What Qualifications are Needed for a Job like this?

There's a fine passage in Chesterton's introduction to The Everlasting Man where he comments on the character of so many opponents of the Church in his day:

'They still live in the shadow of the faith and have lost the light of the faith. Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it. It is the contention of these pages that while the best judge of Christianity is a Christian, the next best judge would be something more like a Confucian. The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgements; the ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and already weary of hearing what he has never heard. He does not judge Christianity calmly as a Confucian would; he does not judge it as he would judge Confucianism. He cannot by an effort of fancy set the Catholic Church thousands of miles away in strange skies of morning and judge it as impartially as a Chinese pagoda.'

I've found it difficult not to think of this over the past week, when following Ruth Gledhill's Twitter feed and Blog. Ruth has apparently been nominated as 'Digital Journalist of the Year' in the British Press Awards. I've been reading her stuff for years, though I've done so in the full knowledge that she doesn't seem particularly highly regarded among Catholic bloggers, with Mark Shea, for example, dismissing her as 'perhaps the single most clueless religion reporter on earth', and Jimmy Akin regularly refering to her as Ruth 'I'm Too Dangerously Unqualified To Keep My Job' Gledhill.

After this week, I'm starting to understand why. The Times ran an article by her a couple of days ago under the heading 'Give up Tweeting? Tell it to the birds, your Holiness' in which she said:

The Roman Catholic Church in Italy wants us to give up texting, Tweeting and other tecchie messaging services for Lent. This is the organisation presided over by a Pope who claims he did not know Bishop Richard Williamson was a Holocaust denier when he lifted the excommunication on him last month. [...]

This was even though Italian blogs had been writing about it, The Catholic Herald in England had covered it and I had blogged and reported it extensively for The Times.

These reports were easily accessible online. They had been the subject of debate on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. But they were not picked up by clerics who, we now know, believe texting is tantamount to sin.

Now, as I mentioned a couple of weeks back, it's a regrettable fact that as a rule you should never trust what the mainstream media says about religion. Seriously. Take anything you read or hear with a barrel of salt. In this case, take a look at the premise, itself not quite accurate, but let that go, that 'The Roman Catholic Church in Italy wants us to give up texting, Tweeting and other tecchie messaging services for Lent' and then look at the assertion that these clerics 'believe texting is tantamount to sin'.

Right. So the Religion Correspondent for the Times is reporting that the Church in Italy is recommending that we stop sinning for Lent, presumably being free to start again afterwards. Does that sound remotely likely to you? It's the nature of Lenten fasting that in order to develop our self-mastery we renounce good things, not bad ones! We're not meant to be doing the bad ones at all!

The rest of the article's pap too, but the fact that such a fundamental misconception underpins it should be fair warning that the whole thing needs extensive unpacking. For what it's worth, though, yes, the Archbishop of Modena has indeed suggested that young Italians might indeed 'cleanse themselves from the virtual world and get back into touch with themselves' by fasting from text messaging and social networking sites, say, over Lent. Although other bishops have echoed this call, not one of them has even hinted that these things are wrong in themselves, instead merely pointing out that they can all too easily become obsessive behaviour, the sort of thing from which we might do well to free ourselves.

The point of Lenten fasting, after all, is that 'by denying ourselves these good things we encourage an attitude of humility, free ourselves from dependence on them, cultivate the spiritual discipline of sacrifice, and remind ourselves of the importance of spiritual goods over earthly goods.'


And then there was the Trad Mass
The other lowlight of Ruth's week was her attendance at an Extraordinary Rite Mass at the SSPX church of St Joseph and St Padarn in Holloway in north London. In itself this would hardly be a bad thing, you might think, but Ruth appears to have gone mainly with a view to catching a glimpse or even exchanging a few words with Bishop Richard Williamson, a buffoon on whom I'd rather not waste words at the minute. Throughout the service she twittered away, reporting the mass as it happened with a view to having the whole affair explained to her -- and her readers -- by Chris Gillibrand of Catholic Church Conservation, who tweeted back over the course of the morning.

She's edited the conversation down into something fairly manageable on her blog, but I've managed to assemble a slightly less coherent but more comprehensive version of it here.

