baddelim

The New Year

2011-12-11T14:15:00.004Z

...is almost upon us and we've pretty much given up on blogging in 2011. This has been the Year of Sickness for us, with at least one of us being unwell most weeks and with many of our plans undone because of illness time and again.

However, in 2012, we hope to be back in Australia. We're hoping that the addition of sunlight and fresh air to our lives diminishes the frequent illness. We'll see how that goes!

At this stage we are planning to move back around March but this isn't definite.

What is definite is the job Mark has been offered at Queensland Theological College from June, 2012. It's a great opportunity to serve God and we are quite excited about it. We had always expected to return to Sydney to serve at Moore Theological College, so this is a bit sudden and unexpected for us, and we will miss our friends in Sydney and the community at Moore. But Brisbane looks like the way forward.

If you regularly pray for us, you might want to join us in praising God for his continued provision for us and for this opportunity. You might also like to pray for the new principal of QTC (Gary Millar) as he and his family move across the globe, and for us as we undertake a similar move. There are lots of details to be ironed out and many decisions to be made. Pray we'll honour the Lord Jesus by being kind, wise and capable over the next few months. Oh, and that Mark will finish his thesis (which is coming along very well).

Here we all are...

We wish you a memorable Christmas and happy New Year. (We're not sure if that's 'you' singular or plural... can't be too many readers left! ;)

JMB

Birthday snow

2010-11-29T19:31:00.006Z

One of the major things that happened on our weekend was celebrating J's third birthday. He isn't actually three until next month, but his birthday is really too close to Christmas for him to really enjoy it, so being his parents, and slightly omnipotent in these matters, we moved it to a more suitable date.

He had a great day. There was snow, balloons, the birthday boy badge, presents and cake. The presents he opened one at a time and played with each one before he moved on. This was strange boy behaviour that we hadn't seen before.

The cake was constructed with his assistance (mostly he helped check that it all tasted good). He found it in a recipe book (all the cool two year olds read recipe books after all), and specifically requested it. And he blew out the candle with great enthusiasm. (You can see how healthy his tonsils are).

We said thank you to God for giving this boy three years of life, and pray for many more years. Most of all we pray that God will grant him eternal life through the Lord Jesus. JMB

Marvellous News!

2010-11-22T18:16:00.000Z

We are in! Finally, after three years, Mark is officially in the DPhil programme. Oh, he's written a substantial amount of the thesis and done lots of thinking around the topic. But we were just missing that fine detail that meant he could submit the thesis as a DPhil thesis and get a DPhil at the end of the whole performance.

So, the much prayed for, sought after paper has arrived, and we are relieved and grateful. For those of you who kindly pray for us from time to time, please join with us in thanking our generous God for providing again. JMB

Serious Apples

2010-11-16T19:46:00.000Z

I like apples. Which is another reason I quite like England. In England, they grow serious apples. Not just the easy-to-eat kind we get in Australia, but apples with attitude. They bite back.

These are 'Howsgate Wonders', which we got at one of the many apple festivals about the place this year. I am happy to report that these are fabulous apples. And the name reminded me of Hogwarts, which is cool as well.

(Very tired this week; this is the best I've got!) JMB

View From My Window

2010-11-08T18:33:00.005Z

So, we don't really update this. And I was thinking about this on the weekend and thinking that it was a shame and I missed writing these posts. I don't have time to write them, but I don't have time for anything and won't for several years.

So, I thought I'd post anyway.

Nothing too interesting or dramatic, and if you, dear reader, decide it isn't really up to scratch, that's OK. I don't really have time to deal with that, but I'm sure Samaritans or LifeLine would be glad to help you work through that struggle.

So, our boys have been sick all of October. We've done high temperatures, chest infections, vomiting, diarrhea, wheezing, coughing, steroids, antibiotics, many trips to doctors, many sleepless nights. Hurray for last week, where we had two well boys on Tuesday and things just got better from there. And hurray for patient boys who coped really well with being sick.

And it's Autumn, which always surprises me with its wealth of colours and crisp, cold air. It starts so gently and crescendoes with freezing rain, frosts and gold, red, brown whipping about in the chill wind.

I like autumn. JMB

The New Boy

2010-05-18T00:00:00.008+01:00

Some of you who may read this may not have received an email announcing the birth of our son, despite being in email contact with us in the past. We apologise for that. We're beginning to realise that we need to migrate our email addresses from one computer to the next. How we do this is beyond us. But at least we know exactly what to feel guilty about, which has got to help. Somehow.

