is clear that he said Ben. Who will he visit next?

Grace has seen her dead brother on a number of occasions. His name was George, and he was killed in action during World War II. If I remember correctly a mortar more or less exploded in his face. Grace says that at the time she had a dream in which she saw George standing in the street, and his head was all bandaged up. After that came the news of his death. Anyway, Grace would frequently wake up in the night and see George standing at the side of her bed, looking at her. He was always in uniform (not combat dress), and she always noticed that the buttons on the jacket shone. This detail is interesting, because a long time after the war her father-in-law came to stay at the house. The house was Grace's mother's, and she and Jack stayed in the same house until about 4 or 5 years ago. Her father-in-law stayed in George's old room, and one morning Grace heard him and Jack talking in Dutch (they were both dutch). Her father-in-law was telling Jack that in the night a man - a soldier - had come into the room. What he really noticed about him was that his buttons seemed to be very highly polished. So it seems that Grace wasn't the only person to see George. Apart from the apparitions, Grace, Jack and my own mother also experienced feeling a hand gripping the shoulder (left shoulder I think) while in the bathroom.

Grace eventually asked George to stop appearing to her one night (when he was standing there), and she didn't see him again except for one occasion a few years later. Again, she woke up in the night to see him standing there, except on this occasion he was not at the bedside but at the end of the bed. She thought this odd, and a freind or neighbour told her that if he had moved it meant he had come for someone (I haven't heard this piece of ghostlore before). Fairly soon after that Grace's mother died, and she never saw George again. When she had to move a few years ago she was concerned that she was leaving him behind, but Jack told her not to worry. He would be able to find her if he wanted to.

I never knew that Grace had been haunted until a few weeks ago! She also used to have premonitory dreams, though she never thought much of them as they were never about anything of consequence (except one where she dreamt of a plane crashing into a mountain side just before a famous figure - a lord - committed suicide by flying into the side of a mountain). I have also had similar dreams. At the time the dream stands out despite being about something totally ordinary; it is as though the dream burns itself onto memory, while other dreams just fade into nothing. A little while later the exact circumstances of the dream come true. It feels very strange, but it's always something totally mundane. I've not had any such dreams for some time though, and I am otherwise very much 'un-psychic'.

The tales of George have reminded me of some stories I've heard before but forgot when I wrote my original 'Ghosts' entry. My uncle Colin, who is my mother's brother and Grace's nephew had a hand-on-the-shoulder experience in Weald Park. Weald Park is a beautiful park of fields and woodlands, near South Weald village. Colin used to go running there in his youth, and would quite often still be there when it was quite dark (I was also prone to walking there in twilight/after dark during the 90s). There is a hill in Weald Park which has a structure at the top (two sets of steps that rise to meet each other) and one of the car-parks at the bottom. One night Colin had just stopped on the hill, looking down at the car, when he felt a hand grip his shoulder. He heard and saw nothing but in fright bolted down the hill to the car, opened the door and turned on the headlights, which revealed nothing. Perhaps it was his uncle George!

The other story I had forgotton happened to my aunt Lena, who is only 8 or 9 years older than me. Lena had a ghost-by-the-bed experience. She has been living with a chap called Dave for years now. Now, if I've got this right Lena had either recently moved in with him (or vice-versa) or they had recently moved into a new house. She woke up one night to see a man standing at the end of the bed, with a beard (I think I'm right about the beard). The next morning she told Dave and told him what the man looked like. In a matter-of-fact manner he declared that it was his grandfather. According to Dave, every time there is a major change in his life his grandfather appears at the end of the bed. As with the story of George, what fascinates me about this story is that it is a recurring apparition that appears to someone other than the usual witness, which would indicate that there is an objective reality to the ghost in question.

If I remember any more, or if my father puts in another appearance, I'll record it here for posterity.

In memoriam - Jack Linse

My great uncle Jack died on Saturday evening, the 5 July 2003. He had been in hospital again for just over four weeks. Despite a course of chemotherapy last year followed by radiotherapy earlier this year, some cancerous particles were swimming about and took root. One of the first entries in this blog was about Jack's experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi labour camp and his escape. He went on to be a sargent in the US Army, in which he fought in the liberation of Europe, and then he found himself in the Dutch army where he was posted to the Far East. Eventually he settled in Britain with my great aunt Grace whom he had already married and became naturalised. Jack would have been 79 next month, and they were married for 57 years, pretty impressive. Jack was always good to me and my brothers, as he was to my mother and uncle Colin. Our relationship with Jack and Grace was closer to a grandparent relationship than a great uncle and aunt relationship.

