Happy Hogmanay…

…from a very blustery and torrential Aberdeen. Appropriate, then, that Wet Wet Wet are headlining at the city centre bash down at the Castlegate.

At least that does seem to be going ahead, though, unlike Glasgow’s celebrations which have been cancelled due to the weather. But regardless of that, I’ll be sitting indoors in the warmth with friends rather than braving the cold, rain and crowds.

I was showing the St Silasites round some of Old Aberdeen earlier today and got utterly drenched, after having assured them that Aberdeen was a much drier city than Glasgow. I don’t think they believe me.

Anyway, have a grand Hogmanay and a brilliant 2007 wherever you are and however you see it in.

Relaxing

Much like past generations may have sat in a comfy chair listening to the radio on the wireless, I am sitting in a comfy chair using the internet on the wireless and listening to the football on digital radio.

It’s been nice doing nothing the last couple of days, although I have done a lot of catching up with my Aberdeen-based friends. There’s even a bunch of St Silas folk who are up in the Granite City for New Year as from this evening, which may mean dusting down the old Varwell Venn Diagram in the pub tonight.

Incidentally, I’ve been enjoying trying out the sepia and black & white settings on my camera, which Aberdeen’s architecture is ideally suited for. I hope you like.

Death List 2007

Greetings from Aberdeen, where I am enjoying the grey granite, blustery gales, and Justin’s wireless internet and satellite television. I’ve been flicking through the channels, and BBC News 24 has just reported that Saddam Hussein is due to be executed either today or tomorrow. This is not good news, as he is on my Death List for 2007.

I usually enter a Death List competition each New Year with a bunch of friends, and I have already finalised my list for this coming year. The idea is that you list 10 well-known people you think will die during 2007. For each correct guess over the year, you get 100 points minus their age - so the younger they are, the more points they are worth. You also get 10 bonus points if you correctly guess the way in which they die. I’m never hugely successful, but like to go for a mix of well-known old or ill people plus a few randoms just to spruce things up.

So it’s a bit annoying that Saddam Hussein might die before 2007 even begins, but at least Justin and Mark have him on theirs too, so we’re all equally put out.

If you’re interested, my list is as follows:

1. Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti - retired politician (execution)
2. David Blaine - attention-seeking stuntman and magician (own stupidity)
3. Patrick Moore - TV presenter and monocle-wearer (peacefully in sleep)
4. Brooks Mileson - owner of Gretna FC (lung cancer)
5. Ismail Haniya - Prime Minister of Palestinian Authority (assassination)
6. The Queen - The Queen (complications during routine surgery)
7. Pete Docherty - professional druggie (drug-related)
8. Magnus Magnusson - TV presenter (heart attack)
9. Sandi Thom - singer (car crash)
10. Fidel Castro - President of Cuba and beard-sporter (heart attack)

Best of the year

I haven’t been especially rampacious* in my consumption of books, films and music over the past twelve months, but there’s a few choice highlights worth mentioning.

Best book - I’ve read some great ones this year, but Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly probably pips it. I reviewed it here. I know it’s not a 2006 book, but that’s when I read it.

Best album - undoubtedly Mr Beast by Mogwai. I love Mogwai’s sound - dark, brooding and sullen one minute, then exploding into angry, unfettered rage the next, through a usually lyric-less combination of guitars, piano and drums. Mr Beast is very much like Mogwai’s previous servings, but one or two songs have the most gorgeous, emotive, catchy melodies, and my favourite track “Friend of the Night” is simply sublime.

Best film - a straight tie between the outrageously magnificent Snakes On A Plane and the jaw-dropping science fiction drama Children Of Men. Snakes, as I blogged before, is a tongue in cheek B-movie action film about well, snakes on a plane. It’s got wonderfully gratuitous comedy violence, humour, ridiculous dialogue, and Samuel L Jackson. It’s a magnificent piece of cinema.

As is Children Of Men, for completely different reasons. It’s a heart-wrenching, edge of the seat story about a disintegrating society in the near future which has, due to mass infertility, seen no births for eighteen years. The portrayal of the paranoid, hopeless and violent, police state in Britain is chillingly believable, and the plot revolves around an inept, alcoholic civil servant who finds himself unwittingly at the centre of an attempt to protect a miraculously pregnant girl. The direction is beautiful and brutal, the dialogue very British, and the storyline absolutely nailbiting. I’d say this is easily one of the best British films I’ve ever seen.

Best television - Lost. Simply no contest.

Best opera - just kidding, I’m not that cultured.

* I have no idea if rampacious is a real word, but it sounds like it should be.

