Thoughts and non-ecumenical prayers for a particular community in Glasgow.
BBC Breakfast @BBCBreakfast 1h 'It's not since 1534 that a British monarch will have prayed next to a Catholic Pope' Mark Lowen spoke to #BBCBreakfast from Vatican City where King Charles will take part in a service with Pope Leo, the first time this will have happened since the Church of England split from the Catholic Church
The King has correctly promoted reconciliation with the Roman Catholic church by this gesture of prayers with the Pope in Rome, also a reflection of the fact that at least as many of his subjects now attend Roman Catholic church services each Sunday as Anglicans do, A significant change from 100 years ago when Christians in the UK were overwhelmingly Church of England or Church of Scotland and of course from the reign of Elizabeth Ist until the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1791 Roman Catholics were not allowed to publicly worship in Great Britain or Ireland.
However unless the Roman Catholic church allows women priests and bishops and loosens its rules on remarriage of divorcees in church I can't see a merger between it and the Church of England again. Although the non liturgical prayers for same sex couples the Vatican now allow priests to perform are remarkably similar to the prayers the C of E Synod has now approved in C of E churches under LLF
Ha, I don;t think it's the universal church which will be introducing heresy to promote a reconciliation. Why buy a failing competitor when you can just take their customers for free.
If you were a conservative Anglo Catholic Anglican that opposed to female ordination you have likely already long crossed the Tiber or gone Orthodox, certainly since Synod approved women bishops and clergy.
Most of those remaining in the C of E are therefore largely liberal Catholics or conservative evangelicals. Liberal Catholics have no problem with the new female Archbishop of Canterbury and conservative evangelicals tend to be more anti gay relationships than anti women clergy on the whole (hence 2/3 of Synod voted for female clergy and female bishops on a second attempt but only a bare majority of Synod voted for LLF)
All true - but it's very much a dying institution coasting on past momentum at this point whilst Catholicism grows even ahead of immigration factors.
With the enthusiasm young evangelicals seem to have for selling churches and moving in to office buildings with cafes, hard to see the CofE not ending up as a left wing secular enterprise, to whatever extent it isn't already that.
Wasn't Jesus a left wing radical?
I'm all onboard for a left wing politics where those that do not work do not eat.
31He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 33Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. 35When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; 36send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” 37But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” 38And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. 41Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. 42And all ate and were filled; 43and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
If enforced, then they represent the first real pro Ukraine shift from him.
There's also this. I'll believe it when I see actual consequences, but certainly worth noting.
The U.S. War Department under Hegseth has sometimes paused weapons transfers to Ukraine.
Now, Trump seems to have transferred authority for transfers from the Pentagon to the Europe-based Supreme Allied Commander, the American General Alexus Grynkewich. https://x.com/JPLindsley/status/1981140655947862280
If enforced, then they represent the first real pro Ukraine shift from him.
"That lying POS (aka DOPEY DONALD) promised he would end the Ukraine-Russia War within 24 HOURS! It's now NINE MONTHS since he took office, and the war is STILL ONGOING! Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
I think this Roger Livermore character has a strong point, he thinks NHS Scotland shouldn't be doing it's investigations into deaths in-house. Whilst England is stressing as to whether Lucy Letby is a murderer, it might well be Scotland wouldn't have noticed any deaths in the first place.
Thoughts and non-ecumenical prayers for a particular community in Glasgow.
BBC Breakfast @BBCBreakfast 1h 'It's not since 1534 that a British monarch will have prayed next to a Catholic Pope' Mark Lowen spoke to #BBCBreakfast from Vatican City where King Charles will take part in a service with Pope Leo, the first time this will have happened since the Church of England split from the Catholic Church
The King has correctly promoted reconciliation with the Roman Catholic church by this gesture of prayers with the Pope in Rome, also a reflection of the fact that at least as many of his subjects now attend Roman Catholic church services each Sunday as Anglicans do, A significant change from 100 years ago when Christians in the UK were overwhelmingly Church of England or Church of Scotland and of course from the reign of Elizabeth Ist until the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1791 Roman Catholics were not allowed to publicly worship in Great Britain or Ireland.