RuthieGledhill: Church absolutely packed men in black women in lace headscarves. No sign of Bishop Williamson. My neighbour is two-year-old old girl... priest wearing biretta like my dad used to wear on moped when doing parish visits in gratwich kingston and uttoxeter
Gillibrand: What better place to celebrate St David's Day than a church dedicated to St Padarn, with St Teilo a companion of St David.'.. If it wasn't so packed -- people tend to sit near the front rather than at the back at Latin Masses.'
RuthieGledhill: No sign of Bishop Williamson.
Gillibrand: Suspect the SSPX will have locked the Bishop in a chapel at Wimbledon and be tempted to throw the key away.
RuthieGledhill: Priest delivering homily. Warns against speaking to the press in case we 'twist' words.
Gillibrand: Expect a long sermon. Traditionalists sometimes in far-flung places don't get to a Latin Mass so often... so priests preach long and repeat in different ways to get many messages across.
RuthieGledhill: Priest says desert fathers in Egypt determined to stamp out bodily desires in order to raise up the soul... the derts the hermits monasteries prayers fasting charity the love of God... What is the relevance of fourth century hermits to 21st century life?
Gillibrand: Epistle has a message for the Bishop - "Give no offense to any man that our ministry be not blamed."
RuthieGledhill: What should drive us is the desire to imitate the desert fathers - do similar great works for Lent.
Gillibrand: Back to the early church was the watchword of Vatican II.
RuthieGledhill: Homily over, Nicene creed. Genitum non factum. We all kneeling. A lot of kneeling and standing.
Gillibrand: In a modern Mass, there is no longer a requirement to kneel at the mention of Incarnation which I find strange!... Will be kneeling again at the Incarnation during the Last Gospel -- John 1 which will be read at the end of Mass.
RuthieGledhill: Two young men at back leading the sung recitation. Surprised priests don't have backs to us but facing across sanctuary... Put two pounds in collection plate. Not the kind of place that gives receipts. Can I claim it on expenses? Every penny counts these days.
Gillibrand: They turn their backs to the congregation for the canon of the Mass.... Your reward will be great in heaven.

RuthieGledhill: Maybe I will let the two pounds go for the good of my soul. Lavabo inter. Hand washing and sprinkling tinkling sounds. Sit kneel stand. Find nice young intelligent girl at back of church to show me where we are in missal.
Gillibrand: I was wondering if you had the texts.
RuthieGledhill: Bell rings loudly. Sanctus spiritus. Even I recognise this...
Gillibrand: I wash my hands among the innocent, and. ... and tell of all Thy wondrous works, O Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy glory dwelleth
RuthieGledhill: adoration and elevation over. stand. Pater noster, qui est in caelis
Gillibrand: Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord ... which is said by only the priest. Some people familiar with Latin but new to the old Rite sometimes join in.
RuthieGledhill: Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi... priest reading in silence we skip three pages. Love the singing and the long amens.
Gillibrand: Symbolism being that it is the prayer Our Lord teaches us and the priest is acting in persona Christi. ... Agnus Dei and prayers of penitence prior to communion
RuthieGledhill: Libera me. yup i go along with that.
Gillibrand: ...also in Gregorian Chant - the music of the church... are there three or just one priest celebrating?

RuthieGledhill: [Holy Communion.] Do i go up for a blessing? As my mind has been on work and not the service praps not. what do you think Chris? ... 'Turn off that f*****g mobile' says woman.
Gillibrand: Ask the priest afterwards - wouldn't want to alarm the faithful.
RuthieGledhill: woman tries to grab BlackBerry and raises fist at me. Heart beating v fast.
Gillibrand: If you had asked the priest before hand it would be easier and would have been given. ... Retreat.
RuthieGledhill: Nice woman whispers: 'Don't let her worry you. We have quite a lot of nutters here. We have normal people too.'
Gillibrand: Home for sinners, the lonely the dispossessed and the just plain angry... All OK?
RuthieGledhill: 'I've a good mind to hit you,' says woman. 'Please do,' I say thinking of the copy.
Gillibrand: rather I suggest retreat to the doors and carry on.
RuthieGledhill: 'Oh you'ld love that wouldn't you,' she hisses, and backs off... Angry woman comes back for the killer blow. 'You aren't even wearing a headscarf.'
Gillibrand: She has hit you?
RuthieGledhill: Placeat tibi. Isn't what I am doing a form of homage to truth and justice? No-one asks me to leave, so I don't.
Gillibrand: Exactly.
RuthieGledhill: Angry woman left. I feel sad. Obsequium servitutus meae.
Gillibrand: May the tribute of my worship be pleasing to Thee, most Holy Trinity, and grant that the sacrifice which I, all unworthy... And now comes the Last Gospel sending Christians out into the world... Deleted from the new Mass, where the belief is that the Holy Spirit comes during the Mass rather than in the Commission. ... at the end
RuthieGledhill: Retreat to empty side chapel. sing beautiful hymn.
Gillibrand: Pray for her. When early Christians turned the other cheek, they weren't thinking about copy.

