The God (p) Article

From the time of man’s first disobedience humans have been striving to understand, develop and improve their environment and living standards. Even before Jesus walked this earth man had begun to experiment with photography and who could argue that the developments witnessed since the 19^th century have not aided humankind in many areas, perhaps most notably in xray imaging and its digital offshoots.

We now know almost everything we need to know about our universe and computer technology is such that the world of computerised virtual reality is heading towards computerised actual reality where touch and smell are added to programs.

My dear friend David Levy has put forward a powerfully reasoned thesis in his book Love + Sex with Robots where he  postulates that humans will soon be having relationships with aesthetically fashioned machines cutting out all the baggage that goes with human interactions. Again, who could argue that within this world which is biased towards the ‘cool’ and beautiful, a large proportion of us wouldn't opt for unconditional love. Would a machine that could actually talk our language be any less beguiling than a pet animal?

The latest development to excite the world of science as a direct result of photography is the possibility of the Higgs boson hypothesis becoming proven. The so-called ‘God Particle’, which is perhaps aptly named as man seeks to become all-knowing,  is being investigated with the help of the Large Hadron Collider (the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator) which lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 miles) in circumference and as deep as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature. The possibilities are endless.

As a Christian I am wary. In Genesis: 11 the Bible tells us of man’s self-indulgence and arrogance in deciding to build a tower up to Heaven. God in His infinite wisdom, knew this "stairway to heaven" would only lead the people away from Him. He noted the powerful force within their unity of purpose. As a result, He confused their language, causing them to speak in different tongues so they could not understand each other. By doing this, God thwarted their plans. He also scattered the people of the city all over the face of the earth.

To me there is a fine line between using technology to alleviate misery and suffering within the wonderful gift of freewill granted us, and using technology to interfere with nature and all its beauty. We often gauge the price we are paying for some of our advancements in terms of carbon footprinting but hardly ever consider the deeper aspects of our meddling. We as humans have a very cavalier approach to science and some academic institutes are undoubtedly only concerned in making a name for themselves; and its individuals in winning laureates.

In the wide spectrum of life, taking all things into consideration, are any of these technological advancements a boon to society? It is not for me to comment. The question is a complex one and the answer almost unfathomable. As we prolong our lives quite artificially, and increasingly against the previously accepted ‘laws’ of nature, can we honestly say this is a good thing? After all, one of the promises that God made to us is that we would have eternal life if we kept the faith. This has always been one of the most appealing aspects of Christianity, however the life we are promised is one that is so good that it is unimaginable to us, especially from the viewpoint we have as lucid individuals.

We cannot replicate God’s promise. The economic laws we learn at a rudimentary level tell us that sometimes we have to be thrifty in order to safeguard our future. You might know the story of Joseph and how he budgeted for the seven years of famine and built up stocks so the effect was neglible in Egypt. This is the classic model of prevention of boom and bust that the world is experiencing so painfully right now. When we defy these laws of nature we pay a price that cannot always be quantified. Let’s be honest, it is doom and gloom wherever you go nowadays. Eastenders is almost light relief these days!

I am of course being facetious but all I am trying to say is that to my mind there are far better ways to use our scant resources than on the LHC in search of the God Particle.

If the world’s monetary resources were spread more evenly then there would be more joy in the world. Humans would still strive to better themselves in order to better others. Sloth would be prevented by a new ethos of love and understanding of others.

We have all experienced momentary selflessness whether it be a charitable donation, unconditional love of a child or unpremeditated heroic gesture. When this becomes the accepted norm instead of a situation where we elevate perpetrators then we know that we are moving in the right direction.

As human beings immersed in original sin we can only reach this idyllic state with God's help. All those people who say "I am a good person and do not sin" think about those nasty thoughts they experienced the next time someone cuts them up in their car. Think about the time they lost their temper last, perhaps irrationally. Think about the time they did not give their brother or sister the benefit of the doubt and chose to be indifferent. 

We all sin and our sin becomes acceptable to us over time unless we are reigned in like children.

God is our father, we the naughty children that need growing up. Many of us never grow up.

My day in court

Today I attended Horsham Magistrate’s Court for contravening a red traffic light and it was a very emotional and costly experience.


Of course I knew I didn’t stand a chance of having my plea of innocence upheld as the integrity of the Gatso Cameras have to be maintained by the magistrates - and I certainly couldn’t prove the camera was faulty.

As it happened the numerous hours I had spent compiling four DVDs of the troublesome traffic lights meant precious little as the court did not bother to look at them as the legal expert did not feel it would prove the camera was not working properly – my only real defence.

On the 4th May I was driving through Three Bridges at 1.52pm and passed through an amber light on one of those systems with another set of complimentary lights on the other side of the junction. Unfortunately as I passed through the first set the complimentary set then changed to red so I was stuck in the middle of a busy junction and had to drive on through that red light.

I was served a summons two weeks later although didn’t understand initially that I was being accused of driving through the first light three seconds after it had become red.

I remember very well going through the first light on amber and I remember very well it changing to red a car’s length after I passed it as I could plainly see the complimentary set change before my eyes.

On filming the lights I noticed that four seconds after these lights went red traffic invariably came out of the junction road (St Mary’s Drive) but in my case there was not another car to be seen on the junction. This doesn’t of course prove I am innocent but the second picture they sent me had me in the middle of the junction four seconds after the light had changed to red so the clues are there that something was not normal.

Apart from the fact that you would have to be stupid to go through a red light on a very busy road junction three seconds after it was red my memory of the incident is very clear and unequivocal. Of course it is possible that I had an aberration of some sort, after all a member of my family once accused me of swearing at them and yet my recollection was that I couldn’t have done as I simply don’t swear and never have. As the years have gone by I have often questioned the truth of the incident and this episode has brought it to the fore once again.

I can assure you that if I were wrong about the traffic light it would not be a question of me lying to save some money, God forbid I would have saved in the region of £500 by not going to court on a fool’s errand. No, as a Christian I would never lie under oath, and in fact I found myself being so truthful that when asked whether I had seen the flash of the camera I replied “No, but then again when I got caught three times on the same day on a speed camera outside my home in 2001, I did not see any of the flashes then either”.

I think the magistrates believed I was earnest, if not deluded, but the truth is can our memories of things be trusted. My memory is very good and yet I am the most absent-minded person on earth so is it possible that my memory of the incident was built after the fact and I did indeed travel through a set of lights on red totally oblivious to what I was doing.?

The truth is otherwise in my mind. It was a vivid memory at the time and when I parked my car two minutes later in Pound Hill I thought about the incident and I remember hoping that I made the light without penalty as I was acutely aware that it was a close shave.

No, I feel one hundred per cent certain the events happened exactly as I remember and yet how could my car be in a picture that shows a digital representation of the camera information depicting ‘03’ meaning I had crossed the light three seconds after it became red!!

Answers please on a postcard to confused of Bewbush

We are Family!

Lately I have felt like I have entered a world somewhere between The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits and I have just been waiting for normal service to be resumed as soon as possible.


This year has been surreal ; awful in many respects.

The past few months have given me time for reflection and there has been a lot to reflect on as I seem not to be coping with my ‘accident’ as well as I thought I was.

Perhaps it is the niggling pains, the thought of being indisposed for months, the sleeplessness or just the sense of loss at feeling unable to ever again take part in my long-time sport of cycle racing – who knows?

I have some fantastic friends and I know it is a cliché but without them I don’t know how I would have coped at all. I have been up and down, feeling I’m going to die one moment and then feeling strong the next. When I’m in a car I find myself terrified of traffic and any threat or fear, however slight, is causing my body to flood with adrenalin, causing breathlessness and dizziness. One Friday evening recently, a short walk to the end of the road turned into a fight for survival as my heart began to thud out of control forcing me to drop to my knees tearing clumps of grass in confusion. I understand now how my dear sister was terrified of traffic after being involved in a serious car accident in August 1966.

