To: James Aylett
From: Sendit.com Update
Subject: HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE only 15.99 pounds
Well, well. I remember when the only way you could see both at the same time involved dressing like Hermione and having in your possession some very obscure pages of the fama suturae.
These days he’s clearly just got desperate. £15.99 for a candid glimpse of Harry and the Goblet? You’ll be able to buy a lurid written account of his adventures scribbled by some hack, next.
Oh, hang on.
The Prime Minister is out hunting women, John Hutton as his wingman. When will politicians learn that ladies out shopping are not vermin, and deserve at least as much legal protection as foxes?
The Independent’s shameful (and somewhat unexpected) bias in favour of British military deaths in Iraq is worth pointing out, but what about all these words people keep on using incorrectly?
For instance, Metro today had a headline something like “Blair met 100th casualty”. Which he may well have done, but that isn’t important. What they meant was “Blair met 100th fatality“. If the two were synonymous then we wouldn’t have both Six Feet Under and ER.
Worse, however, was The Evening Standard saying that Corporal Gordon Alexander Pritchard was a “victim”. What was he a victim of? It pains me to say it, because I grew up amongst a lot of army kids and I have friends who are in the army now, but one of the few things you can guarantee about being in the military is a greater risk of dying. Using words like “victim” is attempting to hide behind the same fantasy that gave us “surgical” bombing, and it’s a dangerous fantasy because it makes us think that the norm is for a whole load of soldiers to run at a whole load of other soldiers, for one side to win (ours, naturally) but for no one to get hurt. Which is more disturbing, that soldiers get hurts and sometimes killed, or that we are being fed propaganda that suggests that they don’t?
Meanwhile I notice that Tony Blair has been defeated by John Wells. Next we’ll hear that Patricia Hewitt is asking George Clooney to be her new policy advisor.
Today’s Independent has a very striking front page listing all the names of the one hundred British soldiers killed in Iraq.
Which is all very moving and patriotic, but for the sake of balance I would point out that to list the names of all the Iraqi civilians killed by our military intervention would take at least 283 front pages of the Independent, and possibly as many as 319.
I think I’ve missed some Anglican directive stating that all sermons should contain an obligatory reference to Harry Potter.
I’ve now sat through several sermons where, for example, the dragon in the book of Revelation has been totally unnecessarily compared to the one in Harry Potter and the Burning Cuplet or whatever it’s called, or the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross is said to be “a bit like the sacrifice Harry Potter had to make when he gave up one of his sweets for Hermione in Harry Potter and the Acrobat of Emmerdale.” I find it as much of an affront as it would be to discover porn tucked into one of the pages of my hymn book.
On that subject (sermons, not porn), I preached in my own church yesterday evening for the first time (lay preaching is, in my opinion, to be much encouraged) – and I was more nervous than I’ve been about any improvisation or even one-man show. It’s worse than doing stand-up. The fact that an fairly emminent theologian was in the congregation didn’t help. Not to mention an actress who held on to me afterwards and told me that I had a long preaching career ahead of me but she wanted more of my eyes (criticism noted, my next sermon will be accompanied by eyes aplenty).
As I stepped down from the pulpit I was also overcome by a sense of unease that the whole congregation might be shifting around anxiously, whispering to each other “why didn’t he mention Harry Potter?”
I just typed into google “what to do if you really need to go to bed but can’t quite turn off your computer” and it brought up this.
My word……….goodness knows what kind of dreams I’m going to have.
NB: James Lark is not responsible for the content of external sites. Nuff said.
Do check out the Video Nation website for our little contribution. Oh that they had used more of the hours of footage we shot…
There is now a whole website dedicated to Deon Vonniget here. I mention it through sheer self-publicity and also an inordinate amount of pride at having learned how to make websites in a mere two days.
…there are better poets than her (as she’s well aware) and there’s poetry I find more beautiful. But she’s the only poet who, without exception, makes me smile broadly every time I read her work.
(And yet also occasionally want to cry.)
On the front page of the BBC News website at the moment there is a link to the following story:
“BBC interview with doctor who opted for assisted suicide.”
After re-reading it several times I am now assuming that this is an interview with a doctor, who opted for assisted suicide.
Rather than the sensational story I initially read into the headline, that somebody doing a BBC interview with Doctor Who opted for assisted suicide.
Talk To Rex 