RuthieGledhill: Priests processing out. All my sins I now detest them, Never will I sin again, we sing...
Gillibrand: Dedicated to which saint?... What's the hymn?
RuthieGledhill: Waiting at back of emptying church to see clergy and apologise for upsetting worshipper... Hymn was God of mercy and compassion
Gillibrand: 'French Melody, adapt. from G.B. Pergolesi, d1736... Au sang qu'um Dieu, lyric writer unknown... French... Hymn magnificent espec for Lent where even the French put aside joie de vivre... Canadian possibly.
RuthieGledhill: Nice whiskered man apologises for angry woman and says best way to speak to priest would be join confession queue. I do... pulled from confessional by a bald worshipper bloke before have chance to apologise or receive absolution... Priest intervenes in corridor and hears my apology and thanks me, says he can make no comment... Go for coffee. Nice whiskered man says I can join him...
Gillibrand: Suspect he would give a blessing if asked - absolution is a different matter.
RuthieGledhill: Afro-Carib from on our table asks about Williamson. Whiskered man says he won't be leaving Wimbledon... afro-caribbean man from deptford produces a pic of him and family with Rowan Williams. I start to feel better... going now. if u have come late to this and are puzzled see blog. timesonline.co.uk/gledhill On Chris's advice go back and asked for blessing. Was freely given....
Gillibrand: That's a relief.

I suppose I ought to feel slightly impressed that she went at all, and Chris Gillibrand defends her actions by saying 'As someone who, albeit at a distance, could be considered an accomplice, I think Ruth should be congratulated on boldly going where Protestants rarely if ever have gone before and indeed via twitter to take others with her, even if only in a virtual sense. An enlightened idea and enlightening to others.'

The thing is, though, I can't help but be disheartened by her observation on her blog that 'Today, as Richard Owen reports, the Catholic bishops in Italy have said the faithful should give up texting for Lent. I know from personal experience now that some Catholics detest people who text.'

That's hardly fair, is it? The angry woman may well have been out of line with how she behaved and what she said, but I can kind of see where she was coming from. I'd be aghast if somebody sat beside me at mass spent the whole service texting away -- I'd find it generally rude, but probably contemptuous towards both the congregation and indeed the object of worship Himself. To be fair, I'd not be impressed if I went out for dinner with someone, and they did that throughout the meal.

Ruth defends her own conduct by saying:

'I was as far to the back as I could be without being outside the church, and when I sensed my neighbours were finding the constant movement of my thumbs an irritant, I slipped into the side chapel or a corridor. At no point did I make a call on the phone, which was switched to silent. Maybe I did cross a line, but I reckoned at the time that given this was a church that regularly welcomes a Holocaust denier to speak, any sin I committed in reporting a service there was under the circumstances forgivable.'

I'm not sure that works, though. Most of the 'traditional' Catholics who'd attend such services seem to go because of what they see -- rightly or wrongly -- as the beauty, the purity, and the authenticity of the liturgy. They don't go to hear crackpot political or historical theories.

It seems to me that if she really wanted to report the news, rather than make the news, she ought to have done her research in advance, maybe by reading something like Ronald Knox's old and elementary but genuinely excellent The Mass in Slow Motion, and then gone along with a Catholic friend, with whom she could have discussed any points of confusion after mass.

After all, would her actions have been greeted any more favourably in an Anglican church? Or a mosque? Or in synagogue?

I can't see 'Muslim Suicide Bombs' catching on as a Drink

Despite not getting it at all, I joined Twitter recently, mainly because I was curious and because I felt that this might be one of those things that you can only understand by doing it. I've hardly embraced it, it must be said, and in truth have hardly done more than touch it in as tentative a fashion as I can. I don't really see how it's anything other than a timesink, I'm afraid.

I'm not saying that it doesn't have uses, because I'm sure it does, but I'm not convinced that those uses outweigh the time lost on it that might be spent doing other things. There've got to be serious opportunity costs there, for most people in real jobs anyway.