I have felt such a wuss of late and at one point my closest friend actually begged me to ‘man up’. I believe these episodes are panic attacks and can be brought on by the anxiety of chronic illness. It still doesn’t sit well with me though as I feel my faith should be enough to prevent any feelings of anxiety. One of my favourite biblical passages is in Matthew 6 where we are told that we cannot add a single hour to our lives by worrying. It is evidently true and yet in moments of crisis we let ourselves fall into the devil’s trap of self awareness and pity. One of the injuries I sustained in August was a hole in my left ear. This has caused me to develop a constant high-pitched noise which I tend to negate by leaving the television on at night to give myself some background noise. I turn the TV off at some point during the night and immediately become aware of the noise and what I began to do was to believe it was all doom and gloom instead of thinking it was just a temporary blip that will pass – all things inevitably do. I have now put all negative thoughts out of my mind since I’ve been back to church and able to read my bible again.

As I say, my friends have been great. I’ve been overwhelmed with lifts and gifts, including my erstwhile bête noire of an Amazon Kindle. God forbid, these infernal machines, that have been responsible for seriously depleting my hard copy sale, are actually quite useful when one only has one good hand.

As always when I suffer stress or grief my mind turns to family. Who actually are my family?

I have five siblings who for one reason or another are estranged to me. I have never really come to terms with it, as unrequited love is never pleasant and within a family circle it is confusing and frustrating and creates great sadness. I know I am to blame for much of it although I don’t really see it as a blame issue at all. We had a quite unusual upbringing and amid our laughter and joy was some sadness. This sadness was rarely spoken about but in our own individual minds I know it was there. We became islands and did not let each other in too much for the simple reason we knew of each other’s trials and tribulations and our way of dealing with it all was to escape into our own worlds.

I have however found great relief within the scriptures.

Jesus teaches us that family is our Christian fellowship group - with God at the head of the family.

I know I have had lots of people praying for me lately and this has given me enormous strength.

My own faith too, although peppered with moments of self-indulgence and anger at why I should be in this present predicament, has also fortified my vulnerable natural state. I can make some sense of it all above the randomness of earthly misfortunes, in fact it is the Christian way to look within ourselves at times of crises and to put our houses in order if needs be. Sometimes we reason that God has been trying to tell us something and we have refused to listen. Please don’t misunderstand that I am suggesting that God punishes us for being stubborn although in my darkest moments I’d be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind. No, my natural self tells me that I am so flawed and insignificant that God would never be bothered with the likes of me, but my Christian beliefs help me understand that we are all significant to God so some rationalisation is required.

In my case my life does need tweaking. I have lived selfishly as a sportsman for so many years and even through illness and injury and a doctor’s warning not to cycle any more I have persevered. Sometimes I wonder if it defines me as a person. I gave up quizzing partly because I felt the time allocation was too great and yet I spend hours down the gym and hours more out on my bike.

I have also struggled with gambling and celibacy over the years, the former I used to accommodate by promising God I would never gamble during the forty days of Lent and the latter I would reason was a natural inclination to share one’s life in holy matrimony.

So who do I consider to be my family?

Of course my blood ties are unbreakable and I live in hope of reconciliation. I actually knocked on the door of my dear brother Gary only the other day and although I prayed beforehand that I might say the right things unfortunately he wasn’t at home so I didn’t get the chance to say anything at all. I think he knows I love him though so all is well.

Can people you don’t see be family?

Yes they can. Jesus teaches us that our family are all those people that share the same vision, the same hope and the same faith. When His mother and brothers came to visit Him once He made a point of remarking, while pointing to all His followers, that these are my family. My closest Christian friend is as much family as any of my blood relatives but also all those Christians I might not know the name of are equally considered to be family.

Don’t we all feel supportive of fellow members of clubs and societies?

I pray that my blood relatives are Christian or at least will one day be so. Quite often the state of Christianity is a mere timing difference!

Not a Racism issue - Just best practice

So IVF pioneer Lord Winston has had to issue a public statement that he is not racist after stating that poor communication skills of some foreign nurses are putting patients in danger! I ask you! – this is the man who has proven his humanitarian qualities repeatedly.

My last night in hospital was a sleepless one. I was in pain and suffering heart flutters after a cardiac ablation. I was restless and very irritable and had so many tubes and wires sticking out of me I could not even get up for the toilet. The night nurse constantly monitored me and had told me the evening before that my blood required testing at 4am for some unknown reason and that my warfarin drip needed taking out by 6. None of this was conducive to a good night’s sleep but the real problem I experienced as I lay awake playing hangman on the TV consul all night was a simple one – The night nurse did not speak English!

Now it may seem inconsequential to you reading this but I can tell you that at the time I felt so lonely so desperately ill and lonely that I would have killed to have an English-speaking nurse pop their head around the curtain so I could express my feelings and possibly be reassured or even just exchange pleasantries.

In my case by the morning I was in a complete state of exhaustion and bewilderment.

My friend came up at 7am to take me home as the surgeon had told me the day before and I was by now desperate to get home to my own bed because of the night of despair.

Unfortunately I was not signed off until 5pm and had a very hairy day suffering panic attacks and all manner of anxiety, possibly as a result of sleep deprivation. Things have not really calmed down too much since due to the hospital not co-ordinating my operations correctly so I am now left with a badly fractured collarbone that cannot be operated on for three months.

All I know is that if I had found someone to talk to when returning from theatre so I could have felt assured that all was well then I would have swanned through the mental trauma I was already experiencing due to my cycle accident.

So I agree with Robert Winston – and I too am not racist 

How life has changed since last blog

I do not want to over-dramatise things by saying this has been the worst month of my life as it would be an insult to the memory of my dear mother and my beloved nephew Jason and niece Tammy.


However it has been an absolutely horrendous year so far health-wise and my cycling career has had to be ended prematurely by the post-traumatic stress caused by a recent ‘accident’.

I was cycling to Crawley Hospital on the morning of 11 August to have a heart rate monitor fitted to record the Supra Ventricular Tachycardia I was diagnosed with a while back with a view to ablation.

I almost made it but was hit from behind on the dual carriageway near the hospital and suffered multiple fractures, some of which were displaced - so annoyingly painful and tricky to repair.

The good news is my ablation op was postponed until last Friday 9th September and although they were reluctant to perform the procedure due to doubt about my ability to lie flat on an operating table for several hours with broken bones whilst having catheters inserted into my heart, the magic man, Dr Gandhi, agreed to give it a go.

Dr Gandhi, Tom, Sam and the rest of his team were brilliant. They made me as comfortable as possible before commencing and the whole operation was like a well-oiled machine. They simulated (stimulated in this instance works perfectly as well) my tachycardia by infusing adrenalin into my veins and waited until my SVTs began. Fortunately this worked like a dream and Dr Gandhi found the offending area of my heart in less than an hour and immediately informed me. The team then took down the catheter through the main artery in my groin and replaced it with the ablation wire. It is a strange feeling as you lie there and sense the confidence of the crew although knowing the risks of the operation. I must admit I was forearmed with numerous family and friends praying for me and felt totally confident of a successful outcome, although naturally a little apprehensive of failure.

Ironically, I only plucked up the courage to have the op as I wanted to have one final fling on my bike as I have not done myself justice in recent years due to the onset of what I call ‘palpitations’. Subsequently of course I have decided to sell my bikes and give up cycling as I have been left traumatised by the events of 11 August as I really feel I should not have walked away from such an horrific accident. When the police informed me of the damage to the lady’s car last week it really made me think even more how lucky I was. My bike is apparently almost unmarked and yet her windows were smashed on the side closest to the kerb and her wing mirror was knocked off and smashed and the side panels were scratched and dented. This means I must have absorbed much of the impact myself! Apparently she saw me (well I was wearing bright luminous yellow Asic cycling clothes from top to toe), indicated to overtake me but then found she could not complete the manoeuvre because of traffic in the fast lane and cut back in. All I know is I thought I was a goner and expected to see my brains splattered all over the highway. Shoulder, Collarbone, Hip and Finger injury seems a small price to pay although the collarbone is displaced in four areas and is a work in progress at the moment.

It was an absolute work of art how the cardiac team not only found the area of the heart to zap but also synchronised the timing to ensure the most effective job possible. It took time to co-ordinate but when they finally moved in with all guns blazing their action was swift and sure.