101 Things To Do In A Christmas Service

I’ll not have a huge amount of internet access over the next week, so here’s something festive to keep you all occupied in the meantime: can you think of 101 Things To Do In A Christmas Service?  VMC to you all.

1. Hand out fireworks, telling people they are incense candles to light during prayers.
2. Bring a pile of “Inclusive Winterval” cards to give to your friends in church.
3. Sing “Jingle Bells” or “We 3 Kings of Orient Are, One in a Taxi, One in a car…” during every carol or hymn.
4. Or even worse, sing “Merry Christmas” by Slade.
5. If there’s a nativity sketch, shout “it’s behind you!” at inappropriate moments…
6. …or “Oh no he isn’t!” at the angels when they declare that Jesus Christ is born today.
7. Mutter loudly that Jesus wasn’t born at Christmas time anyway.
8. Call the minister “Santa” and ask him for your present.
9. Come dressed in as much tinsel as possible, with a trees-worth of flashing lights on your hat.
10. Stand up and declare “He is risen!” and throw mini Easter eggs around the church.

Clear air

It’s been a grand couple of days, and I have enjoyed being back in Inverness, catching up with friends, taking a few photos, and generally doing nothing in particular. The weather has been beautifully clear and crisp, making a welcome change from the dour overcast clouds of Glasgow.

The clear air was under threat tonight, though, as I went to the Harlequin to meet a friend for a pint. Ironically we’d just been talking about the success of the smoking ban when a woman walked in, cigarette in hand. Such is the extent to which Scotland has got used to it, that heads turned and jaws dropped at her tenacity (or stupidity). The staff were quick to react and chastised her strongly and sent her out.

The smell from just that one single cigarette in those few brief seconds hung noticeably and antisocially in the air long after her departure. I wonder why society ever tolerated smoking in pubs in the first place.

Long journey north

What a day. Here’s the highlights so far:

5.45am - wake up with my phone alarm. Don’t need to catch local train until half six, so decide to snooze for five minutes.

6.20am - oops. Leap out of bed and into bathroom and out again and into clothes and grab stuff and run out of flat and down to station and on to low level train. Phew.

7.00am - arrive at Queen Street and catch the Inverness train in the nick of time. Stare out of dark window.

8.00am - arrive at Perth, to get replacement bus service due to floods. Head to front of station as instructed.

8.02am - wait at front of station with fellow refugees.

8.05am - ScotRail staff in fluorescent jackets direct those of us for Pitlochry on to bus. Those of us for stations beyond that to Inverness told to wait in the cold until powers that be decide whether we’re getting the same bus or a different one.

8.06am - standing around in the freezing winter morning cold, certain individuals turn into the various stereotypes of travel chaos victims. There’s the angry impatient man who’s obviously a middle manager and declares “this is absolutely unacceptable” to anyone who listens (nobody does). The hessian bag-carrying, shellsuit-wearing family who try to fend off the cold by chain-smoking. The earnest young Japanese tourists who haven’t a clue what’s happening and don’t have enough English to ask. Those too tired to complain and look like they’re trying to sleep standing up.

8.15am - the fluorescent jacket brigade finally announce that we’re taking a separate bus from the Pitlochry passengers, and we are shepherded on board. Pick out a Lewis accent and a Caithness accent in folk behind me. They have long journeys ahead of them.

8.18am - a fluorescent jacket then tells us we’ve got on the wrong bus. Groans all round. Shellsuits don’t look too upset - it means they can fit in another cigarette.

8.25am - we board the bus we are actually meant to be on. Driver checks how many people there are for all the stations - nobody puts their hands up for Dunkeld, Blair Atholl, Dalwhinnie, Newtonmore, Kingussie or Carrbridge. A couple of people are for Aviemore. the driver asks Inverness and there is an ironic cheer from most of us in response. I mean to shout “hope springs eternal” but I am too cold and tired to think that quickly.

8.30am - we finally depart. Moderately pleasant journey through the Perthshire flood plains. Keep seeing good photo opportunities in the beautiful misty morning sunshine, but they pass before I get my camera out of my pocket.

8.30am to 10.30am - driver stops at Dunkeld, Blair Atholl, Dalwhinnie, Newtonmore, Kingussie and Carrbridge anyway. Not a soul gets on. In Kingussie the driver finds himself on the wrong side of a bridge in the village closed due to floods. We take ages driving around to get to the station. Then Carrbridge station has no turning circle so we have to practically reverse from the station back to the A9.

10.30am - arrive at Aviemore, and on returning to the A9 discover there’s a diversion due to an accident. Have to divert to Carrbridge via a back road. Estimated time of arrival revised to some time next week.

11.30am - finally arrive in Inverness. Knackered.