So, without further ado, let us announce the birth of Samuel Charles Baddeley on 3rd May at 12.16pm, weighing in at 3.49kg which includes a respectable head of hair. The birth was reasonably straight forward and quick (albeit intense).

J is very pleased with the 'cheeky baby', also known as 'San-u-el', 'my own bwover' and 'my baby'. He tries to help the baby play with his favourite toys and hugs him frequently, and enjoys 'checking' on the baby, announcing with gravity that the baby is asleep and making shushing noises. Few babies have been welcomed as enthusiastically by their siblings as little Samuel.

Things are going as well as can be expected under the circumstances. We get somewhere in the vicinity of 'enough' sleep every few days and are muddling through in that haphazard, quasi-competent way we Baddeley's have of making it from point A to point B, often with a couple of unintended detours. This has included Mark passing a kidney stone on the weekend, something we think it would be good to avoid in future.

In the fog of sleep deprivation, we are enormously thankful for many things. Samuel is a gorgeous little boy, and he has come to us safe and sound, and is now growing and thriving; Jennie was kept safe through the delivery process. Mark has been painfree since the weekend, which is a Very Good Thing and something we pray continues. We've found and sorted a house for when we move at the end of June, which is something we are grateful to not have to think about at the moment.

So, as God watches the little sparrows, he continues to effortlessly provide for us and we are grateful. JMB

So why is April 23rd so special?

2010-04-23T19:50:00.005+01:00

No reason.

Well, there are probably heaps of reasons. But there's no reason why we should choose today to actually post something on this poor, forsaken blog. Except that life has slowed down slightly for 15 minutes and we thought we should update those long-suffering souls who check in from time to time.

Thanks, by the way.

What have we been up to?

We've survived a really intense six months. Mark has passed an important exam and is now in the process of applying to the DPhil programme. Jennie is busy with an energetic two year old and a slightly less energetic unborn baby, which we're due to meet in about three weeks. J. is busy playing complicated imaginative games which both baffle and intrigue us, as well as continuing to make friends with anyone he meets. And we all had a marvellous holiday about three weeks ago, which was genuinely relaxing and refreshing for all of us.

That's about where we're up to.

The next few months will bring an enormous amount of change. Obviously, the birth of our baby will change our lives fairly radically. We also have to move in late June and have probably got a place on the other side of Oxford. We're looking forward to this in many ways because while it won't give us more space, it does come with a backyard and a lovely kitchen.

Baddeley's, Christmas, 2009

If you pray for us, we'd love you to pray that our baby will be born in good health and in good time, and both Jennie and the baby will be kept safe throughout the process. Pray also that we would navigate all this change well and in ways which honour God, and that we'll understand how this affects our little boy and be wise in the ways we help him. Please also pray that this house will be settled quickly or that we would find another one swiftly. And please thank God with us for the extraordinary gifts he's given us - of another precious child, of great time together and of his kindness towards us and preservation of us through a really tricky eighteen months. And thank you for your prayers. We appreciate them.

Thanks for those who keep in contact with us, even as we struggle to return the favour (though we have been doing better lately!) We love to hear from you and pray for you more than you might suspect. JMB&MDB

Training

2009-08-30T19:45:00.009+01:00

Not far from us we are privileged to enjoy a miniature railway. This is no two-bit model railway with dodgy tracks and a rickety engine. This is the real thing. That is, real models based on real engines using real coal and running on real tracks with real signals. It is one of the most extraordinary and disturbing things we've seen.

Our boy doesn't think it is at all disturbing and is utterly mesmerised by it. I've tried to take him often during the summer and he's started to really relax and enjoy it. He looks hard at the train and says, 'T, t, t' with great vigor (meaning Thomas of Tank Engine fame). And when told we are going to visit the trains he dances about saying, 'Toot, toot'. It's safe to say that he has only the utmost appreciation for this service.

It is a very serious affair. It has real tickets and a ticket master, wearing a special hat clips your ticket before you ride

The engine driver carefully drives around the track, stopping or slowing at the appropriate signal and blowing his whistle the requisite number of times as instructed by the sign.

Some of the volunteers are older, probably doing this as a hobby in their retirement. But some are not old, and appear just as enthusiastic. In fact, everyone involved in this venture is not so much enthusiastic as earnest. And I think that is what is slightly disturbing for us.

