Author: David

… does it take to change a lightbulb?  Put that into Google and you get umpteen pages of ‘one to hold the bulb and 99 to turn the house/drink until the room spins round/none – they’d rather live in the Dark Ages.

So how many does it take to deliver cash to the local bank in Dunfanaghy in these peaceful times?

Answer:  One armoured van.  Two army vehicles with lots of people with guns.  One Garda [police] squad car.

Which reminds me that I must write to the nice security people at Edinburgh Airport – to ask why arriving Belfast passengers are always either delivered or bused at great expense to a door at the end of the Terminal marked [surprisingly enough] Belfast Arrivals.  Am I considered to be a security risk as I move from one part of the UK to another?

I’ve spent the last thirty-six hours retouching the frescos on the Blogstead ceiling and pondering the huge changes taking place here.

Two good ones to start with. First, Ireland is still a very young country. The emigration patterns which scarred every generation since the Famine have stopped. Perthshire looks somewhat mature by comparison. Second, the non-Irish population here is now 10%. There are stresses and strains but huge social change has taken place in a very short time and Ireland’s prosperity has been shared with the rest of the world.

And on the other side? Well the empty houses, of course. The process of turning land into a speculative commodity began in the ’70’s when resourceful people found that they could buy land at agricultural prices and get their political friends to rezone it for development. There’s a very sharp edge on some of the journalism here at present. Kate Holmquist wrote in yesterday’s Irish Times about the Irish businessmen who did well in the property boom: ‘one of those men who now finds himself stripped by the bank and working out of his car.’ She goes on, ‘This month, as opposed to last, his office consists of himself, his car and a mobile phone ….. parked at the far end of the Lidl lot.’

Meanwhile on the social and moral front, change continues apace. As I pirouetted on top of the ladder, I listened to one of those dreadful phone-in discussions which are the bread and butter of RTE radio. Marriage, living together, personal choice, the protection of children … Fascinating because one is listening to Ireland trying to make up its mind whether it is a secular, liberal social democracy which prizes personal choice. The old Ireland, where the Catholic church provided a moral compass has gone – let’s not talk about the confessional state – and no common set of values has been found to replace it.

Tomorrow it’s back across the snowbound Glenshane Pass into Northern Ireland. The story there is that the Northern Ireland Executive hasn’t met for four months. If the will of the people is for peace, the political class is failing them – still tending to look outside to Britain or America to help them to make the compromises which are essential in a working democrary. Of which more another day.

A brief sojourn in Blogstead na Mara among the unsold houses, the unfinished developments and the unstarted developments which are the sad detritus of Ireland’s economic boom.  The developers will go bust – and maybe the banks too.  And the pity is that the houses were ever built because the landscape is spoilt for ever.  We’re on our way to celebrate the Civil Partnership of the children of old friends – so that will be interesting.

We got stuck on the quayside at Cairnryan in the gales for nearly five hours.  Poppy gave up reciting her pedigree under her breath and found me a book from the back of the car – Sadie Jones’ ‘The Outcast’ – billed as a ‘Richard ‘n Judy Summer Read’.  Turns out to be a very very uncomfortable read – of a bereaved child for whom everything goes wrong – of the dreary ’50’s – of self harming.  And he sees the church as the place where he is most patronised by others and where the hypocrisy of the community is at its greatest.  So he burns it down.

Speaking of which, we did as many second-homers do yesterday – went to church.  With a comment in the Visitors’ Book from somebody in Perthshire welcoming Prayer Book Matins.  And we said Psalm 1 ‘which tells us where true happiness can be found in alternative half verses.’  But we’re made very welcome there every time we go.  We know people and it’s good to be there and have a natter at the gate afterwards.  Worship, community, belonging … all sort of muddled up together.

Well it was a William McGonagle night on the Tay Bridge as we headed for St Andrews this evening.  This was the third evening which Alison and I have run in different parts of the diocese – using material from the Lambeth Video Diaries with some of our own photos and looking at Anglican Communion issues.  I am surprised by the numbers – must have been around 50 people there this evening.  Since we were in St Andrews, people use big words when they ask questions – so I had to work hard to keep up.  The level of interest and knowledge amazes me – is it a ‘small church’ thing that the Anglican Communion matters to our people?  Or is it the Seabury connection which means that we feel we have a historic connection with the Communion?  Whatever the reason, we had an energetic discussion about autonomy in communion, gracious restraint, federation or curia or communion, moratoria, covenant, holiness and justice paradigms.  Exciting, don’t you think?