Twittering on your phone, perhaps, is different, seeing as it's something you can do while stuck in a lift or on the bus, say, but given that a friend of mine was at Croke Park on Saturday and missed BOD's drop goal because she was tweeting at the time, I'm not even convinced of that.

But anyway, I'm on Twitter, as I said, and I 'follow' - in that passive way - about eighty people, one of whom is Amber Benson, best known surely as Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was a little perturbed when she tweeted the other day to say that she was 'headin' over to the Hotel Cafe for some wine and women. Scratch that. Music and irish car bombs,' adding a few hours later that she, 'Did an irish car bomb all by myself.'

Did a what? Was this a drink, I wondered. Yes, it appears. I've checked, and it really is. An Irish Car Bomb is a cocktail of the sort technically termed a boilermaker, being a beer with a shot. In the past shots tended to be served on the side with boilermakers, but nowadays the tendency is to mix the two, often by dropping the shot into the beer, in the style of a Jägerbomb. Now that you know that, brace yourself.

An Irish Car Bomb is made by pouring three quarters of a pint of stout, almost certainly Guinness, and dropping into it a shot glass into which a half measure of whiskey, probably Jameson, has been floated on a half measure of Irish cream, probably Baileys. Sometimes, and this may be the most perverse part of the equation, a small peeled potato is put in the drink too, like an olive in a martini.

You'll not be surprised to know that this is an American concoction, or that it's none too popular in Irish pubs and bars. At home it's unheard of, but I gather that Irish bars abroad often refuse to serve them, though whether this is because the barmen find them offensive in a political or an aesthetic sense I do not know. Probably both.

I mean seriously. Can you imagine the damage that this would do to the head? This is sacrilege.

Student for Four Pounds Fifty Please

I went to see Seven Pounds on Friday with a friend of mine; I'd known nothing at all about the film, but she'd heard good things, and really wanted to see it, so I was content to run with that. I'd heard nothing bad, after all, and don't see enough of her, so I was more than happy to take chance on a film I knew nothing about. It's a funny time to be going to the cinema, really: what with Doubt, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon which I have difficulty believing is still on, perhaps Gran Torino, maybe Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and quite possibly The Wrestler if it's still on anywhere, there's simply too much on that's at least worth seeing, if not quite worth going to see. And of course, I'm more broke now than I've ever been in my life, so most of these films will just pass me by.

But anyway, off we went to see the film, since that'd been my friend's choice and I had no objections. It's rare I'm so trusting. Normally I'd scour online and then reply by saying something like Seven Pounds? The film the Guardian gave a mere one star to, calling it 'supremely annoying'? The film the Times likewise graced with one star, calling it 'a profoundly irritating mystery about a profoundly silly man'. I've never seen either paper give anything one star! And then there was the New York Times which wondered whether the film was 'among the most transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made'.

Surprisingly, you might think, despite this critical damnation, I have to say that my friend and I were evidently among the 76% of IMDB voters who didn't hate the film, rather than the 74% of critics who did, according to Rotten Tomatoes. I quite liked it, in fact. Sure, it was schmaltzy, and Will Smith seemed to spend the film wearing a permanent grimace, and I had serious doubts about the manner in which he was effectively playing God with people's lives, but I found it both engaging and thought-provoking, thought that Rosario Dawson was excellent in it, and felt that it was extremely well scored. Muse's version of 'Feeling Good' is a cracker, after all, and Bird York's 'Have No Fear' is heartwrenching. On top of that there's the simple fact that I'm a sucker for redemption stories - however flawed.

Given the redemption theme, and the manner by which that redemption is effected at the climax of the film, I'm still trying to figure out if the film's Catholic imagery helped or hindered it. It certainly got me thinking, it must be said, though there are people out there who think I do that too much anyway. . .

On getting home I decided to have a gander online to find out where the film's title came from, and it seems that it's a play on the pound of flesh demanded as repayment in The Merchant of Venice. Seven debts, seven pounds - that's the thinking.

And it was while I was looking that up that I discovered that a contract signed under a pseudonym is not legally valid, that corneas are the only parts of eyes that can be transplanted and that irises most certainly can't, and that box jellyfish poison is a neurotoxin that spreads through the entire body rendering every organ in the body unsuitable for donation. I think I understand now why the critics reckoned the film didn't make sense.

On the other hand, it's a powerful advert for safe driving, especially if it's preceded by a disturbing advert making a similar point. Ah, those canny nightmare-inducing advertising types.