However unless the Roman Catholic church allows women priests and bishops and loosens its rules on remarriage of divorcees in church I can't see a merger between it and the Church of England again. Although the non liturgical prayers for same sex couples the Vatican now allow priests to perform are remarkably similar to the prayers the C of E Synod has now approved in C of E churches under LLF
Ha, I don;t think it's the universal church which will be introducing heresy to promote a reconciliation. Why buy a failing competitor when you can just take their customers for free.
If you were a conservative Anglo Catholic Anglican that opposed to female ordination you have likely already long crossed the Tiber or gone Orthodox, certainly since Synod approved women bishops and clergy.
Most of those remaining in the C of E are therefore largely liberal Catholics or conservative evangelicals. Liberal Catholics have no problem with the new female Archbishop of Canterbury and conservative evangelicals tend to be more anti gay relationships than anti women clergy on the whole (hence 2/3 of Synod voted for female clergy and female bishops on a second attempt but only a bare majority of Synod voted for LLF)
All true - but it's very much a dying institution coasting on past momentum at this point whilst Catholicism grows even ahead of immigration factors.
With the enthusiasm young evangelicals seem to have for selling churches and moving in to office buildings with cafes, hard to see the CofE not ending up as a left wing secular enterprise, to whatever extent it isn't already that.
Wasn't Jesus a left wing radical?
I'm all onboard for a left wing politics where those that do not work do not eat.
31He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 33Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. 35When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; 36send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” 37But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” 38And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. 41Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. 42And all ate and were filled; 43and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
Yasa (owned by Mercedes) recently smashed their own record for motor weight, size and horsepower. This production intent motor weighs 28lbs and produces 1,000hp! https://x.com/CXCarroll/status/1981050618593845395
Intended for mass production.
4000hp AWD EV, anyone ?
Might be quite useful for hybrid (electric/gas turbine) armoured vehicles - or aircraft. It's light enough to open up some very interesting concepts for the latter in particular.
Hybrid power trains won the weight battle vs gearboxes a while back. Combination of improvements in generators, motors and electronics.
Electric motors have been lightweight for a long time.
This is a near 50% improvement on the previous (quite recent) record. That's a lot if you're thinking about (eg) unsprung weight, or tilt rotors etc.
(UK outfit bought by Mercedes..)
Also, this. The horsepower makes a nice headline but this is really about weight and torque density. Removing weight from a vehicle is a virtuous cycle. Mercedes estimates these will reduce EV weight by 400Kg with half of that coming from the battery (smaller and cheaper). https://x.com/CXCarroll/status/1981210916273180935
Which is even more relevant for aviation.
How does that work? How does knocking a few tens of pounds off the weight of an electric motor give you a weight saving of 400kg? The weight saving is barely significant compared to the overall weight of an EV, so there's not much scope for knock-on weight savings on the battery, etc.
All the other stuff, I guess. Most EV motors are currently on the axle, not the wheel. This is small enough to change that. The instantaneous power/torque presumably means you can also dispense with gearing.
I would speculate there's a chain of small efficiency gains, which add up. (See, for example additional interior space if the motor is in the wheel, which might mean a fractionally smaller car... which needs a fractionally smaller battery, which means a fractionally smaller car...)
There's also the braking side of the equation. More efficient electrical braking, plus lighter car...
If enforced, then they represent the first real pro Ukraine shift from him.
"If"
However something even worse just happened for Putin. it looks like Xi Jinping has effectively been pushed out. He may keep the CCP General Secretary job, but only for a year, with a clear successor who is not from his faction of the CCP. The technocrats are less than impressed with Xi's alliance with Moscow and what is is costing and a new, more open faction will now be in charge.
So Radio 4 loses a tenth of its listeners in a year. Well done peeps.. your woke agenda doesn't work.
What is currently "woke" about Radio 4? the return of a mostly christian "thought for the day", news, "in our time" and "womens hour" have been running for several decades, some literature, art and history, consumer programmes, more news, a play, too much media navel gazing and the Archers? They're still running "the moral maze!", which is somewhere on the far right of this galaxy and incredibly tedious. Is it the Archers?