I went up to Brentwood on Sunday morning, coming back Monday night. My mother was there already, and together we got the paperwork from Oldchurch hospital and the Registry office. I learnt that Jack's name was actually Jacobus Bernardus Linse. Grace told me that she only found out when they got married and Jack had to sign his full name; he didn't like the name and always used Jack. I quite like it myself, but then I have odd tastes sometimes.

Grace seemed OK. Upset but OK. Mother will be staying there until the funeral. Not sure when that'll be, mother's going to the funeral director today. How she'll cope when mother's gone back to Liskeard I don't know. I hope she doesn't turn out to be one of those people who follow on soon after their spouse.

Grant unto him eternal rest O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Ghosts

There's been a few recent Ghost things on the Net. The BBC is carrying a story about some psychology experiments into ghostly experiences which is very interesting. The theory is that the brain interprets particular environmental factors as spooky presences. Despite the researchers anti-ghost line the BBC did stick some interesting spooky photos with the story, taken during the experiments, showing strange things.

At the same time Scary Duck declared Ghostbusters his Number 1 all time greatest film. Until he retracted it in a later post that is. I'd post the link to the actual story, but his archive links seem as crap as everybody elses.

With these ghost stories floating about I thought I'd add my stories from the family archive:

My favourite story is this one. One of my cousins has a little girl called Alice. I'm not sure if that makes her a second cousin or first cousin once removed or what. Anyway, a few years ago she was looking through some family photographs with her grandmother (my aunt Christina), and they came upon a picture of my father. He died 18 years ago, when I was a wee nipper. Alice didn't know this of course, and my aunt was quite surprised when Alice said she had seen him. The sighting had happened at a party, and Alice had seen my father at the bar, smiling at her. I like this story. It's nice to think that my father is propping up bars somewhere.

I have never seen my father's phantom myself, though I did hear him once. It was sometime after he had died, but I can't remember when exactly. It was somewhere in the wee hours and I was lying awake. I often had problems sleeping when I was a child, often lying awake for hours and hours. Even now I wake up a lot during the night, but usually I just go back to sleep again. As I was lying there I suddenly heard my fathers voice, from the direction of my mother's bedroom. He just said 'Ginny', which is what most people call my mother. The voice had a gargling quality to it, which was how I last heard his voice when he died. And that was it. I have to admit, I was pretty scared. Was it anything really? I'll never know of course. And I've never told my mother about it.

I had a few other spooky experiences in my younger days. When I was a boy my bed was five feet off the ground, with a desk and cupboard arrangement below. One night, and I have no idea how old I was then, except that I must have been older than 7 and younger than 17 (probably older than 7, I must have been at least 9 or 10 because the bed arrangement was a later feature), I had just got into bed and was lying there when I heard a growling, snarling sound coming from the floor near the door. We had a dog called Toby, but he was downstairs and never went upstairs, wasn't the snarling type, and it didn't sound like him anyway; if it had I wouldn't have had a problem. Also, because my door was on the landing opposite the top of the stairs I would have heard him climbing up. Toby was not a dog with finesse. So, as you might expect I was terrified. Part of me wanted to look over the edge of the bed to see, but the part of me that was soiling my pyjamas won (though I'd like to point out that I didn't actually soil my pyjamas). I wish I had looked. I wonder what I would have seen.

Other scary experience of my own happened when living with my grandmother, either in my late teens or early twenties. I was dreaming, and I used to have some wierd dreams back then (I don't have them so much now, and I do miss them). It was totally dark, and I could just hear this menacing laughter. I woke up and opened my eyes, but I could still hear the laughter. As I lay awake the laughter receeded, as though towards the back of my head, until it was gone. Real scary at the time, though I think that was just my dream taking its time to get lost. Still scary though.

