that's the way to do it

an assistant curate of the Episcopal church in New York has been subjected to vile, misogynist and apparently entirely untrue coverage (which I will not reproduce) , after she ended a relationship she was having with a parishioner at her previous church.  She was effectively accused too of being a paedophile, although the man she had had a relationship with, who instigated the media coverage, was an adult.  As assistant curate she is an office holder in the church, and accountable to her bishop, to whom she made full disclosure.  If you are an office holder in an organisation and there is lying shitbag media coverage about you, this (below) is the kind of statement those who are senior in the organisation should make to its members.  Usually, they don't.  Take heed.  Especially those in politics.

July 9, 2012

Dear Sisters and Brothers,
We write to express our unqualified support for the Reverend Ginger Strickland, curate at the Church of the Incarnation in Manhattan, over an inaccurate and misleading article which appeared about her in Sunday's New York Post. The article reports the complaint brought against her by Mr. Erik Campano, a person with whom she had a romantic relationship while working as a lay minister at the non-denominational American Church in Paris. In 2011 she broke off the relationship with Mr. Campano and subsequently moved to New York to begin her employ at Incarnation. He then filed a complaint with this diocese stating that he believed that she had violated the church's policies regarding romantic relationships between clergy and parishioners.

The Episcopal Churches in Europe are under the jurisdiction of the Presiding Bishop, and the investigation of this matter was referred to her offices, where it has been conducted in full accord with established church policy. Our own preliminary investigation, though, showed that Mother Strickland had met every canonical obligation in such a relationship by disclosing her friendship with Mr. Campano to her bishop and superiors, and that there was no canonical breach of church policy.
We have complete confidence in our sister Ginger, as do the rector and congregation at the Church of the Incarnation. She is an able priest of good standing, and a person we believe to be of exemplary character. She did not deserve to have this story reported as it was, and we deeply regret the embarrassment this has caused her. We ask the prayers of this diocese for her and assure you of our complete support for her and her continued ministry in the Diocese of New York.

Read, and learn.

Update: Ginger Strickland has been fully exonerated by a range of church investigations.  Now will the media SHUT UP.

the uninvited guest

there was a bit of a do in Reading a few days ago, for soldiers returning from Afghanistan. A Homecoming Parade, held at Brock Barracks. Very dignified and fitting it was too, I am told by some who were there. Many dignitaries, the Mayor of Reading in pride of position, but many other mayors and important people in the VIP enclosure. And a very good thing too, say I. I do not believe councillors were invited qua councillors unless they had a particular connection to the military.  But what's this?  A swish car hums to a halt, and out leaps Derek Plews, former spinner for the military, and now Head of Communications at Reading Borough Council.  The charming Mrs Plews is at his side!  They hustle their way into the VIP enclosure, prompting some of the more elderly be-chained dignitaries to ask each other, "Who is this bespectacled northern oik?"  The more tuned-in of the dignitaries spot the hunched figure being smuggled in between the two Plews (singly would they each be a Plew?) out of lens-reach of the snapping paparazzi, and once in the enclosure that figure draws itself up to its full height, shakes out its poodle perm in the watery sunlight, and commences a rousing discourse, the returning heroes forgotten.  Yes!  Councillor Josephine Lovelock is amongst us!  Three soldiers faint, but the speech continues.  A veil must, from charity, be drawn over what follows.

flip flop, flippety flop

Here we have the delightful Janet Gavin, sacked schoolmarm with too much time on her hands, telling us how marvellous a park and ride at Palmer Park would be.  Not just marvellous, but essential.  No other spare land in the borough, she trills.  It must be done, she chirps.  Going to happen, she squeals.

And this is what the even more delightful Basher has to say (at least he can spell "micro" - Jannie-babes seems to think it has no "r" - where is the quality control with these people?  Have they put Howarth in charge of it?)

I am pleased to be able to tell you that RBC has abandoned its attempts to introduce a Micro Park and Ride at Palmer Park and Clayfield Copse in Caversham.

The first signs that the Council was prepared to drop the plan started coming last week, however life is never certain and it was not until it was confirmed could we relax.

Well done everyone who campaigned. I will post more details when I have had time to read the Council papers from yesterdays full Council meeting.


Although he can't do apostrophes, as we see.  My rates are very reasonable, you grammar-challenged folk clearly do need some help.  Park Ward Labour party campaigned, it seems, against this Labour plan.  Which has now disappeared. And never existed.  Meanwhile, Cllr Gavin tweets to inform us that she is in the business-class lounge on her way into exile.