Challenging Universities

I realise that with the world collapsing around us, the outcome of a British quiz show ought hardly to be the most important thing on the news. For all that, though, it does seem there's some hoohah about the legitimacy of Corpus Christi, Oxford's victory over Manchester in University Challenge as televised last Monday.

Apparently Sam Kay, the only member of the Corpus team with a background in anything other than the Classical World, had left the college and was no longer a student by the time Corpus took part in the Quarter Finals. In case you don't remember or didn't know, that was the stage in the competition where Corpus demolished Exeter by 350 points to 15, before going on to conclusively beat St John's, Cambridge 260 to 150, and finally stage a spectacularly comeback against Manchester, ultimately beating them 275 to 190.

The rules are utterly clear on this sort of thing, stating that all contestants must be students for the duration of the competition -- both its filming and its broadcasting -- so it seems perverse of Kay to come out with nonsense of the order of 'I was a student when I applied to be on the show and on the day when we filmed the first two rounds, so I don't think I've done anything wrong.'

Well, if the rules are that all contestants must be students for the competition's duration, then he has. Sorry. There doesn't seem to be any wiggle-room here. You'd think he'd be able to see that, as you need to be pretty bright to compete in University Challenge, even if the show's questions are biased more towards crystallised rather than fluid intelligence.

To be fair, it does look as though this started as a genuine error, in that he initially applied and competed in the early stages of the competition when planning on doing a PhD at Corpus; unfortunately for him his funding fell through, hence his going to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers, to whom he'd evidently applied in case the PhD had proved unfeasible.

For all that, though, surely he ought to have recused himself from the competition once his status changed, or at least raised the issue? The problem here, surely, is that it seems highly unlikely that his team-mates were unaware of this, which rather suggests that the entire team were knowingly breaking the rules.

And the thing is, leaving aside the moral question, why would they bother? This is like Putin fixing elections when he's so absurdly popular that he'd win by a landslide anyway. Good grief -- did you see Gail Trimble trounce all opposition? Sure, she was less prominent in the final against Manchester than in earlier rounds, but even so, look at her record. Coming into the final she'd scored 825 of the 1,235 points that Corpus had clocked up to that point, which rather begs the question of why you'd field somebody alongside her who could actually cause the Corpus victory to look fishy?

I mean, sure, Kay got two vital starter-for-ten questions right at pivotal points in the final, opening the gap that Trimble smashed through, but there's a fair chance that any number of Corpus students could have done just as well. I mean, it's not as if they'd have been fielding just three contestants on the day!

The Observer and the BBC report the Mancunian reaction rather differently, with the former having the Manchester team keen on a rematch, and the latter reporting that they have no such desire. Granted, given that University Challenge is a BBC show, you might think they'd be inclined to play down any such desire, but I'm inclined to believe the BBC on this, especially given defeated captain and Manchester historian Matthew Yeo's fine and magnanimous column in the latest New Statesman.

Whatever way you look at it, last Monday was a good night for historians and classicists, anyway.

So We Need a Referee as Well as Rules?

Yesterday wasn't a bad day on the sport front. Despite Ronan O'Gara's kicking being about as bad as I've ever seen, Ireland still somehow managed to grind out a 14-13 win against what seems an increasingly and perversely ill-disciplined English team, and it was nice on the football front to see a battered Everton winning and a faltering Liverpool losing too. With Arsenal dropping points again, Everton is seriously starting to look as though they may well overtake them, despite having six senior players, including our most creative player and our most effective striker, injured.

Speaking of football, and bear with me, I've mentioned the Alpha Course and Nicky Gumbel a couple of times in the past here, but haven't talked about either at length. Last May I described Christianity Explored as a mainstream rather than charismatic Evangelical corrective to Alpha, and the previous November I expressed some concerns about a presentation on The Da Vinci Code by the Reverend Gumbel, noting that he had misrepresented some things, made claims that couldn't really be supported, cherry-picked his evidence, and ignored the implications of what he had said.

No, don't ask me for examples. It was a long time ago. I can't remember what I was referring to. I'd need to watch it again, and the time just isn't to be found.

