'Christian' Doublethink

For reasons I'll get into in a future post I've been mulling over the nature of belief and the internal contradictions within certain belief systems

Top of my list of belief systems with internal contradictions is evangelical Christianity

Having not been raised in a 'born again' tradition, evangelical Christianity came as a bit of a surprise to me when I started bumping into evangelicals and the strange, rather scary take some of them had on how a supposedly Loving Creator goes about his business

I also couldn't help noticing that members of certain evangelical communities were very big on quoting that ode to genocide, the Old Testament, and the bits in the New Testament that follow accounts of the life of Jesus. They were much more selective about what they quoted from Jesus Christ himself and accounts of his life

All that stuff about sharing, turning the other cheek, embracing outcasts and unconditional love barely got a look in

Which struck me, and still does, as rather peculiar behaviour for people who claim to be followers of Jesus' teachings

Someone asked me yesterday about one particular inconsistancy within evangelical Christianity

The End Times thing

The subject came up because there is a significant overlap between people who are sceptical of 'Official Narratives' and evangelical Christians who believe that they are among The Elect, blessed to be around during the run up to Armageddon and battling in a holy war against Satan and his End Game (which includes state-sponsored false flag terror ops)

They know this because it has been prophesised

One thing that has always struck me as peculiar with this belief is that it seems to presuppose that either a) Satan hasn't read the Bible or b) Satan has read the Bible but reckons he can outwit the Creator of Everything and change the ending

Nope, it's not working for me I'm afraid

And then there's the small matter of Jesus' own words, as quoted in the divinely inspired Word of God - The Gospel of Matthew 24:36-44...

"36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ... 42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

Jesus' position on End Time prophecies couldn't be much clearer could it?

I freely admit that I like Christianity, as defined by the words and actions attributed to Jesus. The intolerant, arrogant, inconsistent belief system that some people practice and describe as Christianity has got fuck all to do with either

The capacity to adhere to a belief system which is contradicted internally by its own teachings is more Orwell than Jesus

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NWO Conspiracy Bullshit

I've been meaning to write a post on the subject of what constitutes a 'conspiracy theory' but Deek Jackon's latest has saved me at least half the effort...





He does work in a dig at religion but, unlike that gigantonormous bell-end I refer to in my last post, Deek makes the point that abuse of the perfectly natural spiritual instinct is merely the means to an end. That end being fucking people over

If you could somehow re-engineer the human mind and eradicate all religious belief tomorrow, there's absolutely no reason to think that the fucking over would stop, not for a second

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edit: and here's some more NWO bullshit...





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Economy in meltdown. Gas supplies Failing. War in the Middle East... but the Big Dick says there's nothing to worry about

I've got a crisp fiver in my pocket that says that's the last thing he's going to do...

well, the daft old cock is definitely right about one thing - farting on about God definitely is a distraction from all the shit that's going on in the world

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What's a Creationist's Favourite Sandwich?

The mysterious origins of Life - as illustrated by a large banana smeared with warm, dripping peanut butter

As I've posted on this blog, once or twice, I'm not a big fan of Darwinism. For many reasons, which I'm not going to go into here, I'm about as sure that it doesn't stack up as I can be about anything

I am also equally sure that mainstream scientific orthodoxy on the closely-related, though not the same, subject of abiogenesis - the spontaneous generation of Life from inanimate matter is also pretty ropey

It's not a question about abiogenesis being hugely improbable. As things stand, within the restrictions of our current level of knowledge, abiogenesis is flat out impossibile. There is nothing like a viable theory to explain how something as simple as a single-celled organism (not simple at all) can spring into existence out of its constituents chemical parts. And as for actually replicating that process in a lab, forget it.

Put simply, the notion that life spontaneously sprang out of nothing is currently a faith based belief; anchored on two extremely sophisticated scientific principles which only someone with a brain as large as Richard Dawkins' can comprehend...

1. Life must have come from somewhere
   
   
2. There's no fucking way I'm bringing God or Space Aliens into it

And if anyone bumping into this post thinks they can pull me up on this; without reverting to Dawkins-style bullshit and deceit, I'd genuinely love to hear from them (False-choice, 'you're either with us or against us', proofs that people who believe in Jesus are wrong about the origins of Life and therefore Dawkins must be right definitely don't count)

Over the years I've seen several thoughtful, intelligent attempts to communicate the deficiencies in mainstream science's attempts to grapple with abiogenesis

This is not one of them...

Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

I originally posted a link to that video on the Conspiraloon Alliance blog and wasn't going to bother replicating the post here

However, someone posted a link to another Masterpiece of Food-based Creationist PR in a comment underneath...

The atheist's nightmare: the banana

Where this Creationist obsession with high-calorie sandwich fillings comes from God(?) only knows, though it does apparently have its limits. Follow-up searches for titles such as 'Why Secular Humanists Fear Spreadable Marshmallow' and 'Jam - The Agnostic's Nemesis' on Google/ Youtube have, so far, stubbornly refused to yield any positive results :(

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Announcing the Conspiraloon™ One True Antichrist™ of the Year™ awards 2008

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Just a reminder that the deadline for nominations for this year's Conspiraloon™ One True Antichrist™ of the Year contest closes on 31st of this month

Please send your nominations, along with supporting calculations and the all-important £100 (cash only) administration fee, to the usual PO Box




Please also remember that incomplete applications, i.e. any which fail to include...

• reference to at least one Biblical prophecy
• at least one astrological chart
• an annotated sketch which proves that your nominee's earthly kingdom has been announced by way of coded symbolism hidden in the retail packaging of at least one popular household product
• a numerological connection between some variation of the nominee's name and The Mark of the Beast (no less than two A4 pages long, please!!)
• a photograph of an exploding star

...will be rejected automatically

For anyone who hasn't prepared an application before here's an example of how it's done -

Is the Antichrist Russian President Putin?

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edit: the competition is starting to heat up!!

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There's no way I'm not linking to this...

Judaism = Beware G-d's wrath

Christianity = God loves you

Islam = Bring others into Allah's truth

Scientology = Volcano Aliens ate my soul...





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edit:

"So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing [sic] our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"

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It's the Bankers stupid pt428

I've just discovered via the most reliable source of news in the Cosmos, The Daily Mash, that Tony Blair is now working for The Bankers in a more official capacity than in the past

Maybe he got the idea from that other staunch socialist and man of the people his former chief of staff Jonathan Powell

And still, people who consider themselves to be left wing will keep supporting that shower of sleazy, corrupt fucks called the Labour Party, in the belief that it somehow represents the interests of ordinary people

...and it's 'the conspiracy theorists' who are supposed to be lunatic fantasists!?

A pop quiz for all you Christian Capitalists out there - what's the one thing, the one practice that drove ace-pacifist Jesus Christ so mental that he kicked off and started a ruck?

Earlier on today I left a comment on someone else's blog which, given Blair's much publicised conversion to Catholicism and reportedly profound Christian faith, seems vaguely relevant...

As I hope you realise, I have no problem with Christianity, provided people claiming to be Christians at least try to follow the teachings of the person they believe to be the Son of God

But I can’t help noticing that an awful lot of people who claim to be Christians feel a lot more comfortable quoting from the Old Testament or the apocrypha than JC’s direct teachings as recorded in gospels

I remember a chat I had with a Christian a few years ago. He was very fervent about his faith and, as it happened, very rich. I asked him how he reconciled his wealth with his faith and I quoted Jesus saying that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God

his answer?

‘Jesus said it was harder, not impossible’


Belief in a Supreme Deity is one thing, believing that She/He/It is a dumb bastard who'll fall for the same lawyers' tricks that so many mortals do is something else altogether

You really do have to be something quite, er, special to think you'll pull that one off

God ... unlikely to be impressed by the terms of reference or wording of the Hutton or Butler Reports

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Christians

A couple of days ago I linked to documentary about Jesus made by theologian Robert Beckwith. The central thrust of the film was that the teachings attributed to Jesus are universal and perfectly compatible with other belief systems across the globe.

I liked the film a lot because, for a welcome change, someone actually got to put up an intelligent show on mainstream TV which attempted to explore the similarities between people of different faiths, or absence of faiths. In the process the film also tried to demonstrate that being a Christian doesn’t necessarily mean being an intolerant nutcase and that, shock horror, Christianity really should be about being nice to people and doing the decent thing for its own sake

And whilst Beckwith didn’t explicitly state it, one of implied conclusions of the film was that the problem with many Christians is not that they’re Christians, it’s the fact that they’re shit Christians.