Coming back to more recent times, another aunt of mine, Jessie, had a scary experience the night before my wedding, about a year and a half ago now. She was staying (as was most of my family) at Langdon Court Hotel near Wembury, a beautiful old house where we had our reception. The lights were out and she was lying in bed facing a large mirror that was in the room. All of a sudden, in the mirror, she saw a woman walk across the room. Nothing else happened, but she was terrified and barely slept for the rest of the night. She didn't sleep well the next night either, though she didn't have any more experiences.

My brother Robert, who was staying at my mother's house in Essex during the mid 90s, watched someone walking up the path to the front door. He opened the door, and there was nobody there! He had a good look around, but there wasn't anybody to see at all. Hehehe, he was quite scared then. My mother finds it funny.

So there are the family ghost stories. There are probably a few others. My other brother Stuart is currently bar manager at the White Hart in Brentwood, which is an old coaching inn, and he says he has had a few scary moments. But ghost stories scare him easily. What do I think of all this? I don't know. After all, how can anyone say what they mean? Are the experiences all-in-the-mind, or caused by something objectively real? If so, what is the nature of that reality? I'd like to know, but don't suppose I ever will.

Car Accident

I had my first car accident last bank holiday. Well, my first proper accident. My first accident took place during my driving test (the one I passed that is). On that occasion I was ten minutes into the test and doing the parallel parking, doing quite nicely in fact and nearly there, when a car reversed into the side of me. The examiner cried out and I cursed my rotten luck, but after exchanging details we carried on with the test and I passed.

But that aside, my first proper accident was on 5 May on the M5, between junctions 28 and 29. We were driving home in Millie, our little blue Rover Metro, after a nice weekend away in the north of Somerset. I was driving along quite happily in the middle lane when there suddenly appeared a large round object on the road in front of me. Unfortunately I couldn't change lanes. "Oh well," I thought, "I'll just have to go over it then." And I did. It made a real nasty sound, sort of like:

SCRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

"Oh bugger" I thought. Or was it "oh shit", or "oh bollocks". I can't really remember. I pulled over onto the hard shoulder straight away, popped open the bonnet and got out of the car. Jo then reminded me to turn off the engine, so I did that, and then we went to survey the damage. Oil was haemorrhaging all over the hard shoulder.

I then noticed the transit van parked on the shoulder just a little way behind us. It turned out that what I had hit was the wheel from the transit van. Not the tyre (that was sitting harmlessly in the central reservation) but the wheel itself. It had detached itself from the van's rear axle just a short time before I came along, lying in wait for me.

While we waited for Green Flag to send us someone the police turned up. I've never had any official dealings with a police officer before, and I have to say that he was very pleasant and reasurring. "We're quite glad you hit it" he said, "you knocked it off of the road!" And indeed I had, right onto the hard shoulder just behind the van that it should have been attached to.

I must confess to being ever so slightly excited at having to get into the police car to make a statement, and ever so slightly disappointed at not having to do a breath test. He did read me my rights though, just in case the incident ended up in a court case. Wow, I've been read my rights by a policeman! In my grandmother's view of the world that must make me a dangerous criminal and hanging's too good for me.

It took over a week to get Millie back. We didn't know if she would be a write-off, but she is now sitting happily in our parking space (until we replace her, hopefully later this year - poor Millie). Unfortunately we went with our insurer's approved garage, Nationwide Crash Repair Centre (take note anybody reading this), who gave us shockingly bad service. They picked the car up the following day, a Tuesday, and it was Friday before they looked at it. Then they took the weekend to decide it was repairable. Because they can't give a curtesy car unless it's repairable we were without a car until Tuesday of this week. It did give us the chance to experience just how poor public transport is though, just in case we had forgotten.

Theology Journal

I have started a separate blog for my theological entries. It will be easier for me as I will use some of the material later for some of my assignments, and I don't want to have to hunt through other stuff.

I would like to say that the material there so far is deeply profound, and that reading it will be a religious experience in its own right. Reading it might just be the closest thing to hell there is.

DANO trials

I saw the chance to move over to Blogger's new interface, DANO. I converted this blog, got an error, and then couldn't access it for a week. I also couldn't report the problem though BloggerControl, because whenever I tried to submit a report I got the same error. I eventually managed to submit a report using another 'puter. I see that my report is still unreviewed, but it has suddenly started working again so I don't care.

Hmmm, I like this DANO. It's a lot better than the previous one.