We have always been at war with Eurasia... 

dog whistle

not racist.  No.

is what is being used by the LibDems here.  The Tory candidate they are fighting is gay, and they use the words "it's a straight fight".  Which of course is perfectly innocent language, hein?  No.  Dog whistle is a very simple thing.  You use plain language about your opponent, and it contains a code word or words which indicate that you are contrasting your party's candidate with the other one by saying that person is gay, or black, or otherwise "other", and your candidate is not.  It could be a number of things.  Typically it is sexuality or race.  Reading Labour has form on this too, as recently as this year's local elections, remember? Reading Labour's white girl is "one of us", unlike the Tory candidate, who was born in Pakistan.

The Purse

would be, I suppose, the title in English of this book, Le Porte-Monnaie, by Ali Mansour.  Although if I were translating it I would probably choose another title.  I cannot find that it has been translated into English, but it should be.  If anyone's listening out there, me!  I'll do it!  Ali Mansour is Tunisian, the son of a Tunis docker, and he now lives in Strasbourg.  I read his book because it is the French book our new book group is going to talk about in September.  I had not heard of it, or him, before.  It is a wonderful book.  Set in the Tunisia of Ben-Ali, now mercifully departed, its hero is a wise child, the 12-year-old Souleymane, and its heart is a mystery.  Where did the purse of money come from?  What did Souleymane's mother do when she left him alone?  Why did the police chief play out the cruel piece of theatre he did?  Because he could?  Or for darker reasons?  I could see this as a film - reading it I could smell the spices and harissa and the rain on the pavements.  It is a study in corruption and redemption and revenge.  If you can read French read it immediately.  btw the French is simple - I could read it easily with no dictionary and that is certainly not true of everything I read in French.

consider yourself bound

Norm reproduces the text of a letter to the Jewish Chronicle, to which he is one of the signatories, as follows:

Here is the text of a letter to the Jewish Chronicle:

It is a matter of great regret that Lord Sacks has chosen to make a statement in his official capacity opposing the right of gay and lesbian men and women to marry. Even if same-sex marriage is contrary to Jewish law, it does not compromise the position of Orthodox Jews to let others marry as they wish. Lord Sacks has sought to influence how the generality of the population leads its life.

Further, and contrary to the submissions of the Beth Din, the change in the law will not force religious officers to officiate same-sex marriages against their wish. The law will apply only to secular ceremonies of marriage over which, by necessary definition, religious officers do not preside.

Jewish law may prohibit same-sex relations and among those Jews who consider themselves bound by Jewish law it operates as a restraint on how they may otherwise live their lives. But Jewish law can play no part in a modern secular society in restricting the lives of non-Jews - and Jews - who do not accept its restraints. The proper response to the consultation should have been: it is not our proper business to comment. Speaking when silence is required is no virtue.

The letters signatories are: Simone Abel, Lisa Appignanesi, Jeremy Brier, Professor Josh Cohen, Daniel Finkelstein, Stephen Fry, Eve Garrard, Jonny Geller, Professor Norman Geras, Caren Gestetner, Professor Simon Goldhill, Richard Hermer QC, Dr David Hirsh, Julia Hobsbawm, Anthony Julius, James Libson, Karen Mattison, Lord Parry Mitchell, The René Cassin Organisation, Dr Felix Posen, Dinah Rose QC, Clive Sheldon QC, Dina Shiloh, Katy Showman, David Toube, Paul Usiskin.

Seems spot on to me.  If you operate within a theology that binds some of the choices in how you live your life, as Orthodox (and many other) Jews do, then that is your choice,  Of course, if you live in a society in which you are not allowed to choose (Iran and many others) that is a whole different matter.  But no canon law of any faith can or should attempt to regulate the lives of those who are not of that faith, still less the activities of secular state bodies.  If you practise a faith then you accept the restraints it may place upon your activity and behaviour.  My nephew is a member of a Catholic lay order which requires celibacy.  That is one kind of restraint, which he has chosen.  In email conversation with a noted Catholic theologian of my acquaintance (OK, it was my brother) he described himself as "taking very seriously" the disciplines and dictates of the Catholic Church over the centuries.  Nobody made him do that.  Unless, you may say, God made him do it.