“I’ve got it Trevor” was music to my ears, as Dr Gandhi explained he had burnt that offending piece of my heart (the sinus node) that had caused me so much grief since birth. Yes Dr Gandhi was quick to tell me that I have had the problem since birth (57 years) and now it was gone. All my young years of feeling less than normal as I had to drag myself off cricket pitches or away from playing children. All my teenage years when I gained a reputation of either winning races or dropping out. All my recent years when I have held up my cycling team as I lay prone on the ground desperately trying to shock my heart into its regular rhythm.
All those times that blighted my life in secret denial of being different from others - now gone - hopefully forever.

I felt euphoric of course and I can vouch that the team seemed equally pleased that it all came together so well.

I have to admit the next 24 hours were a little grim as I found it impossible to sleep in the hospital bed as my heart was thumping all night and by the morning I was in a right state and repeatedly had to walk out of the hospital as anxiety took over. Fortunately the friend who picked me up from the Royal Sussex the next day was given a paper “what to expect post-op” and also the registrar came down to the ward to explain to me that it was perfectly normal for the thudding beats to get worse than ever for up to three months before the new rhythm settles. This was music to my ears and made me feel much better about my predicament – and even as I write this blog the sainted Dr Gandhi has just telephoned me to enquire as to my health and implored me to take it easy as he knows I am a very active man. Fortunately I have no choice anyway until my bones heal.

It is truly an awe-inspiring feeling to have had a problem that at various times in my life had impinged on my enjoyment to the point that I had to give up my schools running career and then my cycling career earlier this year – and now it is more than likely to have gone. It actually seems too good to be true which is why the mind plays these tricks and you actually find yourself doing all the stressful things that induced the SVTs in the first place, only now it is impossible for them to occur.

I’ve sometimes, very unfairly, been called a genius when in fact I have no skills at all to mention, but a man like Dr Gandhi has a skill honed and perfected across 14 years – a skill that literally can change the quality of life of a poor undeserving wretch such as myself – this is genius.

Even the month of pain and agony I have suffered pales into insignificance today as I lay on my bed with hope of a brighter future without the inconvenience of having to bear the cross of fear of attack.

To be honest, even if I were to be among those small minority of people who sometimes found their symptoms return (I somehow feel confident I shall not be) I know that the team performed their best and I would come to terms with that horror in the full knowledge that all these things are for a reason.

I felt humbled too today as one of my partners in crime on the cardiac ward is having to have a triple bypass next Tuesday, another has had heart attacks due to post-traumatic stress following a stabbing six years ago, and yet another cannot have a pace-maker fitted as this procedure does not work on the left atrial valve so he is effectively just praying not to have further attacks.

All these men are great men with stories I cannot go into here without their permission but stories none the less that made us all bond and all realise that we are all in this life together for better or for worse. We laughed and joked and generally made light of our predicaments. We knew that some of us would have better outcomes than others. For God’s sake two of these men had already suffered far more than lesser men could stand.

Love is all there is – there is nothing more

London Riots - what's to blame?

I know that every right-minded individual in this country will feel anger at the wanton destruction of the past few days. Many of those same people will also feel threatened and scared of the possibility of the events escalating into general anarchy.

Perhaps somewhat fewer people will try to analyse and rationalise what has actually occurred. As a Christian I have tried to come to terms with my own thoughts on the subject and I don’t believe this is a recession issue or even a reprisal issue.

We are not talking about massive levels of violence against the person here, although clearly the police have been targeted for the brunt of it. No, we are talking about young people, children in some cases, taking advantage of a situation as young people are prone to do.

I saw on the news a reporter walking through Clapham, bravely admonishing these kids but clearly not in mortal danger from them. He passed by a bunch of giggling girls who tried to block the camera and run away. These girls looked like young teenagers caught up in the typical gang mentality that has existed through the ages whether we glorify it as in the Gordon Riots or Swing Riots of the 18^th and 19^th century or condemn it out of hand as with the 20^th century rampages by mods, rockers, skinheads and hells angels.

It is interesting that the first thing we all do is study the scene and imagine it to be a race problem; after all the touchpaper was lit by the death of a black resident of Tottenham!.

It is easy for us to make assumptions by studying the TV pictures and concluding that many of the looters are black, but truth be known the areas of London affected have predominantly black populations. However, I clearly saw gangs of white youths acting aggressively towards police and also looting. I don’t believe this is a race issue either.

When we are young we are not fully developed emotionally and we are prone to peer pressure, acts of stupidity carried out to impress our friends and general distrust of the establishment. I have no doubt that a large proportion of these looters will be horrified at their deeds in a few years time. I believe this is a youth issue.

So do I believe our Government have acted in the correct manner? To hell no

I believe the riot act should never have been dispensed with in 1973 because if these kids knew the repercussions of their actions could end in serious harm to themselves then they would think twice about answering Twitter appeals and using their BlackBerry devices to seek out areas where there is no police presence.

I also believe that in a time when the country, indeed the world, is in such serious economic strife we cannot afford to absorb the cost which far exceeds the immediate replacement of buildings and although paid for by insurance companies in the main, inevitably adds to the burden of every household.

So I would have called in the army to maintain order on the streets with a brief to ensure no torching of buildings and no looting.

I would have gone further and used water cannons and rubber bullets and ensured a strong armed police presence as well as a strategic military showing.

I abhor violence of any kind but this sits perfectly well with my conscience as although I know young people do silly things (how did I ever make it out of my teens I’ll never know) they do have to be held responsible to some extent and are very able to understand corporal punishment, in fact sometimes it is all they can respond to as part of the growing up experience.

At the end of the day these people are law breakers and are causing worry and anxiety across the nation and do need to be kept in check. I don’t agree with the deputy mayor of London who was calling on local citizens to band together to try and reason with the perpetrators. This is not a case of locals failing to put their heads above the parapet, it is a case of locals being apathetic as they couldn’t care less about the local PC World store – why should they?

If these gangs honed in on residential areas I have no doubt we would have had many deaths on our hands by now, so please don’t misunderstand what I ‘m saying.

We simply cannot have gangs roaming the streets looting in broad daylight as the whole fabric of society will break down, but I do not believe that these people are generally more criminally-minded than the next person, although clearly there is also an element of hardened criminals that would be trying their luck irrespective of riot acts or curfews. This defiant element must be stamped on summarily. Warn them now to cease or be punished further. Warn their parents to keep them off the streets. Those that have been caught on camera must pay the price of their crimes. Those that have been fortunate today must know that tomorrow is not an option for them. The government must act now before the innocent are dragged in as they surely will as communities will only tolerate a certain amount and when local resources are drained tempers will fray.

Today must be the last day.

For God’s sake this human life can be such a struggle at the best of times and if only these youngsters knew that what they are doing will change nothing for the better in their lives or in the lives of society as a whole.

But of course one day they will know

The Tree of Life (watch it and lose the will to live)

I watched a film last night at Cineworld Crawley. On a Wednesday evening there is a concession for Orange mobile users whereby they can buy a ticket and get one free. This made for long queues not only at the cinema but in the car park and all the surrounding retail food outlets.


This somehow made the anticipation all the more special as the gauntlet of parking, then ticket purchase, and finally food, had to be run.

I paid my £8.60, entered Studio 6 and, after 40 minutes of ads, settled down to watch Tree of Life, the latest movie, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn.

Two young lads sitting behind me had been extremely loud throughout the ads but once the opening film certificate appeared on the screen they hushed immediately, as did the rest of the packed auditorium.

Twenty minutes later I found myself enthralled by the ‘Exit’ sign on the emergency door to the right of the screen. I studied the line drawing of the person depicted under the sign and tried to work out where this exit led to.

I then noticed a trickle of people, including the two chatty lads, walking out of the studio. This trickle became a torrent as good-natured laughter filled the air - the laughter stemming not from anything occurring in the film you understand but merely from the ever-increasing amount of people making a beeline for the exit.

In the ultimate irony an usher continually appeared at the entrance to escort out a handful of kids who had infiltrated Studio 6 without paying. If only she had waited a few minutes they surely would have gone of their own volition!

I was asked by a friend afterwards what the film was about and gave a rather glib reply of “it was about 130 minutes” as I couldn’t really explain (or rather I couldn’t be bothered to explain as this would have given the film some level of importance it did not deserve).

All I will say is that Tree of Life is undoubtedly the worst film I have ever seen, worse even than Gomorrah

Are You Scared of Dying?