Scooby Doo, where are you?

Actually, I mean Simon Barsticus where are you? Your blog has been untouched for over a month, and my plaintive emails have gone unreplied to. How are you doing? Are you still alive? Has the world offended you, or are you just busy? Actually I know you're alive 'cos I've seen your comments on Shauna's blog. Speak to me Simon, one knock for yes, two for no.

Family Values

I just saw this story about a Lottery winner. He has just won £14.2 million and has asked his long lost son to make contact, promising to make him a millionaire. Well, surprise surprise! Said son is apparently looking forward to seeing his father again after 6 years. I expect he is also looking forward to seeing his next bank statement.

OK, perhaps I'm being overly cynical, and by the sound of it neither father nor son have bothered to try and speak to each other. But for a feel-good story it does come over as fairly mercenary on both sides. Is the father trying to buy his son's affection with a hefty wad of cash? Would the son bother if there was no money forthcoming?

Easter has now passed, so my Lenten vegetarianism is technically at an end. Having said that, I'm yet to eat any meat. The Olden and Golden section at What's new, pussycat? had an amusing story about a veggie restaurant with lots of interesting comments. Basically the restuarant menu seemed to make everything out of tofu, cunningly shaped and flavoured to be like various meaty things. I really don't understand the point. You can make really nice veggie meals without trying to make them taste like meat - its what I live off. Having said that I do like quite a few of the quorn things you can get. You can get Quorn chicken slices and tikka chicken bits that do - remarkably - taste a lot like chicken. Quorn ham, on the other hand, tastes nothing like ham, but has a nice taste anyway.

I do disagree with one of the comments, which said that eating veggie burgers was buying into the meat idea and was essentially cryptocanivorous. That seems to be saying that the real vegetarian should only eat vegetables as they come. I am reminded of a scene from the second series of Blackadder, where Blackadder's puritan aunt Lady Whiteadder refuses to have her turnip mashed. To mash it would be to defile God's good turnip, so she has it raw. I like veggie burgers. They usually have lots of chopped vegetables bound together with potato and a nice breadcrumb coating. Nothing like meat, and they don't try to be. They're just one more tasty and convenient way of eating vegetables. So what if the original idea for a burger involves meat? If that's cryptocarnivorous, then presumably so is vegetable paella, vegetable curry, roasted vegetables, etc.

So what is to become of my diet now that Easter is gone? I've decided that I don't believe in the intrinsic wrongness of eating meat. Most (or a large number) of animals on this planet survive by eating other animals, and we are part of the cycle of nature as much as anything else. On the other hand I am having moral difficulties with raising millions of animals in often pretty squalid conditions for no other purpose than to slaughter them to satisfy our desire for meat. So my ideal is a protest vegetarianism. I'm not going to promise not to eat meat, but for the most part I wont.

Science Fiction, Double Feature

My legs ache today, because last night me and wifey went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Plymouth's Theatre Royal. Rocky Horror is 30 years old! We went 2 or 3 years ago the last time it was here, but we didn't dress up then and were completely unprepared - I got rice all down my shirt, and nicely sprayed by water-pistols. This time we kitted ourselves out in suitable attire and took water-pistols of our own, a bag of cheapy rice (we weren't going to chuck our basmati around after all) and bits of last Sunday's Telegraph. I went as Riff Raff (complete with wig and frock coat type thing), and Jo went as Columbia (complete with sparkly hat and cane). The first time in my life that I've worn make-up. We arrived about 20 minutes early, and were worried at first as no-one else seemed to be dressed up. It wasn't long before the place was heaving with weirdos though. A dazzling array of wigs, stockings, suspender belts, basques, glittery tops, bras and so on. I have great respect for the guy dressed (if you can call it that) as Rocky, wearing nothing but a gold g-string.

Unfortunately we had to hand in our water-pistols and rice. The acting company apparently didn't want people chucking stuff near the stage. Disappointing, especially as we'd bought the water-pistols just for the show, but a good time was had by all. Frank 'n Furter was camp even by Frank 'n Furter standards, which was slightly annoying at first but soon grew on me. Afterwards we went to the Bank (a pub, not a financial institution) and had some more wine (we'd already had some before the show, then some in the interval), then went home and had some bucks fizz. Hence the achey legs. My legs often ache next day if I've been drinking.