This is a terrific thing to visit. Miniature trains, based off real engines with nicknames, being cared for and cajoled into giving their all for the Cutteslowe Park Miniature Railway.
We often frequent this park, which runs intermittently throughout the summer. And really appreciate the huge amount of work and expertise that goes into continuing to make this happen. But the attention to detail is slightly disconcerting. We were there once when a moment of tension happened, with an elderly engineer protested that the 'spare carriage' had been used. The conversation went like this:

(Outraged) The spare carriage has been taken out

(Long-suffering) Yes, they needed it.

But it isn't here any longer.

Yes, they've taken it out.

But now there is no spare carriage.

That's alright. They needed it and they took it.

It's not alright. There's no spare carriage.

But they had to use it.

It's policy to always have a spare carriage.

This final statement seemed to us to invite the response: "Yes it's policy to always have a spare carriage in case one is needed and not to always have a spare carriage lying around just for the sake of always having a spare carriage." But it was an indication of just how intense the engineers are that there was no attempt to discuss the purpose of the rule. It was clear that the only thing that mattered was the details. Which, it has to be noted, is a fantastic mindset to have when building a model engine exactly to scale. The earnestness in this enterprise isn't just in the driving of the trains. It pervades all, and this means great engines, with real smoke and puff.

But as much as I admire the tenacious attention to detail and sheer skill of this - and I do think it is amazing - I am always tempted to whisper into the driver's ear, 'It's just a train'. But I don't think he'd understand and there is probably a policy to put troublemakers like me off at the next stop. So, I continue to be amazed and incredulous. JMB

Learning to be Patriotic

2009-07-31T12:37:00.016+01:00

J is 18 months old.

It's probably time, we thought.

So, we decided to teach J about patriotism. We got him a flag and took him to the Proms.

Oops. Maybe we taught him the wrong kind of patriotism. The proms (after all) is not a very Australian event, but you do see a lot of patriotic people. But we discovered, patriotism in England is expressed very differently to what we're familiar with in Australia.

There is flag waving in both countries. It's just that we can't quite see a mob of Australians waving their flags to... Elgar. But to the English, Elgar inspires flag waving. Even where there is a real spitfire 'dancing' to Elgar, which was quite absorbing and thrilling to watch, flags are held aloft and waved.

Great Britain no longer insists on a single flag. It was quite confusing for us Aussies there at the flag booth. There was the St George flag, the Welsh Flag, the St Andrews Cross as well as the Union Jack. Anyone would think the Empire had collapsed (but I think any rousing rendition of 'Rule Brittania' will demonstrate that this is clearly a myth.)

Pig products are the national dish. We may have commented on this already. We are still coming to terms with it. Our fellow Terry Pratchet fans may assume, like we used to, that 'Piginabun' sold by Cut-Me-Own-Throat-Dibbler is a parody. Not so much. It's more like factual reporting. The pig products are sold unsullied by any accompaniment on a bun. It is 'pig in a bun'. And it may or may not kill you, depending on your consitution.

National music is classical. Good, well-played classical. This was a marvellous discovery. It's not that we don't appreciate country music. Well, actually it is that. Flag waving works better to Elgar than 'I Went Outback On My Horse Called Mildew and I Lost My Girl and I'm Sad, Sad, Sad'. Sure, country music has narrative, but classical music doesn't always have words. And frankly, that can sometimes be a real benefit. Especially when it's chosen and played well.

The war isn't really over. The war with France that is. Insulting anyone else is a hate crime. Insulting the French and reminding them of their loss at Waterloo again and again is a national past time. Give a slightly tipsy guy dressed in a 19th Century soldier's uniform a microphone and you'll hear the French insulted. And the crowd encouraged to boo the French. When they say 'don't mention the war', they don't mean the one in the nineteenth century. It's all about Waterloo. (It seems such a big deal I expect it is actually Cromwell's fault somehow).

The British know how to be in a crowd well. Lots of horses to see, no stand of any kind. So we do what the British do best. We form an orderly queue of sorts. Those of us at the back can't see a thing. But there is no complaining or jostling or nastiness. We all just stand there in an orderly fashion. It is much less stressful than other crowds we've experienced. It's a good national skill to have.

Artillery is a serious business. Still. The guys who operated the artillery to blast at various times in theh programme actually built the artillery. At some point, someone will possibly break it to them that this artillery is not so useful these days. (Which I guess isn't true if it is used each year for these events all around the country). We've moved onto more sophisticated ways of killing people. It is a curious thing, though. One wonders whether in 200 years, they'll have the Proms with battle tanks, machine guns and missiles. That will really put a bang into the 1812 Overture.