So anyway, I've recently been reading Gumbel's Questions of Life, which is basically Alpha for people who can't do the course, and I've been far from impressed. It's very simplistic, and I can't see how it would work in practice. Not a page passes without me frowning at things that just don't make sense, at statements that don't hold up, at quotations that are utterly out of context... I don't see how this brings people to Christ. I mean, obviously it does, but I just don't see how. I guess it must be linked with other things -- regular Bible reading, perhaps, or attendance at Church out curiosity -- and I suppose that when it's done as a course people have opportunities to ask questions and get answers, rather than simply scrawling in the margins things like 'hmmm', 'not quite', and 'but even Paul was unsure of this - see 1 Cor. 9.27, Gal. 5.4, and 1 Tim. 4.1, also Heb. 3.14, 6.6, 2 Pet. 2.15-21, and Matt. 7.21!'

One bit that particularly bemused me was this passage, on page 75 for what's in worth, in a chapter entitled 'Why and How Should I Read the Bible?'

A few years ago, a football match had been arranged involving twenty-two small boys, including one of my sons, aged eight at the time. A friend of mine called Andy (who had been training the boys all year) was going to referee. Unfortunately, by 2.30 pm he had not turned up. The boys could wait no longer. I was press-ganged into being the substitute referee. There were a number of difficulties with this: I had no whistle; there were no markings for the boundaries of the pitch; I didn't know any of the other boys' names; they did not have colours to distinguish which sides they were on; and I did not know the rules nearly as well as some of the boys.

The game soon descended into complete chaos. Some shouted that the ball was in. Others that it was out. I wasn't at all sure, so I let things run. Then the fouls started. Some cried, 'Foul!' Others said, 'No foul!' I didn't know who was right. So I let them play on. Then people began to get hurt. By the time Andy arrived, there were three boys lying injured on the ground and all the rest were shouting, mainly at me! But the moment Andy arrived, he blew his whistle, arranged the teams, told them where the boundaries were and had them under complete control. Then the boys had the game of their lives.

The point of this story, Reverend Gumbel tells us, is that without rules there'd be anarchy; people, he says, would be free to do whatever they wanted, causing people to get confused and hurt. Rules are needed, he says; people need to know where the boundaries are, so they can be free to enjoy the game. In some ways, he says, the Bible is like that -- it is God's rule book, in which he tells us what is 'in' and what is 'out', what we can do, and what we must not do.

Think about that, and have a read of the story again. The analogy doesn't really work, does it? After all, in the story, the problem isn't a lack of rules, it's the lack of a referee. Sure, Reverend Gumbel did his best, but he realised that he wasn't as familiar with the rules as some of the boys, and the boys themselves didn't agree on how to interpret or apply the rules. What's more, without a whistle he didn't have the authority to insist that the rules be applied consistently, and so he had difficulty preventing things from getting out of hand and people getting hurt.

What Reverend Gumbel appears to be saying here, and it would probably horrify him to realise this, is that we don't just need a rulebook, we need a referee to definitively interpret them. In effect, he's made a fine argument for the Papacy.

Advice That Would Do Me No Harm

One of the most intriguing bits of advice I've come across in a while was in an article by Cory Doctorow for Locus. The piece, entitled 'Writing in the Age of Distraction', featured this curious nugget:

Don't Research
Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don't. Don't give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction — an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day's idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type "TK" where your fact should go, as in "The Brooklyn bridge, all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite." "TK" appears in very few English words (the one I get tripped up on is "Atkins") so a quick search through your document for "TK" will tell you whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards. And your editor and copyeditor will recognize it if you miss it and bring it to your attention.

I'm wondering whether I should internalise that one as an emergency remedy at the moment. Just write like a fiend, longhand, then type it all up, and then find out what I don't know and fill in the gaps. It might just work...

His six key tips, for what it's worth, for this age when we're constantly 'distracted and sometimes even overwhelmed by the myriad distractions that lie one click away on the Internet' are:

1. Short, regular work schedule
2. Leave yourself a rough edge (And I find this is very counterintuitive!)
3. Don't research
4. Don't be ceremonious
5. Kill your wordprocessor
6. Realtime communications tools are deadly

Number five is probably the most interesting, just from a technical point of view, and leaves me thinking that the way to go probably is handwriting rather than typing, at least to start with, preferably using my fountain pen, that elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

And speaking of more civilized ages and working habits, one of my favourite passages in non-fiction comes from C.S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy, where he describes his days in Surrey under the tutelage of William T. Kirkpatrick on the eve of the Great War. Kirkpatrick, or 'The Old Knock', who had been headmaster of Lurgan College many years before when Lewis's father had been a pupil, was perhaps the most rigorous thinker Lewis ever met. As Lewis reminisced on their days together:

We now settled into a routine which has ever since served in my mind as an archetype, so that what I still mean when I speak of a "normal" day (and lament that normal days are so rare) is a day of the Bookham pattern. For if I could please myself I would always live as I lived there.