Still gently fretting about Obama – and afraid that he might not win.  Have you read his book – The Audacity of Hope?  I approached it expecting to find a piece of campaign pulp.  But it’s a very intelligent, thoughtful and elegant statement of his political philosophy.  I take some comfort from the widely-expressed view that Sarah Palin has become a liability outside the republican heartlands – I suggested some time back that she would cost McCain the election.  But I suppose what niggles is this … that the polls in Northern Ireland were almost always to the left of what happened when people went into the polling booth.  So the polls tended to overstate the strength of the centre ground.  But when people went into the polling booth …

But of course there are other fascinations in there.  Sarah Palin’s passing from the political scene will remove an obvious way in to talking about creationism and fundamentalism.  And then I found myself wafting home in the faithful Passat late one evening from somewhere or other listening to an erudite Radio 3 discussion about the irrationalist tendency in American politics and religion.  Well irrationalism isn’t confined to America – but that’s for another day.  But the egg-headedness of the discussion rather reminded me of that lengthy and wordy lecture I must deliver some day …  on the use of silence in worship.

Back in the parish days, we were, as usual, struggling to comprehend the vagaries of human nature. It must have been one of those Ted and Dougal moments, ‘It makes you think, Dougal.’ ‘About what, Ted?’ In an effort to find solid ground, I asked my colleague Grace whom she most admired .. To which I got the instant and totally surprising answer, ‘Madonna’. Why? ‘Because she constantly re-invents herself.

So it’s with sadness that I’ve been ploughing today through all the stuff about the end of her marriage today. Not least because of her adopted child from Malawi. India Knight in the Sunday Times thinks she’s great too – worth much more than Posh and all the WAG’s and their kind. And I suspect that that ability to re-invent herself – which Grace correctly identified – means that she is [terrifyingly] in control of every aspect of her life.

A bit hectic. We fitted in a quick trip to Castleward in Northern Ireland for the wedding of old friends. There was just time to look at one of my favourite bits of Northern Ireland – the narrows between Portaferry and Strangford at the entrance to Strangford Lough. The tide runs at speeds up to nine knots and there are plenty of eddies and whirlpools to make life interesting for the sailor.

We found the first tidal power installation to supply power to the National Grid hard at work in the channel.  On for a quick visit to Braemar – which served to remind me of the astonishing beauty of Scotland and how much of Ireland has been spoiled by apparently random development of poor quality.

I called in this morning on a Training Session for congregational representatives from across the Province who take responsibility for Children and Vulnerable Adults. The attendance was very encouraging. The best thing one can say about all this is that it needs to become routine. I’ve never really believed those who say that ‘We’ll never be able to find volunteers because of all this form filling and legal stuff.’ The reality is that it makes everybody safer – adults as well as children.

If they had asked me what the unemployment figure was, I would have said ‘less than a million’. So how did it get to be 1.79 million with the addition of 164000 this month? Is that what has somehow become acceptable?

Clergy at least have a reasonable prospect of continuing to be employed .. Yes I know we technically aren’t employees … Yes I know we only work Sundays etc., etc. But I suspect that the fragile financial structures of the church are going to come under considerable pressure.  Pensions for a start.

Thank goodness for Blue Peter and a bit of escapism.

And now for something completely different. No 3 here at Blogstead passed me Paul Johnson’s September article from the Spectator. Apparently there are now 114 Church of England bishops – in 1834 there were 26. Here in Scotland we have seven – and one seems to keep reasonably busy. But doing what, I wonder? As a poacher – in my pre-gamekeeper days – I used to give thanks that my parish was on the extreme western edge [or was that left?] of the diocese. Anyway, far enough away to discourage any random calling from the bishop.

So back to the travelogue … bicycles at Blair Atholl for the Killicrankie circle. Down the path beside the north-bound platform at Blair Atholl .. across the 1865 footbridge over the Garry … along the path towards Killicrankie .. UP THE HILL and down the other side to the Garry Bridge and back. Puffection!

And again, as we headed early this morning for St Modoc’s, Doune. Another sunny Sunday morning with mist on the lower slopes. As the faithful Passat came down the ridge south of Perth on the A9 where you have the view right across to Dunning and the Ochils .. the mist was lying in wisps along the line of the Earn. Tough but .. etc.

I drove home this evening from Newport-on-Tay where we have been discussing the appointment of a part-time Rector who will be paid in a year what a hedge fund manager would earn in a morning.  I was moodily listening to a Radio 4 ‘talking heads’ discussion of the great future which lies ahead of us – particularly us baby-boomers who are starting to look forward to collecting our pensions.  The consensus?  That ultimately there will be inflation as governments print money to deal with the huge indebtedness.

I’ve been reading the paper every day – and I always read the financial pages.  Interesting that there is a short of unreality about the financial mayhem – rather like a hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico which hasn’t reached Texas yet.  But it’s coming and jobs will be lost and young people will find it harder to get their first mortgage and ..

Scapegoat?  All of us, in one sense.  Any of us who has taken at look at the rising value of property and felt wealthier – even tho’ we weren’t.  All of us who helped the bubble on its way by suspending disbelief – glad to think that money might be created out of nothing in particular and even by the trading of debt.  And the bankers’ sin?  Well the key human sin, I suspect, is almost always a variation on the self-centredness theme – in this case arrogance.  Laced with no small amount of greed.