And the weather. As the inevitable rain came down (not that we mind it particularly), we were engaged in the care of a small boy and it wasn't until we turned around again that we saw the crowd had become a sea of umbrellas. It was a startling transformation and we should have taken a photo. Instead here is one of number of more serious umbrellas; the truly serious of course were housed in a gazebo (and almost always attired in formal wear). Gazebos could be hired for a cool $A250. We just brought along our dinky little umbrella. But then, we're from the colonies.

We won't try and further J's patriotism any further at this stage. What with the Ashes... he's probably waving the right flag anyway. JMB

English Spring

2009-07-17T14:33:00.001+01:00

Thank you to all who kept in contact with us in various ways over the past few months. It's been a weird kind of year for us and as you may have noticed, we haven't blogged for a while. Maybe we'll be able to get back into the swing of things now...

This blog is fast becoming a comment on British weather. But we cannot let Spring get away without comment. It is one of the beautiful aspects of British life. It comes on the heels of winter, with all its sparse greyness and cold. Mostly we quite enjoy this: cold in Britain is a different experience compared with cold in Australia. Houses are heated much more effectively here, so it is easier to warm up if we do get really cold. And coats are serious, so wandering about outside is mostly not too bad.

But the colours mute and even seem to disappear into a dreary palate of brown, leafless trees against a grey, gloomy sky. And so Spring is something of a surprise. The colours come back. Spring soothes the greyness into the background with sudden pockets of pastels, while the green of summer gradually arrives. These little moments of colour startle the eye, so used to the grey brown of winter, and they give way to great splashes of colour, longer days, sunshine with warmth in it and leaves growing and unfurling in beautiful shades of green. Worthy of special mention are the daffodils. Vivids yellows dancing in the breeze are slightly breathtaking. They don't last very long, but they tease the mind with possibilities of summer.

One sunny day, Jonathan and I went for a walk intent on taking photos of Springtime. Here we ran into a slight problem. Jonathan's problem, of course, lay in my unwillingness to entrust him with the camera. It is an ongoing problem he has and one day will result in some kind of camera coup.

My problem, however, was slightly less complex. There were many photos I could have taken of everything from magnolias in full bloom to little bluebells (or whatever they are called), peeping up to the sun. But these pictures all involved a private residence of some kind. I don't know what the etiquette of this is and didn't want to find out. But churches, I decided, are fair game. After all, in this country the Church of England is still established and so church buildings are kind of public property. I, being the public, albeit the foreign public, thought it would be quite acceptable to take photos of churches for private use. I probably put a lot more thought into this than was strictly necessary. I was no doubt dazzled by so many gorgeous flowers and the sudden appearance of sunshine.

Here are my offerings. I hope you enjoy them, and although it ceased being Spring some time ago, it is never the wrong time of the year to see photos of a gentle English Spring. JMB

Let it Snow!

2009-02-15T20:10:00.002Z

Some of you may have noticed that while Australia suffers in the grip of drought, flood and fire, the Northern Hemisphere has enjoyed some very cold weather recently. I use the term 'enjoyed' with some hesitation, because I realise that for some it has been difficult to deal with this really cold weather.

Many people over here groan about the snow because it causes inconvenience, and it can be hard to walk through snow and to slide about on the ice. But on the whole, I think snow is a much friendlier 'weather event' than drought, flood or fire. Snow is genuinely beautiful. Snow is also relational: it invites snowballs. And snowballs really need to be thrown in order to reach their fulfilled state.

And we enjoyed it. We took an afternoon off and went out to see what we could see.

What we saw was lots of white covering everything. Snow dusting trees, covering fields, rooftops, chimney pots and flaking down in a gentle flurry of white when it snowed.

We went crunching through the snow and slipping over the ice. We found a pond half frozen with some intrepid ducks valiantly relieving passing pedestrians of their bread.

And seagulls.

Being naive Australians we thought seagulls were only found at the sea. Something about the name of the animal giving us that false impression. So, it was quite a surprise to us to find them gallivanting around in the snow.

Here they are with the ducks on the frozen lake.

Here they are against the snow. You might not be able to see them because they are, well, white like the snow and there are so many of them. I think we counted 43 in this photo, but one can never be sure because they move around a bit.

They're like the Royal Mail: always out there, doing their bit, rain, hail or shine or, snow. I'm not sure that seagulls really count as useful members of the community, but they are certainly, unavoidably present.

Jonathan was quite taken with the snow, and particularly enjoyed watching mum and dad have snow fights. Again, notice the presence of, let's say, 67 seagulls scattered around in the snow. They get in the way of making a serious snowball sometimes.