So there you go. Travel is never boring. And I’m delighted to discover that my friend Mike’s new flat has wireless. And a hedge basking in the winter sunshine (see picture).

Off for Christmas

No more blogs for a week or two as I away from tomorrow morning. Although whether I make it back north is another matter - the railway line is closed due to floods in several places…

So have yourselves a lovely Christmas, and don’t eat too much tinsel.

Homosexuals attract enemy radar

Recent developments such as those reported here and here, plus I must confess a healthy sense of mischief, have inspired me to finally enter the pointless yawnfest that is the ongoing debate about homosexuality in the church.

At the outset I guess I should declare that I am a raving liberal about a lot of these contentious issues. For instance, I don’t believe that the biblical argument against homosexuality holds much water, because if you’re clever, scholarly, or just plain weird, you can use the Bible to justify all sorts of beliefs - like the Earth is only 6,000 years old, slavery and misogyny are acceptable, and even that God hates figs. A book which was written thousands of years ago often long after the events they document, which was translated many times before we got to read it, and which very occasionally contradicts itself, cannot be seen as the inerrant, infallible and total word of God.

Anyway, what particularly amuses me about the homosexuality debate is that most of the fuss kicked up by the fundamentalists is specifically caused by gays being ordained as bishops. As far as I am aware there’s no mass hysteria about them being members, employees, or even preachers, and no attempts to expunge them from the pews, prayer groups and committees of churches. Only a problem about them being bishops. What the fundies appear to be saying, then, is that it’s fine to have gays in the church just as long as they aren’t in a position of authority or influence.

Why might this be? Two potential reasons spring to mind.

1. Simple prejudice, in that gays are alright when quiet and subservient in the church, but a worrying and dangerous influence when in a promoted position? Nope, it can’t be that - because not only would that be hypocritical and discriminatory (and the church would never be like that, would it?), but also we as Christians strive to love everyone equally just as Jesus did regardless of their background or character, and wish the church to be inclusive of all kinds of people.

2. Homosexuals’ “sinful nature”? No it can’t be that either, because if all sinners were barred from holding office in the church, there’d be no church left.

Instead, the only reason why the fundamentalists oppose homosexuals rising to be bishops appears to be that they think that homosexuals alongside the rest of us have a real role to play in the ministry and service of the church… but genuinely believe that due to their sexual orientation they are inherently ill-suited to positions of leadership and management.

How?? Are gays proven to be incapable of balancing budgets, chairing committees, providing spiritual leadership, managing teams of staff, or directing large-scale projects? Chris Morris’s brilliant spoof television documentary Brass Eye springs to mind. In one episode, a fictitious Royal Navy officer justifies the exclusions of gays from the military, arguing:

Homosexuals can’t swim, they attract enemy radar, they attract sharks, they nudge people when they’re trying to shoot, they always insist on sitting at “The Captain’s Table”… they muck about. Imagine… the fear… when you go to sleep with a gay man on board and think “Oh God, when I wake up, will everyone be dead?” You can’t run a ship like that.

As is often said, Jesus said nothing in the Bible about homosexuality - so I have no idea why we are tearing ourselves apart over something so frivilous, irrelevant and frankly very boring.

Surely we should follow his lead and find something important to argue about instead, such as how to spread the Good News, or how to resist war, poverty, injustice, bigotry and the singing of “Shine Jesus Shine” throughout the world.

With any luck my next post about Christianity will be on a subject that is faintly relevant and interesting. In the meantime, I shall brace myself for the fundamentalist onslaught…

Far away trains…

Recently I booked some of my travel for the Christmas holidays. I’m off back to Inverness for a few days on Saturday, and I had to struggle to get a cheap APEX return train ticket for £19.50, avoiding the normal cost of around £35.00. So much for getting people out of their cars.

Of course, I could have got the Megabus for about a third of the price, but I hate the lack of legroom and get travelsick reading on buses, so tend to take trains whenever I can, as long as I can get those cheaper advance prices. But if the rail system continues to be so expensive for regular tickets, are more folk really going to bother?

Well, I suppose I am: I don’t have a car, so rely on public transport (and lifts from kind friends). And anyway, journeys are just as interesting as destinations. I’ve met a fascinating collection of people on trains around the UK - some genuinely compelling folk who help the hours fly by, one or two prize mentalists, and even people I’ve discovered I know of or have friends in common with. And on one occasion I sat next to a battered wife fleeing her husband with all she could cram into a single suitcase.

Surely stories like that are worth £19.50. Even if it will involve getting up for the 7.07am from Glasgow on Saturday, the only one with APEX seats left, the morning after my work Christmas bash…