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I just changed the batteries in my sonic screwdriver.

The really tricky bit was getting the little screw out to open it up. Which struck me as ironic.

Remembrance Sunday always presents a difficult balance to strike, particularly in a church context. Because as the war veterans troop into the pews bedecked in medals, there’s a danger that underneath the sombre veneer a hint of pageantry and celebration begins to creep in – and to me there’s little to celebrate in two wars which ravaged the world across (cumulatively) a decade and claimed an unbelievable 99 million lives along the way. So as a choir director I’m always careful not to use music that could be in any way misinterpreted as celebrating the glory of war (Onward Christian Soldiers, or some of the more bombastic post-WW2 anthems by Vaughan Williams and the like). I’m far more inclined to use the ever-topical O God of Earth and Altar, and anthems like Peter Aston’s So They Gave Their Bodies, a fitting tribute to those who died for the sake of our present – the people who we rightly remember on this day.

Except it’s not that simple. Because the war veterans don’t come to church wearing their medals just to remember the dead – the fact that they’re standing there is symbolic of their triumph, as are the British flags flying on every flagpole in the country. We won. And nor should we begrudge our veterans the respect due to them for that.

It’s just that, to me at any rate, that victory is more than tempered – soured, in fact – by the fact that the war happened at all. I’ve no doubt those who saw their friends killed in it feel exactly the same way. Moreover, it was a war which – I know, in hindsight, but also with foresight – could have been avoided altogether. If Germany hadn’t been forced into a crippling recession in the aftermath of the first world war. If Hitler’s foreign policy hadn’t been essentially ignored for much of the 1930s, except for some tutting from behind desks in Whitehall. The reason that it remains essential to remember the world wars is to avoid anything like them happening again – so to remember the mistakes that we undeniably made in failing to respond adequately to what was happening in countries other than our own (something our leaders might have called to mind as Israel walked across Lebanon, whilst they tutted from behind their desks in Whitehall).

If we’re celebrating any triumph, then, it’s the fact that in 1945, in spite of the carnage, the loss of life and the horror of war, Britain could say that it helped solve a problem that was at least partly of its own making. It was a victory in clearing up our own mess – and persevering until our mistakes had properly been undone.

That’s something else which Mr Blair might like to bear in mind before he prematurely pulls our troops out of Iraq.

…I dreamt that I was put on trial for tax fraud and video piracy.

I don’t remember anything about the trial, but I recall that the urinals were carpeted.

George W Bush was careful to point out the “Saddam Hussein will continue to receive the due process and legal rights that he denied to the Iraqi people”.

That’ll be jolly useful to him if he wants to negotiate exactly how much he’s going to be executed.

I may have mentioned before that one of the most delightful things about my friend Jason Fout is that his often serious and challenging obsession with matters theological is tempered by a similar obsession with matters culinary. As such, Jason stands as a living example of the importance of sensual experience in spiritual understanding, every bit as much as the cinematic joy that is Babette’s Feast.

Jason was our very own Babette a couple of weeks ago at St Mark’s, when he prepared a selection of pizzas along these lines:

And the pizza in question did indeed live up to the look on his daughter Alex’s face.

On Sunday I invited Jason and family back to Victoria Street after he preached at St Mark’s (a sermon in which he disappointingly ignored my suggestion to preach on Guy Fawkes) and became increasingly nervous that, even with Alastair’s capable assistance, we would end up serving something which to an expert like Revd Fout would seem the equivalent of beans on toast. Actually, I even considered cutting my losses and making him beans on toast.

But Alastair and myself discovered something wonderful; cooking is not about following instructions, or trying to recreate something you’ve seen your Mum do. In fact, you can make it up!

We even cooked something with a name that we thought had been made up too – a poussin. (Well, four of them actually – poussi?) Though later we were informed that a poussin is a teenage chicken, and I suddenly felt quite bad about eating them. I mean, they were probably quite unhappy in a sulky, listless way, but they still had their whole adult lives ahead of them.

The joy of cooking the poussi was not in the simplicity of the process (you put them in the oven) so much as the little artistic details we achieved. Alastair bought some fresh basil and liberally shredded it over the teenage birds, whilst I slapped on olive oil and herbs. Then I sliced up some apple and stuffed it into the teenage birds’ orifices. And finally (possibly getting a bit carried away) we sprinkled them with mulled wine mix.

An example poussin follows.

The look on Jason’s face says the following:

1. That joy at freshly cooked food runs in his family.
2. That the poussin was a success.
3. That Jason was actually quite jealous of our achievements with the poussin.