We all returned from our excellent adventure in good cheer despite the disturbing presence of certain sea fowl.

And now, warmer weather has appeared and melted all but the most intrepid snowpiles. The seagulls, however, remain. JMB

Home is Where the Heart is/So Your Real Home’s in Your Chest

2009-02-01T17:47:00.010Z

As promised, here are the kinds of things that I really like about Dr Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.

To begin with is Whedon’s capacity to cast people well for their role. All the main characters are played by actors who give the kind of performance that leaves me unable to imagine anyone else in the role. And it’s not just the main characters. Minor characters like Moist and the three groupies feel ‘as real’ as the main characters and not simply dramatic white noise. It speaks of someone who understands people well and who has a clear vision of who the characters are in his shows. This makes for great viewing.

Unlike many tv shows, you cannot take a line from one character and just give it to another. Even plot exposition monologues are done in a way that is unique to each character. Further, it enables Whedon to have his characters change and develop organically over the years in a way that, while sometimes surprising, is credible. Again something so often missing in shows, but that is just basic to human life.

Finally, it enables him to gamble in ways that really pay off--using certain actors in two or more of his shows for example, fighting to have Allison Hannigan as Willow, killing off Amy Acker’s much loved character Fred in order to introduce another character played by the same actor showcasing a completely different facet of her dramatic range (try pulling that off in the standard "Doctor's in picket fences at a wealthy high school" kind of genre). Even in a forty minute one-shot, the same qualities were evident and made Dr Horrible work.

So, the concluding song of Act One was able to do pretty well everything I want in a musical number: introduce characters, advance the plot, and set things up so that revelations to occur later appear in embryonic form in the earlier song - as well as certain lines taking on a whole different meaning in light of what happens later.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3eBvZvUXk&feature=related

Second, is that it captures the cheese of supers without descending into camp. Supers are inherently cheesy. Brightly coloured costumes worn skin tight with skimpy speedos/bikinis. Secret identities being protected by flimsy masks or no mask at all. Names like “the Silver Surfer” (it might surprise you to learn that he is silver in colour, and travels through space on a surfboard. Have a guess in what decade he was created) and “the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.” (I mean, come on, it’d be like the so-called Axis of Evil nations calling themselves that.) Heroes who fight real, melodramatic evil, but who are concerned at all times to do so fairly and to never use any firearms and who think that they should never kill even in self-defence. Think of a fondue the size of the world, and you’ve got the super genre.

It is hard to do cheese consistently with a straight face unless you have some confidence in the genre. And so all too often, treatments of the super genre go for the cheap laughs and go for camp a la the Batman tv series and then increasingly with the later instalments of the Batman movies of about ten to twenty years ago.

Dr Horrible avoids camp completely but fearlessly nods its head at the cheese. Freeze rays, death rays, Dr Horrible, Captain Hammer, the Evil League of Evil (I still chuckle at that it's not just a League of Evil, it is a League of Evil that leagues in an evil way you can almost hear the bwa ha ha ha!), and the dreaded super villain Bad Horse (“the thoroughbred of sin”) are all a homage to classic super cheese. And it’s all done with a straight face from start to finish. It deserves a ‘bravo’!

Next is the emotional range. Musicals like Chicago and Chess have one basic emotion and its simply variations on a theme as you go through. That one emotional muscle get a real work out. Whedon gives the viewer an emotional range. So in the midst of the heartbreak and melodrama we get the Bad Horse songs. Here is the first one from early in Act One (slightly out of sync). It’s a letter from Bad Horse responding to Dr Horrible’s application to join the Evil League of Evil (and if that sentence doesn’t crack some kind of smile this musical is not for you). Keep an eye on Neil Patrick Harris' facial expression as the letter is 'read' - absolutely classic:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3nQQgMJfrQg&NR=1

This raises another great aspect of the musical--Whedon’s capacity to pen memorable lines. The title from this blog was chosen because for months those two lines from Captain Hammer’s (parody) of feel good self-esteem songs (“If you can wish it, you can do it” kind of rubbish) captured for us how silly some platitudes can be. And that whole song is a wonderful mine of such cringe-worthy lines, even as other songs have their own crackers of one liners as well.