I would choose always to breakfast at exactly eight and to be at my desk by nine, there to read or write till one. If a cup of good tea or coffee could be brought me about eleven, so much the better. A step or so out of doors for a pint of beer would not do quite so well; for a man does not want to drink alone and if you meet a friend in the taproom the break is likely to be extended beyond its ten minutes.

At one precisely lunch should be on the table; and by two at the latest I would be on the road. Not, except at rare intervals, with a friend. Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one (such as I found, during the holidays, in Arthur) who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared.

The return from the walk, and the arrival of tea, should be exactly coincident, and not later than a quarter past four. Tea should be taken in solitude, as I took it as Bookham on those (happily numerous) occasions when Mrs. Kirkpatrick was out; the Knock himself disdained this meal. For eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably. Of course not all books are suitable for mealtime reading. It would be a kind of blasphemy to read poetry at table. What one wants is a gossipy, formless book which can be opened anywhere. The ones I learned so to use at Bookham were Boswell, and a translation of Herodotus, and Lang's History of English Literature. Tristram Shandy, Elia and the Anatomy of Melancholy are all good for the same purpose.

At five a man should be at work again, and at it till seven. Then, at the evening meal and after, comes the time for talk, or, failing that, for lighter reading; and unless you are making a night of it with your cronies (and at Bookham I had none) there is no reason why you should ever be in bed later than eleven.

But when is a man to write his letters? You forget that I am describing the happy life I led with Kirk or the ideal life I would live now if I could. And it is essential of the happy life that a man would have almost no mail and never dread the postman's knock.

The postman never knocks here, I fear, but I dread his not coming. I spend far too much time listening for a bulky letter or a parcel being shoved through the letterbox, and all this waiting is doing me no good.

Is it 'Lent' or 'Loaned'?

Well, I'm glad to see that Rosmuc, An Aill bhuí, which I raved about here the other day, narrowly beat the equally fantastic Cliffs of Moher III in the Brother's competition.

He'd posted a set of five paintings to ask which one people thought should be put up for auction on EBay to raise money for Rape Crisis Network Ireland and St Patrick's Hospital and Marymount Hospice, the two charities supported by this year's Irish Blog Awards. It's his way of saying thanks for his paintings having been included in the event.

If you can’t join in the bidding, he says, you can still help by linking, blogging, tweeting, etc. If you can bid, though, it's surely well worth it. I mean, take a look.

Your wall'd look good around that, wouldn't it?

Having mentioned the Brother, his American Hell cartoon yesterday was a tad less bleak but rather more seasonal than usual, and it reminded me of Ardal O'Hanlon's spiel about Lent from a few years back:

One thing I found bizarre about the Catholic religion is the season of Lent, y’know, forty days, ends on Easter Sunday, and it corresponds to the time that Jesus spent fasting in the desert. You’re encouraged to make a little sacrifice during Lent, to show solidarity with Our Lord, who was cold and hungry and sandy, and all alone. And most major religions would have a period of sacrifice where they’d give up food completely and they’d nearly die of starvation, but not Catholics, ‘cause we know how to look after ourselves.

What do we give up?

Sweets.

Yeah, just ask somebody next year, ‘Ah, hello Brendan, what are you giving up for Lent?’
‘Eh, Crunchies. No more Crunchies for me for a whole month.’

Bloody hypocrite! If he really wanted to make a sacrifice he should give up something he really needs. Like oxygen, for example.

To be fair, we probably ought to be a bit tougher on ourselves than we tend to, but the Church has always recognised that people can go to extremes on this one. Indeed, if we look at the history of early Christianity, it may strike us as ascetic to a degree that may border on fanaticism, but if we compare it with the myriad other cults and heresies that sprang up at the time, what's staggering is that the Church stood against their pessimistic tide by insisting on the inherent goodness of creation, and in doing so it insisted that our sacrifices should have limits: we might deprive ourselves of the good things of this world, but we ought never to hold that the world itself was not good. To quote Chesterton, as is my wont:

The early Church was ascetic, but she proved that she was not pessimistic, simply by condemning the pessimists. The creed declared that man was sinful, but it did not declare that life was evil, and it proved it by damning those who did. The condemnation of the early heretics is itself condemned as something crabbed and narrow; but it was in truth the very proof that the Church meant to be brotherly and broad. It proved that the primitive Catholics were specially eager to explain that they did not think man utterly vile; that they did not think life incurably miserable; that they did not think marriage a sin or procreation a tragedy. They were ascetic because asceticism was the only possible purge of the sins of the world; but in the very thunder of their anathemas they affirmed for ever that their asceticism was not to be anti-human or anti-natural; that they did wish to purge the world and not destroy it.