I listened to part of the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 yesterday morning and the daily topic was the growing propensity for children to be unhealthily scared of death. Parents were phoning in with tales of their children hiding under bedclothes screaming “I’m going to die”.

So what has caused this phenomenon and is it the modern scourge that it would appear to be?

There are times when each of us becomes aware of our mortality and the natural defence against this is to avert our thoughts almost instantly so although we are left with the realisation of the inevitable we do not dwell on it or let it impinge on our lives.

Sometimes this coping mechanism goes wrong and we are unable to focus on anything other than the circumstances that might lead to our ultimate demise. This usually occurs at night when idle reflective moments turn into deep introspections. I would argue that this is not necessarily a negative thing.

Although I never had this morbid sensation for myself (I was very good at diverting my thoughts and anyway it just seemed too far into the future to worry about logically) I did have an unnatural sadness at the thought that my mother and father would one day die. I would physically shake and on occasion my heart beat would go into overdrive (a symptom that has recently returned whilst racing around on my bike). I remember several occasions when after particularly bad nights when I got no sleep at all I was literally unable to raise my head from the pillow. It was almost like being trapped inside my body, able to think fairly clearly and quite aware of my surroundings but unable to physically move or speak. On several more occasions I was able to rise from bed but found it almost impossible to walk so had to take the day off school. 

I do think I was particularly sensitive but these feelings certainly made me appreciate my parents, cherish them and love them in the knowledge that one day they might not be there.  I was eventually able to rationalise my feelings and put into perspective the vagaries of being human. I still worry about my father and my four brothers and sister and indeed my close friends but it is within a certain context. I made a concerted effort to concentrate on what's important in life. I strove every day to be a kind and generous and loving person (and failed miserably of course) and any time I even thought about harbouring grudges or maintaining a ridiculous anger, I'd see death and I'd remember.

The expert in the studio informed Jeremy, and the listeners, that children brought up in Christian households (and presumably some other faiths) tend to deal with death far better than those brought up in non-Christian households. I thought this was beautiful and true and where the Richard Dawkins’ of this world fail to understand the deep magic that is Christianity.

When my mother died 20 years ago I was not a practising Christian although she was. I read her daily diaries, the last 11 years of which consisted of unerring daily entries of “attended Holy Mass”. All of us were struck, awe-struck by the perfection of my mother’s death – her dignity, the way she put her house in order, and of course her incredible life’s journey in service to our Lord. She had no idea that Christmas Day 1992 was to be her final day on Earth. She had not been ill so it was a shock to us all. On that fateful day when she said to me quite calmly “remember Trev, I love all my children” I knew what she was telling me, although as is my way I used the ability to divert my thoughts from the harshness of life’s reality. My mother was an old-school mum who brought up six children clean and tidy in a sometimes stressful household. In the home my visions of her are of being constantly stuck at the kitchen sink washing clothes and when she was able to spare a few minutes to watch Corrie she would inevitably fall asleep mouth wide open, much to our amusement. At work she was a legend. I had the good fortune to work at her hospital, Netherne, while she was a ward sister on Galsworthy ward. I had a temporary job in the admin office and Mr Stephens the hospital administrator thought my mother was a saint. She would pop in to the office on occasion and a big fuss would be made of her. She had a devilish sense of humour and a heart of 24 carat gold. I was so proud of her. The amount of times I visited her ward to see her helping patients walk or take their shopping lists reminded me of just how she liked to do that little bit more. It reminds me now of those poverty-stricken times when she could hardly make ends meet but often managed to sneak a Mars Bar into my pocket when I had a cricket match. 

You see, my mother’s faith saw her through. Her devotion to our Lord made everything perfect and she lived and died in a perfect human way. As Christians we embrace death as a natural part of God’s plan. I loved the recent Torchwood episode, Miracle Day, where no one was able to die and the population became unmanageable very quickly. It was thought-provoking and a very real example of the necessity for a thermostat on life.

The feeling of wellbeing from being a Christian goes unsaid very often. We tend to concentrate on Richard Dawkins’ view of us as having a life struggling to follow an unseen entity that makes huge promises but denies epicurean pleasures, thus frustrating the spirit. He just doesn’t get it.

One definition of delusion is - An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality, typically a symptom of mental disorder. Another definition is - A false belief or opinion: laboured under the delusion that success was at hand.

Both these definitions cover the areas that Richard Dawkins finds so offensive and beyond his understanding. Can he truthfully and demonstratively deny the possibility of God and can he truthfully and demonstratively deny the power that that possibility brings and indeed deny that success was very much at hand in the lives of people like my mother. On Earth my mother will be remembered as someone who worked hard all her life, never taking time off, never receiving state hand-outs, and bringing up six children in extreme adversity but within a loving environment with Christian values. I describe a very ordinary and stereotypical existence but one that was given meaning by the manifestation of my mother’s real faith at her death. The knock on effect is immense. The wellbeing of a Christian is gauged by the deepness and sincerity of their faith. This faith gives hope to others and it is not a delusion.

There is nothing in what Richard Dawkins has ever proven that denies the possibility of God in the same way as he would argue that in a faith-based system we can neither prove the existence of God. But the unsaid and unfathomable X factor is all those myriad of hidden qualities of Christianity that make our spirits soar and make us strong and able to face life’s vicissitudes. These are real, not delusions, whichever definition you might care to use.

A clue about depth of conviction of atheists can be gleaned by the amount of converts to Christianity in the trenches. A most natural and heart-warming occurrence but would a Christian change their allegiance if they faced impending doom, which might manifest itself in illness, loss of a loved one, financial destruction etc?.   Simple answer NO

Are Christians masochists?

There must be something about Christians that embraces masochism because my last month or two have been awful and yet I feel full of joy and not in the least despondent. Perhaps that is what we crave as Christians – tests of our faith (as long as they’re not too painful). Perhaps the joy stems from the fact that we are able to rationalise events and know that misfortunes in life can be one of three things i.e. the usual roll of the dice that exists when humans are given freewill and left to their own devices, an indication that something in our lives requires changing or simply that whatever happens in our lives we know it is for the best.

My misfortune began in April when the tachycardia I suffer from (diagnosed as Supraventricular tachycardia, although I have always called it palpitations) became rampant. I’m not sure if I have ever mentioned it before in a blog but it is a condition I suffered from for the first 27 years of my life and never bothered to tell anyone as it was my normality. The attacks became less and less frequent then suddenly disappeared and became a distant memory. Initially the attacks could last up to two or three hours but eventually I learned tricks to shorten the duration. If I were in the classroom I would simply raise my hand to be excused and then go to the toilet and lie down on the cold concrete floor in the cubicle, away from prying eyes. This would invariably shock it back to its normal loop and I always had this overwhelming feeling of relief and joy when it was over. It was annoying to say the least, particularly when playing sport. Although I won the annual school cross-country on a couple of occasions I also remember having an attack while running the county and walking over the line in 168^th position. My reputation was one of winning or dropping out. And why didn’t I tell anyone – because kids do not like to be different. Actually I did tell one person, a school friend, Peter Cowley who told me once that he suffered from the same complaint so I felt safe to tell him of mine. I hope Peter is OK as I haven’t seen him for many years and he is one of few who hasn’t turned up to school reunions.

After almost 30 years I began to suffer them again a couple of years ago. The heart specialist, Mr Sneddon, offered me an ablation operation (where they stick a wire up through a vein in the groin and zap the piece of gristle on the heart) but I didn’t fancy it as I only had attacks two or three times a month. However in April I began cycling again after a winter completing my latest book and I began to have attacks on every ride and then for the first time in my life I had more than one attack on the same day (I had convinced myself this was impossible), in fact I had four attacks whilst out on my Sunday club ride with the Crawley Wheelers, the last after winning the sprint for the line to complete the ride. The next day I had six attacks during a three hour ride and then decided enough was enough so have made another appointment to see the specialist as I realise it is not getting any better and is definitely going to have to be sorted as I do miss my cycling.