Everyone’s a hero in their own way
Everyone’s got villains they must face
They’re not as cool as mine
But folks you know it’s fine to know your place

Everyone’s a hero in their own way
In their own not-that-heroic way

Everyone’s a hero in their own way
you and you and mostly me and you

Now we move into the three things that I think are easy to miss but that move Whedon (and Dr Horrible in particular) way above the pack when it comes to popular culture. First, is that Whedon manages to pull off having the viewer cheer on a super-villain and yet not cheer on evil. It is not an easy thing to do - have the viewer 100% behind the bad guy while inviting them to pass judgement upon them. And yet, it seems absolutely fundamental to Whedon’s moral vision that he will always present evil as evil and the wrong choice for human beings, even when the evil is being done by the ‘hero’ of the story.

I’m a novice at this kind of thing but it seems that there are two techniques that Whedon uses to pull this off. First, he plays up the elements of Dr Horrible’s actions where he isn’t evil - a somewhat heroic set of actions in the first song that we linked, his love for Penny, his basically sensitive and thoughtful nature. This is in keeping with what seems to be Whedon’s (oh so rare in fiction!) grasp that good and evil are not fixed categories for human beings - good people can do bad things, and bad people can do good things, and people in either category can shift over to the other side through their choices, and so our decisions matter. Because of this he can still present Dr Horrible as on a downward slide, but still having things that the viewer can resonate with.

His other technique is particularly clever. He turns the superhero vs. super villain conflict over good and evil into a geek vs. jock conflict over the love of a sensitive and supportive girl. It plays on one of the great paradoxes of supers. Most comic readers are geeks. (I mean, how much more geeky can you get than to read comic books?) And yet, the heroes in the comics are jocks - handsome, physically capable, socially confident (ad nauseum), while many of the villains are geeks - withdrawn, socially awkward, highly intelligent, physically not able to match the hero. So in the musical Dr Horrible is a geek's geek and it becomes increasingly clear that Captain Hammer is nothing but a jock. And so Dr Horrible starts with the one conflict (SH vs. SV), switches over to the other to map the moral slide of the villain protaganist, and then swtiches back at the dénouement to make his moral point about the evil of choosing evil no matter the temptation. It is horribly clever (that felt good).

It also means that Whedon has geeks eating out of his hand while he is warning against the way that a geek can start to go down a very dark path. That shows moral courage at a time when most shows will make the target of moral outrage whoever is not part of the core target audience (conservatives on West Wing, people who wouldn’t be respectable in middle-class suburbia in the CSI franchise, that kind of thing).

The second 'big' reason why I think it stands above the rest is that it quietly expresses key elements of Whedon’s world-view. In the portrait of Captain Hammer is Whedon's absolute rejection of Superman, because Whedon recognises that, in the real world, an invulnerable man cannot be a good man. Pain is a necessary component of morality in this world that we live in. This is why Whedon will give his heroes various powers, but seems to really draw back from any kind of invulnerability or making them fully bullet proof. There has to be a genuine cost from doing what is right, and there has to be genuine personal risk for it to be a good action.

Right here Whedon has grasped something fundamental about the nature of the world that is an element as to why God sent his Son to become a human being, and didn't simply send an angel to wow us all with his angelicness. The irony - he's grasped this issue better than many Christians, but hates God, and so (I think) tries to use this moral insight as an argument against his caricature of God (whom he has called the "Sky-Bully").

The final reason flows from this. By and large Whedon's moral vision 'fits' the world I live in. As he deals with issues of forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation (never under those terms of course), of how relationships can be seriously damaged by a person's actions so badly that it can't all be fixed in one nice 40 minute episode, and of how overcoming estrangement between people doesn't simply just turn the clock back on the relationship but changes it into something new(all of which is particularly evident in the later seasons of Buffyand Angel) it all reads as "Life Jim, and as we know it." Even when he comes out with things that just clang (his attempts in Angel and Serenity to say why we should choose good when we live in a universe with no inherent meaning - a big issue for someone who subscribes to absurdism as Whedon does) they at least make some sense despite how daft they are. Whedon's stuff suggests he is pretty cluey about life stuff. And I want that in a show - particularly when (like with Whedon) I disagree with him almost as often as I agree.

And because it 'fits', Whedon at his best does what Terry Pratchett does at his best. He manages to tell the story so you go 'ah ha that's how life works,' rather than pounding you over the head with the moral of the story and forcing his view on you.