I suspect that R4 is losing audience because they have increased the repeats and the stupefyingly boring navel-gazing content (the media show, when it hits the fan, profile, strong message here, the briefing room).
So Radio 4 loses a tenth of its listeners in a year. Well done peeps.. your woke agenda doesn't work.
It is exactly the opposite. Radio 4 has always had a reasonably sophisticated audience which it has recently chosen to ignore. In place of news presented by intelligent people with a vision of right and wrong that most of their listeners could understand they chose to replace them with a bunch of indistinguishable 'speak your weight' machines in the mould of Emma Barnett
Thoughts and non-ecumenical prayers for a particular community in Glasgow.
BBC Breakfast @BBCBreakfast 1h 'It's not since 1534 that a British monarch will have prayed next to a Catholic Pope' Mark Lowen spoke to #BBCBreakfast from Vatican City where King Charles will take part in a service with Pope Leo, the first time this will have happened since the Church of England split from the Catholic Church
They keep trotting out the line about it being the first time an English King has prayed with pope since 1534 as if it’s something that used to happen all the time but I can’t find any English ruler who has prayed with a Pope anyway. I think one Scots king did.
Alfred went to Rome didn't he?
Two Kings of Scots - Macbeth and James VIII. Admittedly debated at the time.
Yes, but he wasn't king at the time.
Thanks, long time since I read the relevant Alfred Duggen novel!
Never read that, but Pollard's biography of Alfred has him going there when he's a pretty young boy (I think, it's also been a while).
The Duggan historical novels went out of print and are hard to get nowadays, which is a shame I think. Surprised they haven't been reprinted by people such as OUP and Red Fox, whence I am currently revisiting my childhood reading in the form of Sutcliffe and Treece (and filling in the ones I missed at the time).
Sword at Sunset, by Rosemary Sutcliffe, is an outstanding novel about Arthur.
Good to hear; it's on the recently-bought-and-to-read heap on the shelf above my PC!
In all seriousness, have you thought of joining a library? There's no point in buying books you don't read.
Wash your mouth out with soap!
A pairing : ‘tsundoko’ & ‘antilibrary’.
Tsundoko is Japanese for piling up books ready to read at some later date, it implies that part of the joy is the anticipation, combined with a wistfullness that life is too short.
An antilibrary is Umberto Eco’s notion that one should curate a personal collection of resources around themes you’re curious about; not shelves of read books. He kept 30 000 of them.
I like the phrase ‘books do furnish a room’ (incidentally the title of one of Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time series which I have read and is on my bookshelves) which is literally true and also covers the room of the mind. My partner disagrees, I fear having moved on from expelling the motorbike in the spare room and carbs in the cupboard, unnecessary books may be next. She now reads more books than me but has a very pragmatic attitude towards them.
There is some pleasure to be had in shelves of books that have been enjoyed, even if unlikely to ever be read again.
I read perhaps a book every fortnight, and even if I live another 3 decades am unlikely to get back to many, particularly with so many unread books on the shelf. So they are better off elsewhere.
Sadly, my motorbike went some years ago, though I still have helmet and dreams.
For book people who have walls of them, they are much more than the book you happen to be reading, and do more than furnish a room. (I am currently on my third trip round DTTMOT). I haven't read all the books I have for the same reason as I haven't drunk all the wine in the cellar (if I had a cellar in my case), and in addition they are a tangible mark not only of where, in your mind, you are and plan to go, but where, in my case over 70 years, you have been. They are savings banks of affection as well as signposts of the future.
However they do need pruning from time to time, but not uprooting.
Keeping the books after you have read them is like keeping the empty bottles after you have drunk the wine.
One belongs in the charity shop*, the other in the recycling bin.
*Or given to someone visiting your house, left in the "book swap" at the station, or just left on the train/bus/plane if you happen to finish it mid-journey.