I began a pop culture book in 2004 and it has finally (well almost) been completed and for the first time I do not yet have a publisher for it. My works are usually commissioned but I went out on a limb this time as I took it for granted that my publisher would take it on. Alas, I offered it to them last week and they have not taken up the option. It was a bit of a shock to say the least as I know it is my best work to-date and they seem to agree judging by their glowing report but perhaps it merely says something about the present climate. I must admit I probably didn’t help my cause by asking for a transfer to another publisher two years ago but that move was thwarted by them as they asked too much for my backlog. One might think this was a strange move by them but to be honest I have an excellent relationship with everyone at Little, Brown and do not think for one moment their decision is a reaction to my request. My motive was only to team up again with the No 1 man in publishing, the man who gave me my first break in 1998, Alan Samson, now at Orion. I have never spoken to any other publisher (it is now on record) although now I will have to next week.

The thing is I look at these setbacks for what they are. I am fit and healthy and off the bike I do not suffer from ill health (hardly ever get the super-fast heart when walking around) and I have actually enjoyed doing other things instead of having to spend all my free time in a constant state of breathlessness through running or cycling. As for the publisher’s decision - I have never had a lack of confidence in my ability to do what I do well so I just feel sorry that someone there has made the wrong decision as I know this book will do well – and if it was never to get published so what. I know so many excellent writers who have never had the opportunity to ever be published because of someone in their ivory tower did not want to take a chance on them. How lucky have I been.

It is always the times when things are not going supremely well that defines us as human beings and as Christians doubly so. I spent most of my life feeling very undeserving of God’s love (still do if I’m honest) as I had so many vices, and it wasn’t until I realised that God loves us all and my vices were not only hurting me but also hurting Him (this is the nature of sin) that I could rationalise things and try to change them.

So now I am looking forward to a period of soul searching (and publisher searching) and it excites me. I love new challenges and putting things on the line. It is my nature to always bounce back from any misfortune (not that I consider either my job or health issue a misfortune on the grand scale of things – far from it). It shows a certain arrogance of spirit for me to even mention such trivial things but if it helps a solitary person to understand themselves better then so be it.

The World Has Gone Mad

So I read in this morning’s Telegraph that ‘Kenneth Clarke was forced to apologise yesterday after suggesting that not all rapes were serious’. The paper then goes on to say that Mr Clarke actually said that some rapes were not as serious as others.

What he actually said is something quite different and the paraphrasing used by media sources is the scourge of twenty-first-century-living.

I ask those right-minded citizens out there to read what Mr Clarke actually said and then try and understand that he was merely stating existing fact, nothing more. He doesn’t deserve being vilified for making the observation that some rapes are worse than others. That is evident by the huge sentencing differences. What is the fuss all about?

Certainly not anything Mr Clarke said. Any informed speaker on the subject would have said the same…..surely! or indeed perhaps not in this age of political correctness gone mad.

I have been on various media courses at the behest of my publisher to ensure that when I give interviews I say the right things and give the right signals. Truth doesn’t come into it anymore. The exercise is not to give the media any bait to get their fangs into.

The truth is what I read today is something I have heard and seen discussed in exactly the same way innumerable times both on television and radio. The discussion in the past though has always been about sentencing policy and the act of rape itself but now it seems that it sells more papers to shoot the messenger. I have seriously been considering not reading newspapers or watching television anymore. I am sick to death of the likes of Max Clifford pimping off people’s grief. I am sick to death of reading columns by people like Kelvin Mackenzie pontificating in their holier than thou manner when the truth is these people are media prostitutes – believe me I have had dealings with them!

And for those who don’t know me I am a socialist so have little in common with Tory politicians but am fed up with the truth being bent and twisted to evoke sensationalism. It is bullying plain and simple and until we resolve the problem we as a human race will begin to slip further and further into this dark abyss where truth means nothing and only bland statements will be declared for fear of reprisals.

Do any of you remember those very plausible insurance salesmen that used to come to your home promising they could double your money within ten years only for you to find you would have been better off placing your money under the bed. These media spin merchants are of the same ilk only far far worse - as they KNOW they are misleading you.

I was with Max Clifford the day Fulham legend Johnny Haynes died and his phone didn’t stop ringing. He was telling all and sundry that he was a life-long fan of the great man. In between calls over a sticky bun and a cuppa I questioned him a little about Johnny and it was clear he didn’t have a scooby doo. He deals in illusion you see.

Kelvin Mackenzie jumps on every bandwagon that passes him and yet he is someone known within closed circles to be the most politically incorrect person imaginable. I once did a job for his radio station but my payment did not arrive and when I rang up, and bear in mind I had never spoken to the man before, I was more than a little shocked to have him enter into a one-sided tirade of verbal abuse like you could not possibly imagine. I did not utter a word but was told to “go f--- myself” among other pleasantries. This is the common currency of Mr Mackenzie and yet he is employed like so many of his ilk to act as paragons of virtue when it suits them and to incite the masses when sales need boosting. Truth means nothing nowadays.

Mr Clarke was most eloquent in his words. It is such a terribly difficult crime to legislate against. How many times have we been frustrated when watching television programmes on the subject of rape where justice didn’t appear to be done because the police either advised victims a conviction would be difficult or else at trial a judge found insufficient evidence. How many times too have we heard in our own small lives of people being raped. I know several people who have told me about their rapes and none of them went to the law. The whole subject of rape needs looking at closely. Most men do not understand the intricate nature of rape because they find it too abhorent to contemplate. We understand the violence of course and in fact we always tend to cry out for maximum sentences because of the physical violence aspect - but we cannot comprehend the mental turmoil, the fear, the actual violation. Only another woman can really understand that, which is probably why when someone cries rape falsely women tend to be much less tolerant and forgiving towards a false litigant as they do a disservice to real claimants.

Consent itself has always been the sticking point in so many cases. I sat and watched a case once where I felt sure the defendant was guilty but it turned out to be his word against hers and no conviction followed because of the strict code the jury was instructed to adhere to. To try and simplify rape as acrosss the board rape too is dangerous. Mr Clarke gave the example of a 17 year old sleeping with a 15 year old. Now I don’t think for one moment he gave this as an example rather than say a 30-year-old man or whatever, he was surely making the point that two immature children do immature irresponsible things. I know several schoolfriends of mine that slept with girls before they were 16. Although I wouldn’t say it was the norm I have to say it happened even in the 1960s and 1970s. I know one close friend of mine that was caught in bed by the mother of a 15-year-old and although she read him the riot act he was not convicted of anything, and yes he was 17 (and no it wasn’t me, I did not lose my virginity until many years later).

It is rightly an emotive subject. Most right-minded people feel that convicted rapists beyond a shadow of a doubt, of the type that Kenneth Clarke describes as those that merely choose their victim from the street, deserve some sort of castration, while perhaps those that come under the heading of statutory rape deserve a lesser sentence dependent on the circumstances.

I have no political sympathy for Kenneth Clarke but I do believe that if we condone his sacking for merely giving his expert analysis as a lawyer and politician, then we will find ourselves up a very sticky gum tree where we will be the castrated ones as a nation. Policy will be impossible to be formed as we will always be upsetting some minority with a voice. To give you a final example of the sort of thing that can happen. Two years ago I asked to be removed from the emailing list of my local Labour Party as I was very upset to be called homophobic by one of the other group. What had happened was that our local chairman asked us to picket a meeting of the BNP in Crawley and I replied rather irritatingly that I feel that we should concentrate on our own party and not be drawn into slagging off others. Well all hell broke loose and several members of the group sent me private email telling me how the BNP had made it personal by ringing them up anonymously and heavy breathing and all sorts of skulduggery. My thoughts were how could this possibly happen unless you continue to incite conflict but I understood their feelings. What I didn’t understand was the one chap who replied to the group that he was so upset because I was clearly condoning the BNP who were anti-gay and so I must be homophobic!! What the poor chap didn’t know was that I lobbied for a dear gay friend of mine to become my local Bewbush Councillor only a month prior to this and indeed he got in after I broke custom by speaking on his behalf before the vote.

You see it should always be about the best man for the job irrespective of nepotism.

Last year the same man was up as the Labour Party candidate to fight the general election and I actually voted against him this time as I felt there was a better candidate for the job. My friend rang me and we had a frank discussion about it and he totally understood. It was the hardest thing I have done for years but I simply could not vote for him merely because he was a friend, and his boyfriend was a friend and the son of a special friend of mine. I’d rather feel guilty of upsetting a friend than standing accused of nepotism.