I have regularly been asked what I think of West Wing. I love the characters, and I love the fast-paced, dense dialogue. But it completely fails on this point. Yes, it is all about a moral vision. But, like the Star Trek franchise, it lives in a world where Pollyanna sits down for tea with Mary Poppins while some cloyingly cute child dances with a talking animal. The only things that don't stretch my credulity to the breaking point are the teleporters, warp engines, and replicators, and the Nobel prize winning President who spends most of his time talking about what food is on the menu or playing Trivial Pursuit with his staff. The view of life and morality that is on display is pure fantasy - it is how the writers think the world should work, not how the world really is. And it only 'works' in the shows because the writers cheat and never allow the characters to genuinely experience the consequences of their actions, all the time twisting your arm up behind your back to force their moral lesson upon you.

Whedon can be guilty of this too, but so far it tends to be contained to the two things he feels most strongly about (a fairly savage irony there): his absolute rejection of faith and God, and a feminist view (almost a conspiracy theory)of chauvinism - out of womb envy a bunch of cavemen plotted together to make everyone think women were evil and that explains why we still have chauvinism today in every culture(even though he admits it's a 'rather silly simplification,' he still claims that on a mass, unconscious level it is 'entirely true.' I suppose if you are as bright as he is and want to believe something you yourself think is silly then it really does pay to be an absurdist.) Apart from these two areas, his stuff is not only sane but often very perceptive and told in a way that catches you up.

Usually somewhere around now (often much earlier) non-fans of the shows accuse me of reading into it a whole lot of stuff that's not there. Their point seems to be along the lines of: it's about school girls and vampires, or a musical about super villain, it can't be anything other than silly. The criticism shows just how much is wrong with so much contemporary entertainment.

Something doesn't have to be high culture, or take itself very seriously, or just thrash around in worst aspects of human existence (I'm looking at you Shield and Sopranos) to seek to illuminate the nature of life and how it is to be lived. One can offer light and silly viewing that has the purpose of saying something serious along the way. Even the Middle Ages could see that with the role of the court jester. The point, is that this is so staggeringly rare that people have all but forgotten it is possible. And that's what I love about Whedon's stuff. I can genuinely switch off, have a little bit of an escape, and still be worked over about the important questions of how to live. There's only a handful of other shows I know of that even attempt it.

So there you go. Just a bit of the reasons why I love Dr Horrible's Sing-A-Long-Blog. Thanks for bearing with me. We'll return you to your regular programming next week. MDB

Do a Blog. Say it was Horrible.

2009-01-26T20:58:00.011Z

One of the most enjoyable things for me that happened last year was the release of a small show, (being mentioned now because the DVD recently arrived). It comprised three acts, which together ran for around 40 minutes. I almost missed it, because it was completely outside the standard TV/movie production and screening frameworks. It was released on the net, and the makers relied upon a fan-based campaign to do the advertising. I only found out about it due to a good friend of ours with a similar taste for such viewing pleasures and a lot more internet savvy. However, thanks to that friend, I joined some ridiculous number of people worldwide (yes, fan based advertising can work surprisingly well) who caught the three acts for free over the couple of days that they were up for viewing. What is a ridiculous number in this context? Somewhere around 200 000 downloads per hour (yes, that is the right number of zeroes, one million downloads every five hours--a number sufficient to crash the server hosting it).

The show was written, produced, created, and whatever other verb tends to get added by Joss Whedon and his crew, the guy behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel (not about Angelology so that you don’t completely betray your Whedonisque ignorance), the short-lived Firefly, the movie Serenity (which was apparently the essence of what would have been Season 2 of Firefly had it survived), and most recently Dollhouse (not about dollhouses either).
The name of this little production by Whedon is Dr Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog, the kind of title that only an under 40’s could love, and even then only those under-40’s happy to wear the “geek” title, and not even all of them. The show is a musical (hence the three acts). It is a tragedy, about a romance, and is a comedy (in the modern sense; classically speaking, as I’m sure all Baddelim readers would be aware, tragedy and comedy are mutually exclusive genres, and the latter is not necessarily funny. Just ask the well known medieval comedian Dante). It is also has a supervillian, Dr Horrible (it’s his video blog that we see extracts from) as the protaganist (played by Neil Patrick Harris), and a superhero, Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), as the dramatic foil. It also has geekdom's current icon, Felicia Day, playing the romantic interest. And it was professionally shot to look like it was cheaply done.

It is the kind of genre-busting thing that is nonetheless pure geekdom that Whedon loves to pull off when he can escape from his network handlers (such as this time--it wasn’t financed through any of the TV networks), that ensures that it will leave people whose tastes are firmly mainstream in the deep cold (“a comic musical romantic tragedy about a super-villain that looks like it was put together by amateurs? Let’s watch Neighbours instead, or Australian Idol, that’s always good”) while generating a cult following of geeks (which is a fairly smart business plan when you’re hoping to recoup your production costs through iTunes and DVD sales--cult following is what you’re looking for). It is one of the most niche-audience targeted things I’ve ever seen, and so, all by itself, is a signpost of just how tribalised contemporary western society is in its pop culture. Nonetheless, it was a hugely successful niche-geeky thingie, even rising to the dizzying heights of being mentioned on Penny Arcade, one of the surest pop-culture indicators for at least one big slice of worldwide geekdom.