Gandhi probably put it better and without reverting to any swears…

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"

Sure, belief in a Sky God is a bit silly but it’s no sillier than, say, believing that life spontaneously sprung up out of sludge after being struck by lightning a few times

And if secular polemicists such as Richard Dawkins serve no other useful purpose it is to prove that people with religious faith do not hold the monopoly on being intolerant, and plain fucking ignorant, dicks

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The reason why I mention all this is because someone has just left me a link (thanks btw) to an internet movie called Zeigeist which attempts to make a connection between religious faith, especially Christianity, the 9/11 attacks, the War on Terror, the global banking system and elitist control of our world...





The film includes little original material and is basically a mash-up of information and clips that are freely available on the web and already well-known to people who are into that sort of thing. The most interesting part is the first third of the film which covers similar ground to Beckwith’s C4 documentary and makes a strong case that Christianity was itself a mash-up of pre-existing material and ideas.

A mash-up criticising a mash-up – oooh, the irony

FWIW my opinion of the film is that whilst it contains some very good and potentially startling factual content some of the conclusions woven around that content are totally misleading

My biggest issue is with the claim made by the film that monotheistic religion and the mindset it encourages has been the driving force for getting on for most of the Evil in the world over the last 2,000 years

Bollocks

Sure religion has often been subverted for Evil ends, but so has environmentalism, humanism, marxism, darwinism and lots of other initially well-intentioned isms I could name

If you could somehow abolish all organised religion tomorrow it wouldn't change a thing

Because people would still want to steal things off each other

And some people, the most wicked and most conniving of people, will continue to be very good at stealing - regardless of whether everyone else believes in a Sky God or not

The payload of Zeitgeist is the assertion that religion, not theft, is driving the bad things that are happening in the world. In that respect, whilst Zeitgeist purports to be a radical ‘Truth’ video, its message is absolutely no different to the Islamofascist bullshit that the Conservative Neocons and their puppet-masters are using as an excuse to rape the world


If I could be bothered I could sit down tomorrow and make my own competing film which highlights all the awful things that have been carried out in the name of atheistic secularism. The 19th and 20th centuries are littered bounteous quantities of source material. Sauce for the goose and all that...

But I won't because I think that would be a distraction.

The world’s problems don’t stem from religion, or lack of religion. They have come about because of greed and the inability of the majority of people to adequately comprehend and deal with the machinations of a ruthless, amoral minority.

When most people, Americans certainly, talk about Christianity they have one specific form of Christianity uppermost in mind - US style Christian Fundamentalism which is both intolerant and just about the least Christ-like belief system anyone could come up with.




I'd maintain that Christian Fundamentalism was created and is promoted, as with the Catholic Church, by very earthly interests. I can understand why people get wound up about religion but they are focusing on the weapon rather than the creature wielding it.

And if people keep swallowing the same old bait, crafted to divide and distract us, nothing will change

In short, whilst I think movies like Zeitgest contain a lot of interesting material and are worth watching with an open but sceptical mind, the film I’d really like to see made is the one that doesn’t fuel the eternally fruitless, divisive conflict between Christians and secular humanists but rather the film which shames the daft fucks who think they are Christians into behaving a bit more like the guy they claim to revere.

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Channel 4's JC Christmas Special

Robert Beckwith's The Hidden Story of Jesus - one hour and forty minutes of absolutely top notch viewing imho...



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Top Ten Messiah Update

Messiah Connoisseurs the World over will be delighted to learn that the Conspiraloon™ Alliance has just released its updated Messiah Top 10 Chart

In the wake of the ritual, and tediously formulaic, humiliation of his followers on Channel 4 last night and the fact that the World has stubbornly staggered on past his predicted end date, Michael Travesser will no doubt be comforted by the fact that he has been awarded the coveted Number One spot by the UK's leading coven of Conspiralunatics and identified as this month's One True Messiah

And We should know, We've seen a few




And remember boys and girls, when not being distracted with stories of nutcases in canoes and teddy bears or being fobbed off with bullshit whilst a group of crooked fuckers plays pass the parcel with toxic banking sludge and leaches the remaining life blood out of a critically sick financial system, never forget that anyone who espouses any kind of non-material, spiritual worldview is definitely a creepy nutcase who probably touches up small children.

Remember that and then go out and buy some shit, preferably on credit

...and no, for the life of me, I cannot quite figure out how it is that Richard, Son of Bran, didn't make it into this month's Top Ten...