Ah, what a night. Now lets see, it's just a jump to left...

Karaoke

On Sunday night, I was in the Duke of York pub near Blackpool's North Pier with wifey and the in-laws. Earlier in the evening we'd taken part in a free pub quiz (in which we scored an astonishingly bad 14/30) and now they had karaoke on. We'd had some wine and I was feeling relaxed, when my mother-in-law said that I should sing something for them. I was obviously feeling too relaxed, because I got the big book of songs and put myself down on the list. I then felt really nervous. I've never done karaoke before, and the thought of singing in front of a pub load of people gave me the willies. There were a few people before me in the list, so I had a long wait. I was a karaoke virgin, and was trembling with nervousness. Eventually the call came, and I rose to meet my audience with a sterling rendition of Rasputin by Boney M. Well, not that sterling, but apparently people were quite entertained by my crap Russian dancing during the 'Hey, hey, hey' bits. I kind of enjoyed it. I feel like I've gone through a rite of passage. Now I can hold my head high.

Pythagorean dreams

I had a strange dream last night. I was in a class room, and the class was gathered around a table that had a sheet of paper on it. The teacher drew a large square on the sheet and started to tell us that Pythagoras regarded the square as the perfect shape. Within the square it was changeless, while anything that might affect the square was simply reflected off of the square's sides. That was all there was to the dream.

I don't know much about Pythagoras, but I'm pretty sure he didn't say that sort of thing about squares. But I did a quick search on Google and the result was interesting. So far as I can tell Pythagoras philosophy was that 'All is number'. The visible world is changing and corruptible, and what is ultimately real is the changless realm of numbers and their relationships. This is what my dream was about - the notion that what is ultimately real is without change and unaffected by the universe that is in constant change.

Why should I be dreaming about such things? I guess I must have been thinking about theology again, in particular the notion of the immutability and impassibility of God. By the first century Jewish thought had adopted the Greek idea that perfection and ultimate reality was without change. This meant that God was immutable (unable to change) and impassible (unaffected by anything external to God). This idea became so firmly entrenched that it was taken as axiomatic, until fairly recently. Even today, some still hold to the idea.

I was thinking about this idea myself recently. It has huge problems for our ideas of God. Consider God's knowledge of the universe. If God is immutable and impassible then God's knowledge cannot change. This only leaves two options for God. The first option is that God knows nothing about the universe, because the universe cannot affect God and therefore cannot affect God's knowledge. If the universe has anything like genuine freedom, then for God to know what is happening involves God allowing something external to affect God's knowledge. Even if God is able to become aware of past, present and future simulaneously, this still involves God being affected. The only way around this is the other option: God determines everything that happens without exception, and therefore knows everything. The problem with this is that the universe has no freedom. Everything we do is determined by God, and so we cease to be morally responsible to God. If we commit evil acts then it is because God has determined that we are to commit those evil acts.

Neither option looks anything like a Christian conception of God to me. So I either accept that God is completely (though perfectly) ignorant, or that there is no freedom in the universe (including free-will). Or I can decide that God is not immutable or impassible - that the universe does have freedom, and God is affected by what happens in the universe.

I wonder why my sleeping brain fixed on Pythagoras and squares.

Ahh ... Blackpool

It's only Thursday, but for me this is the end of the week. I have Friday off work, as well as next Monday. Last weekend me and wifey saw my mother, this weekend we're off up north to see my in-laws. While my mother is in her mid-fifties (though getting to late fifties I think), Jo's mother is in her early seventies and her father is in his late-sixties. Neither of them drive, and we haven't seen them since New Year, so we're taking them to Blackpool for a few days. We go to Blackpool with them at least once a year. It is close to where they live, and they like Blackpool.

I like Blackpool. It has the Pleasure Beach for starters, which has the Pepsi Max Big One - Europe's biggest roller-coaster I believe, and Valhala - possibly Europe's wettest ride. It is also the home of Lionel Vinyl, surely the best 70s disco DJ there is (though admittedly we found his new Inferno club quite disappointing). In the evening it is nice to stroll down the Promenade, pop into a few arcades to play on the 2p machines, then find a nice pub to relax in.