No I am not trying to be holier than thou. I too have my moments which is why I understand the danger of nepotism and not making rational decisions. I used to quite like Chris Tarrant but immediately went off him when I felt he stitched me up like a kipper on WWTBAM. Now quite illogically when I hear him on the radio I find myself not well disposed towards him. I say illogically because I have never been one to either harbour grudges or understand why grudges are harboured. Words said in anger are often masking deep rooted feelings of love and should never cause terminal rifts - but sadly so often do.

It is hard enough being a fickle human being anyway but to put more temptations in our path, more reasons to show our gang mentality, more reason for us to become institutionalised neutered bullies, never giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Once I became a Christian I lost a certain amount of my ego. I no longer felt I needed to be loved by human beings. I did feel I wanted to understand them and I certainly still hated it when I was misunderstood but I no longer felt inadequate, rather I was resigned to the fact that we are all fickle and liable to make irrational decisions from time to time. Few people deserve hate per se. Comment, of course, pity even but serious hate should only be reserved for those that cannot rise above personal tragedy - for instance many of the victims of rape I discussed above. I know that hate destroys the soul and essence of a human being. How many of us know people who have been totally devastated by grief. But even within a Christian community it would be difficult to get across an argument for forgiving the perpetrator of a heinous crime like rape and yet many who have been able to do so have lived much fuller lives. Closure is often easier when you are in control.

These are the sort of questions I would like to concentrate on, the wellbeing of the victims, not a politician who was merely stating the obvious.

Nepotism - the scourge of the ruling classes!

I hereby call for the resignations of both David Cameron and Nick Clegg on the grounds of nepotism, the scourge of human frailty and my own particular bête noire.

By coming out in defence of David Laws, who was found guilty of using taxpayers’ money to pay his boyfriend more than £100,000, our two chief politicians have shown they cannot be trusted to adhere to consistent logical procedures implemented to ensure the public can have total faith in our elected Members of Parliament.

And before anyone accuses me of being biased, I can declare that I resigned from the Labout Party earlier this year in protest at the nepotism shown last year when electing our Labour Party candidate to fight the General Election.

I understand this human frailty only too well. We are all guilty of it. As soon as we first speak to a total stranger on a bus we are more prone to favour that person over any other passenger – It is the way humans are wired and may appear quite harmless but in actual fact this tendency is responsible for more of the world’s ills than any plague we have ever dealt with.

It might seem good to place people that one can trust in positions of authority. The problem is that vested interests creep in and ‘blind eyes’ are turned often resulting in tragedy. I do not jest when I say that none of the world’s dictators would have existed but for nepotism. What was the first thing that Stalin did before implementing his own will on the Russian people? He launched a massive purge against his native enemies and either had them executed or imprisoned in Siberian gulags. How did Hitler manage to persuade the German people that cultural hegemony was a sound and worthy cause? His first action was to have a massive purge against his native enemies (the original one in 1934 known as ‘The Night of the Long Knives’). And what of Trujillo – massive purge of native enemies by systematic killings and expanded this to indiscriminate killing of Haitians that shared the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. This was known as the Parsley Massacre. And Chairman Mao – massive purge of native enemies and had them horrifically tortured in very graphic circumstances; Saddam Hussein (massive purge of native enemies, mainly Kurds, in the so-called Al-Anfal campaign of genocide). In every case these purges were supplemented by the dictators strategically placing their own choices in the top government positions.

Even with the apparently good regimes such as Kennedy’s ‘Camelot’ the nepotism almost plunged the world into nuclear war because in truth many of JFK’s advisors were not worthy of the positions held.

A form of nepotism got OJ Simpson a reprieve from murder and his current 33 year sentence for armed robbery probably vindicates that assessment. The old pal’s act, money buys anything, if your face fit – call it what you will, but unless the general public has faith in government then we will always be in recession! 

David Laws might be a most affable good-hearted chap but he clearly cannot be allowed to serve in Government because he is tarnished. He might well be totally trustworthy but it is the perception that is all important here and unfortunately he should have thought about the bigger picture. Normally I would love the idea of loyalty to a friend but in asking for clemency for David Laws both David Cameron and Nick Clegg don’t seem to understand that rules are made for a reason and cannot be compromised on a whim or else the fabric of society breaks down. David Laws is an intelligent quick-witted man and will do well in any job he takes on but unfortunately he has burnt his bridges in politics for me.

Happy Easter to you all

The young bomb disposal expert Captain Lisa Head recently killed in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan has prompted me to re-evaluate my thoughts about the military.


When we think of all those soldiers that have lost their lives in the course of their duty we often attempt to rationalise it with all manner of inadequate cliches: ‘Liberty’, ‘Queen and country’, ‘democracy’, ‘good over evil’, ‘a necessary evil’, ‘fair play’, ‘honour’, ‘future peace’, ‘stability’ and even ‘they knew the risk’. To the families left behind, all these reasons are but crumbs of comfort as despair, emptiness, confusion and anger embroil their very being. And yet many of the left behind find joy in the knowledge that their loved ones did not die in vain.



A Christian’s life is very similar – On this Good Friday we reflect on the anniversary of Jesus’ death and we attempt to rationalise it albeit in a typically human way. We know that Jesus suffered a truly painful death and we also know He did this for us, so that we might be saved – and yet because we learn that the story has a happy ending in which Jesus rises again our fickle brains make light of the sacrifice Jesus made.



I remember the parable of the labourers in the vineyard whereby the householder hired various workers in the morning for a penny a day. As the day went on he hired more workers at the third hour, the sixth hour and finally at the eleventh hour. He told these latecomers that he would pay them what is right. When the day was done and the steward paid each man a penny, those that had worked all day felt cheated. The steward had paid the last recruited first and it was too much for them to bear to see these people receive a full penny. They imagined the goodman of the house would pay them more when it came to their turn – but alas no. Perhaps if the steward had only paid the latecomers half a penny the early workers would still be satisfied!

There are several points here: Jesus offered this parable as an example of a description of the kingdom of heaven. One of the morals of the story is that the last shall be first and the first last. I had a real example of this in practice today when I turned up late for church and the car park was full. I drove around the block and found the one free parking space at the back of the church next to the presbytery. As the church was full I was ushered in to the presbytery where I and some other latecomers were given a full-screen video-link of the service complete with a fantastic audio system. We didn’t even have to queue to take communion as one of the priests came to us first. It isn’t a great analogy perhaps but truth is I arrived at church at 2.50 for a 3 o’clock service so was not really late and I was not bothered about parking as I knew there was a pay-and-display just up the road. In a similar way in the parable those that were employed first thing required no faith. They entered into a contract and were paid their full due. Those that were employed later in the day were only told they would be paid “whatever is right”. They required faith that they would be paid a fair amount. Clearly the good householder had done no wrong. He entered into a contract with each worker and they were happy. What changed? Absolutely nothing – except the ridiculous non-christian sense of fair play that humans have developed since man’s first disobedience. It is this same fallacy that permeates all human reasoning and why we struggle to do the right thing without recourse to God. How many times have I heard non-christians tell me they do not sin? Well clearly most so-called ‘right-minded citizens’ would feel a little peeved if someone who worked only one hour received the same wages for their graft as they themselves who worked a full twelve hours. They simply cannot rationalise things correctly in their human brains. It is a sin to covet someone else’s property and that is what this parable describes – among several other things.



Most people cannot comprehend any other way.



I read in this morning’s Telegraph that Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested that the rich and powerful should be required by law to spend time each year helping the poor and needy. He is right in my opinion. It is not so much wrong that we elevate the rich and famous but all Christians know that all such people have received their reward on Earth and human wealth and position trucks no status in the kingdom of heaven. I wrote to every person who took part in the Secret Millionaire series. I was touched by the crumbs they threw at those in need. I was not interested in their motives as it was of no consequence. Their reward is of this Earth but God in His kingdom expects far more of us.



In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (chapters 6 and 7) he lays out a template for the perfect Christian life for all those born again. The template is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago and yet even the truest of Christians struggle with its content. I myself am guilty of customising my faith to accommodate my shortcomings.