My point here is not a theological one.  I am not qualified, nor would I wish, to debate theology.  My point is that the dictates of faith rub up against secular laws quite often in the "free" Western societies, and there is no need for them to.  Faith groups should just leave it alone.  Where there is an established church it gets a bit more problematic, as in England.  But I am against the established church.  And I am, these days, a practising Anglican, and I wish, wish, wish the Anglican Communion would leave it alone too.

Beatrice Mead

Her family name was Johnson, and it was said that her family were connected with a family both rich and louche - the Rollwrights of Ebury Street Westminster.  There was a remembered scene in which two aunts, or maybe older cousins, who had left the family home and who wore make-up and furs (this would be about 1904) and who were said to be actresses, appeared at a family occasion:  there was an altercation, and rings were pulled off and thrown into the fireplace, possibly because of an inheritance.  This memory is as told to me by my grandmother, also Beatrice Mead, who witnessed something like this as a small child.  The elder Beatrice, as has been said, came from a family which had (perhaps) fallen on hard times.  She married a man named Mead, who owned, it was said,  several pubs in south London.  Quite soon they had a son, George, but after that the babies, who arrived annually, turned blue and died within hours of birth. It is likely that Beatrice was blood group rhesus negative, so the first child was rhesus positive and the antibodies in her blood killed the later ones.  At that time nobody knew about this.  A few years later another child was born and survived, named Beatrice too.  She was my maternal grandmother, and was rhesus negative, which is presumably why she survived.  Later, fourteen years later, a sister, Doris, known as Doll, and later still a brother, Fred.

Mr Mead, my great-grandfather, drank away the money and lost the pubs, it was said.  He did not live to a great age.  Beatrice Mead, his widow, known as Gran, became the matriarch of the family, and through the 1920s and 30s, as the men of the family joined the army, came back, lost their jobs, found new ones and lost them again in the Depression, it was to her house they came.  Everyone was taken in, and had a place to stay.  Children slept on window sills and underneath curtains: young men ironed shirts in the sitting-room; cousins formed alliances and told stories on Saturday nights as the men drank light ale and the older ones played cards.  The younger Beatrice, always known as Sissy to her family, married Leonard Thomas, of a Welsh family, whose brothers were lay preachers.  They were my maternal grandparents.  They had four children.  The firstborn, Lenny, died at the age of four from complications of mastitis.  Two years later their first daughter, Patricia, was born, in 1928, followed by Betty in 1930 and Tony in 1936.  All four looked exactly like their father.  Patricia was my mother, born in south London and married to my father, John Griffiths, in north-west London in 1952.  I was born in 1954, my brother Paul in 1955 and my sister Sara in 1959, all of us in South Ruislip, north-west London.

Beatrice Mead the younger (who was Mrs Thomas by then of course), known to us as Granny, lived a walk away when we were small and was often in our house.  We loved her very much.  She had fierce blue eyes and a fighting spirit that she used in defence of her family her whole life - although she could be critical of her grandchildren, no-one else was allowed to be.  She was bemused by the marriage of her youngest and favourite child, Tony, to a Norwegian woman, my Auntie Inger, a laughing blue-eyed Scandinavian, and his departure to live in Norway in 1962, where he remains.  They had one child, Stephen, my youngest cousin, who is the only blond in my maternal family.

Beatrice senior, our Gran, lived with Granny at the time of my earliest memories.  I was afraid of her.  I was her eldest great-grandchild, and so should have been best placed to understand, but I didn't really.  Gran's behaviour was strange.  She growled and muttered.  One time she stood between us cousins and the television we were watching and said "These children and their filthy talk, they've got to get out!"  I knew our talk wasn't filthy, but I didn't know what to say.  The others kept their eyes firmly on the television screen.  In those days nobody talked about dementia.  I remember my father using the words "going senile".    Then, when I was about seven, Granny had a new flat, and she and Grandad were there.  We used to love going to visit them.  We had Christmas there more than once.  Later, Granny came to live with us, after Grandad died.  But Gran died only some years after that, when I was thirteen.  She was ninety-six.  And I found out only recently that, probably soon after the "filthy talk" incident, Gran had been "put away".  Granny went to visit her every week, sometimes accompanied by my mother.  Aunt Doll, her younger daughter, would not go, after the first time, the place was horrible, she said.  And, it seems, it was horrible.

I remember Gran from when I was little, and I remember when she died, when I was thirteen, but I had, and have, no memory of her in the intervening years, the ones when she was put away,  She was at Granny's house, then she wasn't.

I put this to my mother, very recently.

She said, "You children never asked about her."