Blackpool must also have some of the biggest people in the UK. The streets are crowded with waddling behemoths, as though the city is a giant fat magnet. I guess the choice of eating places doesn't help out here, it must be impossible to eat out in Blackpool and not have chips (not that I'm bothered by this, as my previous entries on chips make clear). Blackpool is also a mecca for hen and stag parties, with huge groups of men dressed as nuns and girls dressed as tarts. Ahh ... Blackpool! It's as tacky as they come, but it just has such a fun atmosphere and God help me, I love it.

The Supernaturalist

After my last entry I just want to make clear that this blog is not called Diary of a Supernaturalist because of my theological interests. Neither does it indicate any desire on my part to remove my clothes in public. It is named after a Divine Comedy song, Death of a Supernaturalist. I decided to call the blog Diary of a Supernaturalist rather than Death of a Supernaturalist, mainly because I am not dead, also because I don't plan to become dead for a while. Anyway, the lyrics are:

"My father says there's only one perfect view -
and that's the view of the sky over our heads"
"I expect your father has been reading Dante"

See my solitude, where once was truth now only doubt
Touch my tortured skin, torn from within and from without
Kiss my blistered lips, my fingertips frost-bitten and grey
Heal my wound within, and watch the dead skin fall away

See what can't be seen, between the table and the chair
Touch what can't be touched, The National Trust don't own the air
Kiss what can't be kissed, this is the risk we have to take
Heal what can't be healed, and feel the dead skin fall away

Only you and I know exactly how it feels
To unblinker a narrow mind
And by doing so reveal the obscurity of life
The intensity of dreams
Only you and I have realised exactly what it means

See the infant sun, whose time has come to climb the mist
Touch the autumn sky, burned by the supernaturalist
Kiss the purest lips, the morning slips into the day
Rising from the bed, we feel our dead skin fall away

I have read that the song's title is a reference to an anthology of poems by Seamus Heaney called Death of a Naturalist. Apparently the anthology has a self-discovery theme, as has the song. If I wanted to be pretentious I could say that I chose the title for my blog because I see the writing of a blog as an exercise in self-discovery. The truth is that I just like the sound of the title.

Apparently, I am a holy man

Simon commented on my Lenten vegetarianism that I am a holy man. I'm not sure if it's the vegetarianism that makes me so holy, or just observing Lent. A few years ago we (me and wifey that is, though we weren't married then) tried giving up alcohol for Lent. This quickly became modifed to being allowed to drink at weekends, and then further modified to being allowed to drink in the week if we weren't feeling well or if we'd had a crap day. I wouldn't try giving up drink again, it's not a good idea. If Jesus had meant us to not drink then he wouldn't have turned several gallons of water into wine at a local wedding (it's all there in John's gospel, chapter 2)(and I mean local as in local to Jesus, not local to me - I doubt that those feet, in ancient times, really walked upon England's mountains green). I realise that Methodists might not agree with my sentiments on that.

Simon's comment does provide a suitable opportunity for me to confess to being a theologian. Admittedly, I am only a part-time theologian enrolled on a course at a local Church College. I am presently writing an essay to do with the incarnation, the doctrine that Jesus is God and man, from the perspective of issues raised in a 1977 book called 'The Myth of God Incarnate' (it caused a small public sensation in the UK at the time and sold out, but pretty much sank into obscurity after that). It has to be in on 28 April, and today I wrote the introduction. It only has to be a very short essay, 1500 words, so hopefully I wont be finishing it at the last minute like I was last time. I also need to write a 'reflective journal', in which I can pretty much write what I like as long as it is theology of some sort, and it doesn't need to be a coherent whole either, though it again needs to be about 1500 words. I might post one or other onto this blog if I'm pleased with what I end up with.

In future I might start putting my theological reflections on this blog, as I continue with my studies. Or I might not.

Hair issues

A little earlier, whilst washing my hands in the gents, I noticed in the mirror that there is a hair growing out of my nose. My left nostril to be precise. Damn it! I only chopped a hair from that very nostril only a few weeks ago. As yet there are no rogue hairs from the right nostril. I fear that I am going to have the sort of bushy nose that my grandfather used to have. Damn those genes, damn them all! I hope there is a Remington Nose Shaver or something, I'll have to look in the Argos catalogue.