I was driving along with a Christian friend the other day and they asked me out of the blue to describe my relationship with God using a motoring analogy. I didn’t even think momentarily as I had no idea what I was going to say but my mouth spoke anyway. I saw myself driving down the highway alone with God driving beside me on the inside lane watching me. I was aware of Him and acutely aware of my sin also. I felt guilty but safe all the while He was watching over me. I felt panic too that He might disappear in exasperation at my stubborness. You see I do not do enough as a Christian, in fact, although I love the Lord with all my heart, I do nothing. I wondered why God did not pull over and invite me into His car. And then my mind wandered to God’s car on my inside. He was driven by His angels and He was pained. He said to them “Why doesn’t he pull over and ask Me for a lift”. You see the problem is there is a divide. I feel I have separated myself so inevitably communication breaks down. God does not hear unrepentant sinners and does not speak to those who will not listen. Although I pray that He makes me listen, the truth is He would rather I used my own freewill.

Please don’t misunderstand, I do nothing outrageously wrong. I have always felt not quite good enough anyway. It is my nature. I am one of six children and I never felt quite deserving of five siblings and never felt quite good enough to be a member of my own family. I was always on the fringes looking in but never participating fruitfully. It was the same with friendships. Why would anyone want to befriend me? – a sinner. So that said, it is inevitable that I feel I am a long way short of what a Christian should be. I say the right things of course but the truth is I am fickle. I am opinionated for one. I have always been anti-war and anti-fighting period – and yet I read the story of Captain Head and my human brain cannot compute. I don’t know her motives for joining the military but the job she undertook was brave to a point that few can imagine and I certainly can’t. She killed no one, rather she put herself on the front line to protect others. I hope that she is awarded a posthumous VC so that people will remember her bravery and her memory will live on on this Earth. I also pray that God evaluates her life and deeds and by His grace and mercy finds her to be someone worthy of His kingdom.



What is my sin you might ask? Where shall I begin. I am a fickle human being. I am supposed to try to emulate Jesus’ life and yet I lie over the most stupid things and try to justify my lies by imagining it is ‘for the best’! I am an occasional gambler who again justifies it by imagining that it is moderate and never happens during the 40 days of lent! I have too much money in the bank but justify that by throwing crumbs and imagining that I have responsibilities – and of course the rainy day syndrome! Where is my faith?

And of course I am very aware of my human frailty every time I am a victim of bad driving or bad manners. Need I go on. And yet I call myself Christian. Is it any wonder that we as a race are in the state we are in. Why we revere the likes of Richard Dawkins as some sort of revelationary guru instead of pity the simple-minded non-entity that I feel him to be. Ah well I suppose he does make a lot of money so in the world he describes this one to be perhaps my evaluation of him is a little harsh. I myself am fed up being a hypocrite. My faith is constant and eternal and yet am I the light I should be – NO WAY. I know of at least one person I had a relationship with in the past who would not think of me as any sort of light. For myself on this Blessed day I know time is running out. I must get things right in God’s eyes. I want my car to stop - to run out of petrol if that is the only way.



So to all those out there who also feel not quite good enough, please don’t despair. God is a patient God. Repent with a true heart and know that whether your sin is greater or less than mine is of no consequence to God. The Holy Spirit will help all those who have a true wish to purify their soul and although you will inevitably fall short of the perfection of Jesus you will find that if you do all that is humanly possible to know God then He will be there for you, not in an airy-fairy way but in a real way. And why then do I still bumble along having to continually confess my sins? Because I am human, better than some at being human and a whole heap worse than others. I cannot trust myself to refrain from nepotism and all those seemingly innocuous skewed decisions we make every day. Just look at those politicians we place in the ivory towers. They are no worse than any workers in any industry. Their mind sets are merely human and fallible. Unfortunately until we change the hearts of man we will all just bumble along making self-seeking decisions. But the good news is we can start looking at ourselves and make changes to ourselves. Not be influenced by what society (quite often the media today) deems as acceptable but take our lead from a higher source of command. Do not worry about being used and abused. Do not worry about being duped. And certainly do not worry if our fellow workers are paid more than us for doing the same job, or paid the same for doing less. So what – we can all work out our budget to live at an acceptable level. It is not difficult. I myself had a perfectly good existence when I lived on the streets for three weeks so there is not a millionaire alive who needs more. I find it obscene that Portugal requires nine billion to bail themselves out and yet over the years I have met individuals who have that kind of wealth themselves. Why can’t they give it up and be blessed both on this Earth but more importantly in the kingdom of heaven. Personally, and controversially perhaps, I would take it from them in taxation as I do not feel most people are capable of making such decisions themselves. Humans tend to justify things to themselves - even when they know something is for their own good they resist.



Happy Easter – isn’t it warm? God bless all those in pain – don’t worry, it doesn’t last

My Tooth Hurty Appointment

It’s been a funny old week what with one thing and another. It started off with me chipping a tooth causing the resultant jagged edge to play havoc with my tongue. What a blessed relief it was to sit in the dentist’s chair and feel that erstwhile dreaded drill doing its work so that I might again speak and eat in comfort. Oh how we take those simple pleasures for granted.

“Bottom left is it” said my dentist. “Yeah” I replied, thinking what a great insight the man has to my teeth before he even begins his investigation. “And a rinse. There you go all done”. Fantastic ! I felt a new man after having such a miserable time of late. That is until I left the surgery and seemed to feel the same stiletto piercing of my lingual regions as I opened my gob. I convinced myself that it must be the swelling and previous lacerations but was surprised that eating was so painful with my tongue constantly being spiked as I chomped.

I swallowed my pride, and little else I might add, and made another appointment, fearing the offending tooth would require extraction. As I sat in the chair and opened my mouth to scream Aghhhhhh I thought I’d help this time by placing my finger on the offending jagged edge to explain the problem. “Oh” said the dentist. “That tooth – I’ve been drilling in another place”.

I’d been a victim of the classic wrong tooth gag. It was hardly as serious as the wrong limb being amputated, or being given a wrong fatal diagnosis, but strangely upsetting nonetheless. The relief of feeling whole again more than made up for any feelings of annoyance. In fact I rather thought it was very funny as the dentist tried to reassure me that the tooth he drilled was definitely in need of pruning!

And then I received my six-monthly wages from my publisher. What a bizarre job I have that I get paid twice a year and never have a clue how much it is likely to be, if anything at all. The simple truth is that most authors do not earn royalties from their books. They are paid an advance and in most cases the resultant sales are not sufficient to exceed the money already paid. I know this to be true from the trade mags, stats, and my friends within the industry, some of which have never earnt a royalty in their lives. How lucky and spoilt have I been then that for ten years my books have not only always earnt royalties but have in fact clawed back the advance paid at first statement. I am always amazed that after ten years of being in the shops my A to Z of Everything is as popular now as it was when I was first told it was “flying off the shelves” in 2001. Perhaps it is the hours I put in or just plain luck but whatever it is I am truly humbled by the response the book has generated. How fortunate am I to have a job where I am told I am doing OK by my fellow humans. It wasn’t always the case for me as an accountant. Of the thousands of letters, email and phone calls received I can’t remember a solitary negative one. Of course I am used to the stock letter that tells me how wonderful the book is but then goes on to point out an error on page 1192 but these have become an invaluable aid to ensure greater accuracy next time around. If I never sold another book I would still praise the Lord for my good fortune.

And then in the knowledge that I can eat for the next six months I decided to watch some TV for a change. This was definitely a treat as I have been working up to 20 hour days since November desperately trying to complete my latest work the A to Z of Popular Culture. I have given up my cycling, television, and I’m full of shame to say even some church commitments in order to put closure on seven years of research. The work is now complete and yet I have not yet sent it to a publisher as I am forever tweaking and editing as I tend to be the ultimate perfectionist and every time I read a section I feel I can improve it. Anyway, flicking through the channels I came across a show where two celebrities were in various stages of suing the press for defamation, one of which was Lembit Opik, the former MP for Montgomeryshire, who has single-handedly done for politics what Psycho did for shower curtains. It really was hilarious when his solicitor took his case to a barrister in the hope of representation and the barrister rather apologetically suggested that the comments in The Times might be considered ‘fair comment’.