Warning: No Photoshop was applied to
Richard's teeth in the reproduction
of the above photograph

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7/7 Ripple Effect licks donkey nuts ... big time

A couple of days ago I posted about a new video about the 7/7 bombings called ‘Ripple Effect’ which has appeared on the Internet recently

As I mentioned, the film does contain some decent material (much of which has probably been sourced from the July 7th Truth website). Again, as I’ve already mentioned, my problems with Ripple Effect were twofold:

Firstly, it contains unverified assertions presented as fact which are woven into a speculative narrative (none of which was sourced from the July 7th Truth website) that is at least as flawed as the Official Narrative

Secondly, I’ve seen reports that copies of Ripple Effect have been sent, unsolicited, to people who lost loved-ones on 7/7. Combined with recent news that some of the bereaved have been sent unsolicited autopsy details by accident (sic.), I am concerned that this has all the makings of PR car crash which could reflect very badly on anyone who questions the Official Narrative of 7/7

An additional concern I have, which I didn’t elaborate on in my previous post, is the fact that the person who claims to have produced the video and sent it to the bereaved also seems to be claiming that he is the Messiah and the Rightful King of England (aka Muad'dib)...


Muad'dib’s website makes fascinating reading (not that I’m going to grace it with a link here, The Anointed One can presumably handle his own publicity needs) and the site promises some degree of Enlightenment to anyone spiritually courageous enough to send £100 (cash only) to a PO Box on the Mystical Isle of Canvey

The mystic and sacred Isle of Canvey

The Once and Future King appears to have at least a couple of devoted followers who are boosting Ripple Effect all over the place and accusing anyone who expresses concern about sending unsolicited material to murdered people's relatives of clearly being a government agent.

Oh dear

I try very hard to be a pluralistic as possible in my life and acknowledge other people’s right to hold different beliefs to my own; provided that is they stick to the Golden Rule. So whilst I do not question Muad'dib's right to make a film like Ripple Effect, just as I have to right to point out that the film contains patently misleading material and therefore licks donkey nuts, I do believe that Mr dib and his acolytes have crossed the line in sending their misleading and speculative film to people who had friends and relatives murdered on 7/7

And if it seems like I'm labouring this issue too much with two long, successive posts the simple fact is that there are interests out there itching to leap upon and make a meal out of 7/7 sceptics (as opposed to 7/7 fairytale theorists) putting even a single foot wrong. They've tried before and they'll try again

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And in an entirely unrelated and coincidental development, the Conspiraloon™ Alliance is currently working on a new deck to add to its existing range of Conspira-Trumps™ game cards...



The Conspira-Trump™ range already includes such firm favourites as Masonic Plod, and the closely related Bent Cops, as well as End Times Predictions (my personal favourite), and Fuckwit Celebrity Global Campaigners packs and now, in commemoration of the burgeoning number of self-proclaimed Messiahs attempting to associate themselves with the 7/7 Truth movement there’s a new deck in town…

Which one's your favourite?

Here’s a taster of the contents…


Further details, along with the all-important pricing information, are available at The One True Conspiraloon™ Central blog

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The Conspiraloon™ Alliance is also investigating ways to move into the lucrative and influential phone-sex market. Expect to see a range of eye-catching promotional materials in a public phone box near you; as soon as someone in the team figures out how to combine the following two images in a seamless and aesthetically pleasing fashion…


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Catastrophic Gradualism (redux)

Thanks to Tony for pointing me towards an amusing article on the BBC website entitled ‘Climate scepticism: The top 10’…

“We look at 10 of the arguments most often made against the IPCC consensus, and some of the counter-arguments made by scientists who agree with the IPCC”

There is much sceptical amusement to be had here and for me personally the stand-out argument is #7…

7. A CARBON DIOXIDE RISE HAS ALWAYS COME AFTER A TEMPERATURE INCREASE NOT BEFORE

Sceptic

Ice-cores dating back nearly one million years show a pattern of temperature and CO2 rise at roughly 100,000-year intervals. But the CO2 rise has always come after the temperature rise, not before, presumably as warmer temperatures have liberated the gas from oceans.

Counter

This is largely true, but largely irrelevant. Ancient ice-cores do show CO2 rising after temperature by a few hundred years - a timescale associated with the ocean response to atmospheric changes mainly driven by wobbles in the Earth's orbit. However, the situation today is dramatically different. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere (35% increase over pre-industrial levels) is from human emissions. Levels are higher than have been seen in 650,000 years of ice-core records, and are possibly higher than any time since three million years ago.