At the same time as hair is sprouting from my left nostril, a few grey hairs have started to appear on top of my head. Fortunately, being blonde, they blend in fairly well. My chest hair is another matter. My chest doesn't have an especially luxurious growth, but a significant amount of its hair has actually turned white. I'm 32 now, so I guess by the time I'm 35 I'll be battleship grey on top, white in the middle, but with prolific blonde growth from the nasal area. Watch this space for hair updates.

Hangovers, chips and vegetarianism

Lunchtime at last, though I must confess to having eaten my sarnies before midday. I just get too hungry to wait until proper lunchtime.

I visited my mother in Cornwall on Saturday, staying overnight. Consequently I had a hangover on Sunday morning. I only get these hangovers (the head down the toilet kind) when I visit mother. This time it was the whisky, or was it the red wine I had before that? Or the white I had before that? Or the cider I had before that (mother is big on White Lightning cider, a fairly potent (7.5 percent) white cider)? I imagine most people to be on good behaviour when visiting their mothers, but our family just gets drunk. The hangover wasn't too bad though. I chucked it all up, then in the afternoon we went out for lunch, and a good portion of chips did me a power of good. I think chips are good for hangovers.

We did have some initial problems eating out. My wife is vegetarian, and I don't think Cornwall really does veggie. We phoned a few places beforehand to check they catered for veggies. One of them told us, 'Oh yes, we have loads of veggie dishes'. We got there and it was carvery only. They did have lots of vegetables, but it wasn't quite what we had in mind. A plate with several piles of different veg didn't sound very appetising so we moved on. The next place had a choice of stir-fried veg or veggie burger and chips. Fortunately we both fancied the burger and chips, being hungover, and so stayed. We don't normally have this problem in the UK, only Cornwall. The UK is generally good at catering for veggies these days, unlike most of Europe. Turkey is very good, though the restuarants in the cities which market themselves at tourists (mainly English and Germans) are less good. We should be going to Austria later this year, and I'm sure that's going to be a veggie nightmare.

I should say that I'm not vegetarian myself, but I decided to observe Lent this year by giving up meat. I am mostly veggie anyway and enjoy it, but I thought it would be a good idea to try the full 40 days without meat at all. Normally I get burger cravings quite often, but I haven't had this at all in the last 4 1/2 weeks, which I find strange. When Lent is finished I think I'll cut down my meat consumption (I don't eat a lot anyway), even if I don't give up completely. I do have these qualms about the meat industry. It's not qualms about eating meat, just the industry itself - I feel that there's something immoral about the scale of slaughter and the conditions a lot of animals are subjected to. For some reason I think my wife doesn't want me to become completely vegetarian, even though she is vegetarian herself. And if I did ever turn veggie my grandmother would throw a hairy fit, though I'll cope with that.

Just got the updated code from enetation.enetation

I heard from Simon, who said suitably pleasant things about my fledgling blog and suggested I add a commenty thing using enetation. I had been planning on this, and hopefully have added the code correctly to make it work. Expect a flurry of posts as I try and get it going properly.

As it's gone 4:30 and it's Friday afternoon, and as nearly everyone else here has already gone home, I feel justified in spending time at my desk blogging. If that's the correct verb form.

I was in Essex last weekend sorting out flat things, and while there we visited the relatives I still have there. My mother moved to Cornwall last November, so she is just down the road now, but I still have 1 brother (who now comes bundled with wife and baby), 1 grandmother, 1 uncle, 1 great-aunt and great-uncle. That's 3 different house-holds, and they never bother to see each other. My grandmother now refuses to see my great-aunt for very stupid reasons, so I have to visit each separately. I find this slightly annoying. We have to drive all the way across country, and they can't be arsed to get together so I can see them all in one go.

Anyway, I wanted to write about my great-uncle. He has been very ill recently. In the last couple of years he has had an especially rough ride, and he has just had radiotherapy. It affected him badly, bit we're now hoping that he is through the worst of it and can enjoy the years left to him. When we were there this time I asked him if he could write down some of his experiences. He has a lot of stories from WW2, and I have been thinking for a little while now that it would be a shame if they were lost. He's not feeling up to writing at the moment, so I shall try and record what I remember.