The reason I bring all this up, apart from the need to brag, is that if we were in a television programme called Can’t Cook, Can Cook (I admit it’s not conceptually as brilliant as the original), in this instance the Can’t Cookers put up a pretty good fight.

I’m quite keen to know how the audience would have voted. So if you feel you can judge our efforts on the above photos, please do let me know.*

If you prefer simpler pleasures, maybe you’d like to draw me a picture of what you think a poussin looks like when it’s still running around?

*Keen judges may wish to take into account the fact that I was aided in the Can’t Cook kitchen by Alastair, who can cook, whereas Jason made several pizzas alone. In this case, I feel for the sake of fairness I should point out that Jason managed to lose the middle of one of his pizzas in the oven, along with half a jar full of anchovies – which was of course a huge tragedy.

The one who doesn’t have a wife.

Okay, I confess I’ve been catching up on Neighbours since I got back from Australia. Not obsessively – just to see the bits I learned I’d missed on the Ramsey Street tour, like Connor being horribly murdered and Sky getting pregnant by three different people.

The following line from an episode at the end of August leapt out at me. Paul and his children are having a jokey chat about home videos and Robert (who is, incidentally, pretending to be Cameron in this particular scene) makes a comment about Paul’s 80s mullet. Paul responds:

“I did not have an 80s mullet! Excuse me, it was your Uncle Scotty who was the king of the mullet. That was until nature took revenge and his hairline started receding…”

In case you forget who played “Uncle Scotty”, I would point out that this is a brazen jibe about none other than Jason Donovan and his current follically-challenged state.

It’s just one step away from joking about Aunty Charlene and her breast cancer…

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Philippe have separated after seven years of marriage. The figures on Oscar winners’ marriages aren’t great, are they? I’d like to see a comparison with other, lower profile but still high stress, positions – CEOs, politicians and so forth. I doubt it’s specific to actresses, no matter how tempting that is as a simple explanation.

On Saturday, one of my best friends got married. Thinking back, there weren’t actually wedding bells, but there were all the staples of weddings past, present and future:

• traffic jams, pubs and poor directions resulting in various people getting to the church late (but fortunately still in the right order)
• a best man looking more stressed than the groom; to his credit, Andy did a fantastic job (and even managed to get up at seven the following morning to walk round the hotel gardens – which were incredibly beautiful)
• cars that haven’t been used for anything other than weddings in more than fifty years
• the father of the bride being more tearful than he’d like to admit, and occasionally closer to the bone than he perhaps originally intended
• the mother of the bride realising she wasn’t allowed to fret about her daughter’s life any more (and so fretting about her other daughter)
• meeting entertaining members of family (and family-to-be), and people you haven’t seen for ages (sometimes at once)
• unexpectedly deep and serious conversations
• children, crazy people and other live entertainments
• lots of alchohol

Perhaps predictably, one of the readings was from Ecclesiastes, as ridiculed by James a few days ago. What James failed to point out is that the following line ends “and a threefold cord is not quickly broken”. There are several lines about two being better than one, and suddenly we get three into the equation. Who is the third? The priest? The mother of the bride? Solomon? And if three lie down together, can they all keep warm, or does that only work in twos? And if so, which one gets cold?

These are questions for couples everywhere to explore themselves. To Michaela and Darren: good luck in finding your answers.

Jimmy Carr has co-written a book called The Naked Jape in which he explains how to tell jokes.

Not only is this like Hitler writing a book on international diplomacy, it is clear from the extracts in The Sunday Telegraph that he has nothing interesting to say on the subject. Aside from recapping some classic one-liners that don’t work on paper, it’s full of well-worn observations about the power of shock, the importance of timing, and the fact that ‘k’ and ‘oo’ sounds are inherently funny.

There are, however, hints at why Jimmy Carr himself fails to be funny so regularly (however many ‘k’ and ‘oo’ sounds he uses). He advises, for example, that comedians should “project a demeanour of relaxed confidence”; so that’s what he’s trying to do! I’m sorry to break it to you Jimmy, it’s coming across as a demeanour of being an unpleasant, arrogant dickhead.

And on that subject, I read that David Blunkett’s book has only sold 768 copies in its first week of publication.

That isn’t very many.

While I am enjoying my continued feeling of glorious triumph over Blunkett (if you recall, my blog brought about his downfall), I would say that if you’re torn between buying his book and Carr’s, please buy the Blunkett – if he doesn’t shift a few more books he may redirect his poisonous personality (which in the world of literature just mingles nicely) back towards political ambitions (which, I believe his book makes clear, are to eventually run the world).