There was a house around here in which the very alcoholic previous resident had built large walls in their garden with the empty wine bottles they had accumulated. Must have been thousands of bottles. Not sure if I have the photos from the property listing anywhere.
When we moved to Edinburgh my wife persuaded me to get rid of some of the books that I'd read. Subsequently I found it necessary to rebuy one of them to reread it.
I think this Roger Livermore character has a strong point, he thinks NHS Scotland shouldn't be doing it's investigations into deaths in-house. Whilst England is stressing as to whether Lucy Letby is a murderer, it might well be Scotland wouldn't have noticed any deaths in the first place.
Apologies for this, the article is from 2015, the algorithm is angling for my sense of bitterness.
'The Green Party's proposal for a wealth tax on 1% of assets above £10m and 2% on assets above £1bn comes top of our list of tax reforms that Britons would support, with 75% giving it their backing.
93% of Green voters and 87% of Labour voters and 80% of LD voters back a wealth tax on the richest. Even 70% of Tory and 61% of Reform voters in favour
- a British Passport may help but isn’t 100% solid. Why? - The Home Sec. can withdraw citizenship from any “dual national” - From the Begum case, a dual national is someone who *is eligible* for another passport - Renouncing another nationality might well not be enough. Most countries that allow renunciation allow reacquiring citizenship. - So a future Home Sec. issues an order cancelling the citizenship of x hundred thousand people in one go.
In Ancient Athens, the Thirty Tyrants used the cancellation of citizenship to get round a law on trials for citizens.
It’s all been done before
As a Jewish person theoretically eligible for an Israeli passport this precedent has always been a little worrying.
Important to remember. If you have a grandparent or closer born on the island of Ireland you're eligible for citizenship, and can therefore be deported if this goes through. Theoretically.
The way things are going I think anyone who has a connection to another country or has family that do should start to think about a plan B. Not as a baseline but as contingency planning. This country might be heading somewhere very dark. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
The Reform/Lam/Jenrick stuff removes for millions of people what was a previously barely perceptible thing (because it was never before questioned) - simply being secure in your own residence.
Two of my children were born in the US and have American passports. My wife was born here but has a Sri Lankan passport. Her parents and brothers are naturalized British citizens. One sister in law is French with settled status. Another sister in law's parents are Indian. Which of us is actually fully secure here in the current climate?
Has anybody checked Katie Lam/Robert Jenrick/Kemi Badenoch's extended family's heritage? The has to be at least one Conservative MP who will fall foul of this, whether personally or via a relative.
- a British Passport may help but isn’t 100% solid. Why? - The Home Sec. can withdraw citizenship from any “dual national” - From the Begum case, a dual national is someone who *is eligible* for another passport - Renouncing another nationality might well not be enough. Most countries that allow renunciation allow reacquiring citizenship. - So a future Home Sec. issues an order cancelling the citizenship of x hundred thousand people in one go.
In Ancient Athens, the Thirty Tyrants used the cancellation of citizenship to get round a law on trials for citizens.
It’s all been done before
As a Jewish person theoretically eligible for an Israeli passport this precedent has always been a little worrying.
Important to remember. If you have a grandparent or closer born on the island of Ireland you're eligible for citizenship, and can therefore be deported if this goes through. Theoretically.
The way things are going I think anyone who has a connection to another country or has family that do should start to think about a plan B. Not as a baseline but as contingency planning. This country might be heading somewhere very dark. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
It's rather shocking how the main three parties seem utterly disinterested in the centre ground and are (mostly) busy rushing to ape Reform. The Lib Dems aren't, but with their policy of flinging cash at the WASPI lot and comfortable limitation as the party of lovely leafy suburbs and Waitrose shoppers appear thoroughly disinterested in appealing to the sensible left, right and centre.
Badenoch needs to slap down this Lam nonsense. Threatening to expel law-abiding and tax-paying migrants who have done nothing wrong is morally repugnant and bloody stupid. It reminds me a little of Tyrion lambasting Joffrey as being the first king who was both vicious and an idiot.
It's apparently official Tory party policy. They published a draft bill setting it out in May, but no-one noticed until Lam's interview in the Sunday Times.