Fellow Man Made Global Warming sceptics will no doubt enjoy that definition of ‘largely irrelevant’ immensely

And as a MMGW sceptic, I’m a little disappointed that the top reason for my own scepticism is absent from the list…

"Man Made Global Warming advocates are fucking pussies"

Not only are they Climate Change Deniers they are actually too scared to face up to the fact that there’s absolutely nothing we can do to prevent Climate Change

George Monbiot and some pals on the campaign trail

So, instead of advocating measures that will enable mankind to adapt to that inevitable change they prefer to kid themselves that tweaking Humanity’s CO2 output a few percent is going to ensure that global climate stays exactly the fucking same for all time. Somewhat akin to trying to steer a 100,000 ton supertanker into dock with a lolly stick

Well, I’m convinced

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Standing back from the MMGW ‘debate’ a little, it’s fascinating to see the Doublethink which underpins contemporary Natural Science being exposed on a such a big public stage

The godfathers of modern geology and evolutionary theory made it very clear that natural science was all about very boring things happening, very gradually over the kind of mind-numbing timescales that dwarfed a human lifespan.

This is known as the principle of uniformitarianism…

“Uniformitarianism is one of the most basic principles of modern geology, the observation that fundamentally the same geological processes that operate today also operated in the distant past. It exists in contrast with catastrophism, which states that Earth surface features originated suddenly in the past, by geological processes radically different to those currently occurring.”

However, the motives for the adoption of uniformitarianism were arguably more ideological than scientific

A uniformitarian view of earth history permitted the huge timescales required for Darwinian Evolution to be a viable concept and, more importantly, it separated science from religion and all those dusty old books filled with catastrophic creation myths; especially floods

The only problem being that uniformitarianism is a load of old, gradualistic cock

Trying to piece together the history of the Earth without acknowledging the key role played by catastrophes is like trying prepare a report on an air crash without making any reference to any actual crashing

The Earth is littered with evidence of past catastrophes and processes that are not in operation today

And for the better part of 200 years geologists have either ignored that evidence or made up some really silly gradualistic stories to account for it

Personal favourite examples of catastrophic, in your face, geological features with bollocks explanations include; the periodic reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, the formation of 1km thick beds of pure salt through evaporation (that’s a lot of fecking evaporation), limestone formation, the mechanism for plate tectonics and last, but not least, fossil formation.

Hands up anyone who can point me to anywhere on Earth where fossil beds or even that most tediously common of rocks, limestone, are currently being deposited

/ waits patiently

/ doesn't hold breath

The problem with contemporary uniformitarianism is that whilst pushing the Bible and religion out of the picture it also negates the Number One reason why Catastrophes were written into the Bible in the first place…

To scare the shit out of people

Big Scary Floods brought about by ignoring Prophets and continuing with Our Sinful Ways ...undergoing a bit of a Renaissance at the moment

And scaring the shit out of people, especially kids with their lovely squishy unconditioned minds, is very much the name of the game these days

and the Question for the Day is : "Why is it, with the constant diet of unrelenting optimism about their future being rammed down our kids' necks every day, that so many of our teens choose to drink themselves stupid on a regular basis? Yes, I know!! It must be the availability of alcohol. Yes, that's got to be it..."

We are now living in a weird point in time where mainstream science still pays lip service to uniformitarianism but simultaneously ramps up the catastrophe side of things to meet the needs of the current social and political climate

So, modern science is very much like the Bible then but without the Holy Men




OK, slightly fewer Holy Men

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PS Another favourite example of bollocks explanations for possibly catastrophic past events I didn’t list above was the level of radioactive isotopes in the Earth’s atmosphere. If you don’t calibrate/ fiddle raw data for atmospheric levels of Carbon and Helium isotopes you find yourself looking at some rather short, embarrassingly biblical-looking, dates for the age of our atmosphere. But that’s by the by. Whilst looking for pointers towards any new rationalisations in the field of radiocarbon dating I’ve just noticed that someone has sneaked in a couple of amusing links into Wikipedia’s article on RC dating

The links point towards the works of a guy called Anatoly Fomenko, a proponent of the most amusing piece of Loonery™ I’ve seen all week…

“Fomenko is a supporter of revising chronological history. He has created his own revision called "New Chronology", based on statistical correlations, dating of zodiacs, and by examining the mathematics and astronomy involved in chronology. Fomenko claims that he has discovered that many historical events do not correspond mathematically with the dates they are supposed to have occurred on. He asserts from this that all of ancient history (including the history of Greece, Rome, and Egypt) is just a reflection of events that occurred in the Middle Ages and that all of Chinese and Arab history are fabrications of 17th and 18th century Jesuits. He also claims that Jesus lived in the 12th century A.D. and was crucified in Constantinople; that the Trojan war and the Crusades were the same historical event; and that Genghis Khan and the Mongols were actually Russians. As well as disputing written chronologies, Fomenko also disputes more objective dating techniques such as dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating.”