[...]

That the early Church was itself full of an ecstatic enthusiasm for renunciation and virginity makes this distinction much more striking and not less so. It makes all the more important the place where the dogma drew the line. A man might crawl about on all fours like a beast because he was an ascetic. He might stand night and day on the top of a pillar and be adored for being an ascetic, but he could not say that the world was a mistake or the marriage state a sin without being a heretic.

Which isn't to say that we mightn't do a smidge more than refrain from Crunchies. Am I fasting, and if so from what? None of your beeswax, as they say.

Creative Ashing

Yesterday being Ash Wednesday, or the Day of Ashes to give it its proper name, I made a point of going to mass in the morning. I'd been talking about it with a friend the previous day, who was trying to remember whether it had been me -- it hadn't -- who'd said to her that people like going to mass on Ash Wednesday because they get free stuff.

'Free stuff?' I said, 'Like dirt?'
'Well, yeah.'
'Hmmm. We used to spoof Ash Wednesday in school by using the dust from the tables in the school canteen. It was our science teacher, who was supervising there one day, that started that craze... Do you reckon Ash Wednesday's dirt is better than Palm Sunday's leaves?'
'No,' she said. 'Palm Sunday's far better, because then you can make the leaves into the shape of a cross and keep them.'
'I've done that many times,' I said.
'So have I.'

So yes, I went to mass yesterday morning, like I said, and listened to the readings that tell you basically not to go round moping when you're fasting, as it's not about getting brownie points from your neighbours -- though would fasting really impress your neighbours nowadays anyway? Especially given the far from arduous system of fasting that we tend to go by now.

If anything, it'd surely just cause people to look at you a bit askance.

Anyway, during the mass, when it got to the time for the ashes to be imposed, I couldn't help but stare at all the people ahead of me coming back down the aisle. I'd never seen so much ashes. Not for this priest the discreet grey smudge of the archdiocese of Dublin. Oh no. This fellow clearly went in for the whole shebang, great big black strokes, darkening your whole brow. This was an ashing that was designed to last.

So I went up, and received my ashes, and carried on with what needed doing this morning and eventually came home and looked in the mirror, to see that the priest hadn't so much put the sign of the cross on my brow, but the Batsign! I looked like some odd Bruce Wayne cultist.

And indeed, I looked that way till I washed the ashes off at bedtime.

Rosmuc, by Eolaí

Not that I want to be posting more than once a day, but I ought to add that the Brother is currently seeking advice on which of five of his paintings, recently displayed and apparently 'pawed all night' at the Irish Blog Awards, he ought to auction off for charity.



My choice would be this beauty, Rosmuc, An Aill bhuí, which you need to look at in its original glorious colours.

Gorgeous, eh?

The others are great too, of course, especially the one of the Cliffs of Moher. Go and have a look, and toss in your two cents' worth.

The Truth Hurts

So, having mentioned PHD Comics yesterday, it seems only fitting that I should point you to Jorge Cham's latest gem:

Usually Jorge's spot on, but I'm afraid he's exceptionally -- even painfully -- so with this one. Converting an academic CV into a civilian one isn't for the fainthearted.

For what it's worth, I've got four versions of my CV in play at the minute -- academic, conventional, skills-based, and short -- and the short, 1-page, American-style one actually looks the most impressive. Unfortunately nowadays it appears that 'impressive' may not be enough.

So it goes, though. It's not exactly a great time for career changes, after all. Not surprising, you might think, given that it's not a great time for careers, but given that all the boys with degrees in finance, economics, accounting and whatnot have royally screwed things up, this might'nt be such a bad time to try something a bit more daring

Sometimes playing things safe can be the most dangerous thing you can do. Soldiers under fire tend to bunch together, for example, which is about the most natural and foolish thing to do under the circumstances. It's natural because it plays to our herd instinct -- we're literally programmed to feel more at ease in the company of our fellows, but foolish because forming a clump turns the lot of them into one big target.

Collective defence is far better than individual defence, but it needs to be coordinated. The herd instinct just gets you into more trouble.

Advice for life, that.