It's a terrible position for Badenoch to find herself in. She's under pressure to discipline a backbencher effectively for merely being better than her at gaining publicity for party policy. What a mess.
If Badenoch simply says, "this has been party policy for half a year," then, firstly, it's incredibly embarrassing that everyone ignored it, and secondly all the outrage transfers to her. Anything else she might say would be worse.
So she's left saying and doing nothing and hoping it goes away and everyone forgets. Absolute shambles.
It's basically Enoch's agenda from 1968, made real by draft legislation, isn't it?
Powell only went as far as voluntary repatriation. This is worse.
In the last month there have been a couple of attacks in or near Stavropol* that have killed Russian military personnel which have been claimed to involve the "Caucasus Liberation Movement". Might not amount to anything, but the possibility of the Caucasus erupting into rebellion against rule from Moscow is one of those known unknowns that could have a massive impact, and is worth keeping an eye on.
* Three paratroopers in the city centre yesterday and on September 27th a Rosgvardia lieutenant colonel and his aide and driver were reported killed near Tambukan, Stavropol region.
If enforced, then they represent the first real pro Ukraine shift from him.
Phillips P O'Brien has characterised them as a good way of doing nothing while appearing to be doing something.
We'll see. There are reports that Indian and Chinese refiners are pausing purchases of Russian oil, but this might be caution while they check out the detail.
Comments
I'll believe it when I see actual consequences, but certainly worth noting.
The U.S. War Department under Hegseth has sometimes paused weapons transfers to Ukraine.
Now, Trump seems to have transferred authority for transfers from the Pentagon to the Europe-based Supreme Allied Commander, the American General Alexus Grynkewich.
https://x.com/JPLindsley/status/1981140655947862280
I think this Roger Livermore character has a strong point, he thinks NHS Scotland shouldn't be doing it's investigations into deaths in-house. Whilst England is stressing as to whether Lucy Letby is a murderer, it might well be Scotland wouldn't have noticed any deaths in the first place.
More efficient electrical braking, plus lighter car...
However something even worse just happened for Putin. it looks like Xi Jinping has effectively been pushed out. He may keep the CCP General Secretary job, but only for a year, with a clear successor who is not from his faction of the CCP. The technocrats are less than impressed with Xi's alliance with Moscow and what is is costing and a new, more open faction will now be in charge.
A very bad week for Putin after all.
the return of a mostly christian "thought for the day", news, "in our time" and "womens hour" have been running for several decades, some literature, art and history, consumer programmes, more news, a play, too much media navel gazing and the Archers? They're still running "the moral maze!", which is somewhere on the far right of this galaxy and incredibly tedious.
Is it the Archers?
I suspect that R4 is losing audience because they have increased the repeats and the stupefyingly boring navel-gazing content (the media show, when it hits the fan, profile, strong message here, the briefing room).
It is exactly the opposite. Radio 4 has always had a reasonably sophisticated audience which it has recently chosen to ignore. In place of news presented by intelligent people with a vision of right and wrong that most of their listeners could understand they chose to replace them with a bunch of indistinguishable 'speak your weight' machines in the mould of Emma Barnett
When we moved to Edinburgh my wife persuaded me to get rid of some of the books that I'd read. Subsequently I found it necessary to rebuy one of them to reread it.
Al Jazeera Breaking News
@AJENews
·
3m
BREAKING: UK police arrest three men on suspicion of spying for Russia
Read more: https://aje.io/y6j3eo
NEW THREAD
93% of Green voters and 87% of Labour voters and 80% of LD voters back a wealth tax on the richest. Even 70% of Tory and 61% of Reform voters in favour
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1981319728174928268
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/YouGov_-_Tax_reforms.pdf
And wasn't Boris Johnson born in the States?
* Three paratroopers in the city centre yesterday and on September 27th a Rosgvardia lieutenant colonel and his aide and driver were reported killed near Tambukan, Stavropol region.
We'll see. There are reports that Indian and Chinese refiners are pausing purchases of Russian oil, but this might be caution while they check out the detail.