Whilst I'm not exactly convinced by Fomenko’s thesis I have to admit that it does display a certain degree of style and can’t be faulted for lack of scope or ambition...






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PPS and a couple of stills of Klaus Kinski's finest hour I really wanted to, but couldn't find a legitimate way to, include in this post...



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Better Lone Wolves than Guard Dogs

I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in the land of my forefathers earlier this month

I could now relate tales of how the Italians, though still way behind the British, are being sold the same load of fear-based crap as the British are. How people living 500 miles away from the nearest decent kebab or curry told me in a whisper about the ‘Muslim Problem’ their country was facing

But I won’t

Not today

I’ll slap some pictures up instead...

Pictures of a cousin of mine clearing out his attic and trying out a trunkful of once much-loved ultrawide-lapelled shirts and criminally flared trousers for one last time before carting them outside of the village limits for controlled demolition in a field somewhere…





or a picture for my mate Ian who thought it was a bit strange how everyone where my family comes from walks around with big sticks all the time…




Actually, the snakes are the least of their problems. It’s the giant mutant squirrels they’re really scared of…




The boar hunting season is full-on at the moment and the valley was filled with dozens of well-heeled city folk. City folk who, very much like their counterparts in the UK, are so concerned about rural ecosystems that they very kindly, and unselfishly, drop thousands on 4x4s, dogs and custom firearms so that they can spend their weekends blowing the fuck out of small, and not so small, furry animals.

In fairness, one of the locals insists that boar have become a bit of problem and he has taken to protecting his vineyard over the summer months by surrounding it with a huge public address system and playing the radio really, REALLY loud 24/7.

Everyone else suspects that he's doing it just to piss them all off

This year he tuned his rig into Radio Maria sometime in the beginning of July and didn’t turn it off until sometime near the end of September. Radio Maria, for the uninitiated, is a round the clock Catholic radio channel which broadcasts Mass, Mass and more Mass. The scary thing about it is, is that no matter where you are in Italy, no matter how remote the location, you are always able to receive Radio Maria even if nothing else is coming through…

It’s worth thinking about

Anyway, I only mention the hunting thing as a preamble to this picture of a memorial in the local cemetery; a couple of vaults down from my family’s crypt. It's a tableau of someone being accidentally shot in the back by a friend…




One of these days I might be able to locate the friend’s final resting place and see what his family have put up.

The Dead figured quite highly in conversation this month as the Italians still take All Souls Day very seriously. And you don’t have to be a practicing Catholic to see some merit in marking one special day a year to remember lost loved ones, even if you might personally think the way people go about it is sometimes a bit silly

And in Italy that remembrance process involves buying heaps of candles and flowers, piling them up in mounds around your loved ones’ graves on the 2nd November and coming back a week later and slinging them all in the bin

Deciding which of the many themed candles on offer to buy can be a real challenge; particularly as there’s no price premium or discount associated with any particular Saint/ Pope/ Incarnation of Jesus




Most people cover their bets and buy a few of each just to be on the safe side

though, rummaging around the bins a week later, Saint Rita (who?) seemed to come in as a surprise (to me anyway) No.1 in this year’s Memorial Candle Chart with the eternally-dripping Padre Pio breathing down her neck in the No.2 spot




And whilst on the subject of religion and stuff here’s a picture of the front door of the local church…




featuring a series of illustrated panels of impoverished locals making a meagre living off the land with scythes and sickles, packing it in and seeking their fortunes overseas, the final panel gives a clue as to what most of them ended up doing…




In thirty or forty years time the churches of Eastern Europe will probably start sprouting illustrated doors depicting the cartoon antics of local immigrants heroically preparing British supermarket ready meals, changing nappies or fixing leaky London plumbing

There are very few new stories under the Sun

Sadly, I didn’t spend much time in any towns or cities so I didn’t see much of the political graffiti that Italians do so much better than the British. Except this little number which amused me some…

"Better Lone Wolves than Guard Dogs"

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