Now Limp Bizkit is a very affable chap, definitely the type of man I’d have a pint with, if I were so disposed. He didn’t go to the extremes as some of his friends at fiddling his expenses although £2,500 for a plasma TV and the expectation of reimbursement for a £40 fine for council tax evasion was probably pushing things a little. Even taking Sian Lloyds caustic criticism of his womanising and excessive drinking with a pinch of salt as the rantings of an ex-lover, Mr Cheeky boy does write for the Daily Sport and does earn a living as a stand-up comedian. Noble occupations one might consider but, and it is a big but, if someone has serious aspirations to become the sort of person that one would trust to make policy that will effect up to 60 million people in this country and many more globally, then perhaps their private life should be tempered with a little more sprinkling of gravitas. I’m all for character and personality and truth and honesty and I feel Limpet has all these traits, albeit in very unequal and dysfunctional proportions.

Unfortunately, I missed the last few minutes because my Sky + box packed up and so I don’t know how his case turned out but I fear it was doomed. I think the good people of Wales merely said to themselves Ecce Homo – or maybe ‘ecky thump - but I doubt if anything they read in The Times served to influence greatly. I see people like Lampost at every Labour Party meeting I attend - Good-natured and good-intentioned but unfortunately lacking ability, drive, experience, nous, gravitas, judgement, intelligence, craft and wit. Isn’t it a great world where the likes of Tracy Emin can become an artist although she cannot paint? Or the likes of Lambpit Opec can become a politician although he cannot be taken seriously. I truly believe it is marvellous but let’s have some perspective here. Ask Nigel Havers if he had any preconceived ideas about the Liberal MP before he met him in the jungle. Nigel knows more than a little about British politics of course, and yet he found it truly frightening that this man was allowed out on his own and in charge of sharp instruments let alone representing thousands of people in parliament!

Incidentally, I’ve been given a date of 5th April for the Sky engineers to fix my box. Yet another £65 call-out on a box that has never worked properly since installed in September 2009, but 5th April!! I pay £58 per month for their service, or lack of it, and you can’t even get terrestrial TV anymore since they decided to drop it a couple of years ago. I remember being a child in the 1960s and mum calling out the TV repair man on our rented set. They would always come out same day or give you a new set, nowadays they keep you waiting a week and charge you into the bargain. As long as they don’t expect to charge me the full monthly rental next month for a service they are not supplying. So I’m going to miss the Cricket World Cup final on Saturday. I wonder if Lumpit would invite me around to watch it with him?

STOP PRESS - I was subsequently fortunate to find a local TV repair man, Dave Farr, who repaired my damaged box, only charged me £40 and enabled me to watch India play Sri Lanka this coming Saturday. There is a moral there somewhere but the bottom line is that SKY after sales service is non-existent and shame on them

Sporting Observations

Well at last England were put out of their misery in the cricket World Cup – and how!

I’ve spoken to a lot of people lately who think the world is going through the inevitable stages of Armageddon, what with earthquakes, tsunamis, demonstrations, uprisings and now sporting meltdown, it certainly looks like something is going on.

Andy Murray hasn’t won a set since being beaten by Djokovic in the final of the Australian Open in January and Ireland beat England in a World Cup group match in Bangalore in the most improbable fashion possible. It wasn’t the victory that was so remarkable, as my mother country tends to always raise its game against England at any sport (just ask rugby fans), but Ireland actually required 168 runs from the last 20 overs with only five wickets remaining. Now in a Twenty20 match with all wickets intact that would be improbable, with only four lower order batsmen to come in the task was impossible…….and yet!

Today was embarrassing. To see Trott literally trotting around as if he were playing in a five-day Test match, knocking the ball around lazily for singles. The selectors haven’t got a brain cell between them in my opinion. I remember the days when the great Surrey batsman Ken Barrington was dropped from the Test side after scoring too slowly in a previous match, although he was the top scorer. Now Ken was not a slow scorer by any means. He was known for his trademark six-hitting when approaching his century.

To those defenders who might argue that Trott is currently the top scorer in the World Cup I would say one thing. OF COURSE HE IS NO TEAM WANTS TO GET HIM OUT. And Strauss gives the same post-match talk every time. He clearly feels as though England can justify their mediocrity in the one day game as long as they are not totally humbled. Well today they lost by 10 wickets and their lack of spirit was there for the world to see. Yes they won the Ashes because the selfish players such as Trott, who refuse to risk giving their wicket away cheaply, come into their own. In the one day game he is a liability and always will be by dint of his nature. For the same reason another South African import Kevin Pietersen is not the great one day player he could be. Kevin often scores quicker in Test Matches than he does in the one-dayers. This is basically because he is a natural stroke-maker and is given more freedom in the Test arena where bowlers are not so intensely guarding every run. In the one-day game he gets bogged down and frustrated when he cannot score at his optimum four or five an over. Contrast this with Morgan, Bell and Collingwood who irrespective of form always have a go and play the game to give the team the best possible chance. England won the Twenty20 World Cup for one reason. They really didn’t care less about the results as they believe it is a second rate competition anyway. There is a large element of luck to it and they played freely in the knowledge that the stats are separate from their Test or One-day tallies. A 50 over match is an extension of Twenty20 and yet England have always played when batting first as if they have the best bowling attack in the world. All I’ll say is this. Please do not ever play Trott again in one-day cricket but keep him for Test matches where his Boycottish attitude will be a positive boon rather than the hindrance it has become in limited over matches. Please do not inflict him on us unsuspecting fans who wish to live in our fantasy world that England can play poritive cricket throughout a match. And before anyone says well his scoring rate is not the worst in our side all I’ll say is it is all about momentum (that word that is always bandied around in all sport nowadays) and his methodical style and general languidity and lack of urgency is detrimental to team spirit as one always feels as though he is the ‘new’ batsman in any partnership and this puts pressure on them. Would we have rather of seen England possibly bowled out for 160 today in 30 overs by having a go or scoring 229 in 50 overs knowing we require a heap of luck. Well England have chosen the second course of action all the way through this competition and so it was inevitably doomed to failure. Ross Taylor might struggle to get in the England Test team but the New Zealander has played some memorable knocks for his country and also in the IPL where he is more valuable than any English player. I rest my case. We need at least two more Morgans, a decent fast bowler and a truly positive captain not someone who has been on a media course of how to say the right things.

While on the subject of sport can I just say how horrified I was by the way an element of the crowd pelted Adrian Lewis with beer and coins during his Premier League darts match against Gary Anderson at the SECC in Glasgow. Admittedly Anderson did himself no favours by talking up the match for months beforehand, almost inciting the crowd to this sort of behaviour - but he himself was clearly shocked by the level of abuse and lost 8-3 in a match that was totally ruined as a spectacle. For goodness sake Lewis is a world champion sportsman not an aunt sally!

While I am on my sporting soap box may I finally mention one of the most interesting human studies in sport - tribal warfare. How is that a snooker player will call his own fouls whilst in football a player will dive in the box to gain a penalty or pretend he has been virtually assassinated in order to gain a free kick or get a player sent off. Is it something endemic in the type of people that play these sports. Of course it isn’t. It is all about acceptable behaviour, trends and conventions. In the old days cricketers walked. Nowadays you are either a walker or you are not. Neither one nor the other is particularly frowned upon or embraced. It is a fact of the modern game that famous walkers such as the great Australian Adam Gilchrist are sometimes pilloried in the dressing room by not being more team conscious in their honesty. And some of the catches claimed nowadays defy belief. It is as if the fielders forget there are a half a dozen cameras on them. In my opinion what has happened is this. Sportspeople like to reflect their glory quite often. It shows appreciation and modesty when all the world can see with their own eyes that they are the talent. In team sports an athlete can justify cheating to themselves as it is to put one over on the opposing army. In individual sports you will be a lonely forlorn figure if cheating is perceived as merely helping your own cause. For this reason I say we should bring cameras into play for all major football matches as the game is far too big to be left to the military minds of the teams. Look at England in the last World Cup. Useless – yes – but cheated most certainly. A simple ten second glance at a replay would have told the ref that he was wrong. I’m fed up with seeing po-faced managers denigrating highly trained referees when the poor blighters haven’t got a chance of handling the sort of pressure they are under. In cricket it has been a positive boon and quite often the most interesting part of the game. Bring it on FA. And Andy – start practicing on grass NOW – you can win Wimbledon and become a sporting god for evermore.