My uncle (who I shall call J) is Dutch, and Germany invaded the Netherlands when he was still little more than a boy. I think he was 16 or somewhere around there. With his brother he became a member of the Dutch underground. One story he told was how they had a delivery of plastic explosive -two big bags of it. At some point they got the order to blow something up, I can't remember what. A house or a train or something. They had no experience and no instructions, so they mixed the whole two bags of explosive with water and made it into a big lump, also sticking several fuse pencils in to make sure. It made a hell of a bang. Afterwards someone from higher-up came and wanted to know what they had done with all the explosive. He wasn't pleased that they had used it all on a single small job.

J's career in the underground didn't last very long. One day they got orders to do a job somewhere. There was a group of them, J and his brother, and several others. While they were on the bus or tram getting there, it was stopped by some German soldiers. One of the soldiers got on, pointed to J and each of his comrades and told them to get off. It seemed that somebody had tipped off the Germans. They were all armed. J's brother had a pistol and grenade, J had a sten gun, the others all had various weapons. J says that they were nearly shot there and then. The soldiers lined them up, but fortunately there was an older officer there. This officer stopped the summary execution, saying that they would have to be tried first. So they were tried. J's brother got 20 years in a labour camp. He served 3 months before escaping. J got 8 years I think. He escaped after about 8 months.

The camp was fairly brutal, and J hasn't told me much about it. The only thing I remember him telling me was how sometimes they used to be got up at 6 in the morning and led outside, whereupon someone would be picked from the crowd and hung while the others watched.

When J escaped he was with a group of others. They managed to make their way down the Rhein to the border with Switzerland. The Germans had the border well and truly guarded (to stop people getting out, not the Swiss getting in), but they managed to go around and get in. As J tells it, the Swiss law said that if you managed to stay in Switzerland for 24 hours you would be given asylum. J and his little band came upon a farm just inside the border, and bumped into the farmer who asked them if they were escapees. He then hid them in his shed, gave them food and blankets and kept them for the required 24 hours.

That's all I shall write for now. I need to go home now. It's Friday, time for a glass of wine!

After what I just wrote, I noticed that the new post made the template change kick in. I now realise that I have been a royal dullard. So now I have put my email somewhere a bit more obvious, and am posting this for no other reason than to make sure the changes are there.

Had to rush home at lunch time because our estate agents are crap. My wife is selling her flat in Essex. The tenant moved out last week, and we went there at the weekend to check things over. On Tuesday evening the estate agent tried to go to the flat and couldn't get in, because the door has two locks and he only had one key. It turns out the tenant only ever had one key as well. However, rather than call us on Wednesday, he called this morning to tell us he needs the missing key for Sunday. Why didn't he tell us on Wednesday or Thursday? So I had to walk home (a 25 minute walk), get the key, get a bus back into town, get the key cut, then go to the post office to post it. I actually managed to do that within my hour lunch break, as well as write the bit of blog I did earlier.

I am now writing this bit of blog while having a tea break. Our team have always run out of milk by Friday, but because it's Friday other people have lots of milk to use up so it isn't a problem.

Tried to edit the template to stick an email address on. For some reason, wherever I try to stick it, it never shows up. Grrr. So for the record, if there are any benighted souls who actually want to send me an email then the address is michael_the_supernaturalist@yahoo.co.uk

I was reading about blogging the other day, and I thought to myself 'I bet Simon has a blog'. Simon was a friend when I lived in Essex. Being a bloke, I'm quite crap at keeping in touch with mates when I can't see them down the pub every Wednesday. Or perhaps blaming it on my gender is a sorry excuse, and it's just me that's crap. Anyway, I don't think I've seen or spoken to Simon since I got married in September 2001, and thinking Simon probably has a blog made me try and track it down. First I tried sticking his name into Google. I got pages and pages and more pages, but none of the results had anything to do with Simon. Then I thought of trying his old moniker, Barsticus. Bingo! He's written quite a bit in the last year, and it here at Plastic Electric 'Blog.

I actually read back through all his archives. Damn good read. I wonder if he knows that? Anyway, it made me think I should do my own blog. It'll probably be a bit crap, or I'll lose interest after a while, but does anybody care? It also made me think I should send him an email.

My first entry is short and too self-justifying. What does it matter why I've started a blog? But I like things to be neat and tidy. My blog may never have a proper middle or a proper end, but it'll damn well have a proper beginning.