I, of course, love it. There are several reasons. First, it is about superheroes and super villains. I grew up with DC comics, and even now will dip back into reading comics from either DC or Marvel that I think might be significant. I’ve really enjoyed the big-screen treatments of Spiderman, X-Men, and the most recent iteration of Batman and Superman, as fairly impressive translations of the ‘language’ of the comic genre into that of the big-budget movie. So a treatment of the super genre by an unabashed fan of comics? Sign me up.

Second, it is a musical. A musical. I get obsessed with musicals. I have several Gilbert and Sullivan musicals on the iPod, and DVDs of a few. They all get a regular work out. But that doesn’t really capture the intensity of experiencing musicals for me. When I first encountered the Pirates of Penzance I listened to it so much in a two week period that I knew probably 70% of it off by heart months later. A similar thing happened when I was first exposed to Chess. I find that the combination of words with music allows for something far richer, and capable of generating far more reflection and insight than words on their own can do. (Heck, because it was a musical, even Chicago was able to say something about human existence and be more than just an excuse to wallow around in the muck of the roaring 20s .) Even after multiple listenings to a song from a musical I still find new things--a clever allusion to a previous (or later) song in the musical that gives a new perspective to both songs, a mismatch between the tune and the words (completely absent in Chicago and Chess, where the music basically acts to telegraph the punches the lyrics are throwing out, but almost a shtick in Gilbert and Sullivan). Musicals aren’t exhaustless, but they repay repeated exposure in a way that few non-musical songs, and few prosaic discussions of human experience (whether non-fiction or fiction) do. So Dr Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog scores high here as well.

Third, is the whole genre-breaking thing. Give me something, anything, that breaks out of the fixed genre-conventions, and pat answers that seem to imprison pop culture in stale repetitions of earlier treatments. A musical comedy-tragedy about a romantic triangle involving a super villain and a super hero and where the villain is the protagonist? You simply can’t follow any pre-existing conventions. Succeed or fail, like it or hate it, it is that beast that is sighted almost as rarely in our modern world as a genuine unicorn: something original. It takes well-worn elements of parts of our popular culture that have been around for decades, if not over century, and puts them together in a whole new way.

Finally, it is by Joss Whedon, creator of the shows that I mentioned at the start, and that are virtually a Who’s Who list of my favourite TV shows--it only needs a few additions of non-Whedonisque shows to make a complete set. Almost everything I want in a show to make it worth my time to watch it he consistently gives. And so next week I’m going to try and touch on just a couple of the things that make Dr Horrible something that I have worn out my iPod in listening to, and that our computer’s DVD reader has only been saved from the same fate because it stopped working just before the DVD arrived.

I suspect that for all, except a small minority of our gentle readers, the fact that this was created by the guy behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is most likely the show’s biggest turn off (after the fact that it is a musical about a super villain of course). People, even those (a surprisingly large number) who enjoyed the movie Serenity look askance when they find out that one’s favourite show is about a school girl chosen to save the world from vampires. Go figure. (Apparently if you take the girl out of school, put her in a space ship, give her telepathic powers on top of her credulity-straining martial arts prowess, and say that she gets her ability from science rather than the supernatural that makes it less embarrassing, and less problematic for Christians to watch. But that just confirms what I’ve always thought. People is crazy.) If you are such a person, you have my sympathies. I really do want to hear how good whatever reality TV show is that you watch, or how watching years of cricket has made you a better person. But I’m still going to try and express why I think Whedon’s stuff is something special, school-girl vampire slaying notwithstanding.

As the penultimate song of the musical says, “do a blog,” “say it was Horrible”. And here at Baddelim we’re going to do just that. MDB

The Nation

2009-01-14T21:18:00.000Z

Welcome back to all those who still swing by this blog from time to time. Where have we been? Pottering about, working, chasing a small boy up the hall with a penguin on wheels, eating Christmas pudding, enjoying one of the best and most relaxed Christmases we've had, being thankful for many mercies, revelling in the very cold weather and lots of other things.

And enjoying Christmas presents, one of which was a book by Terry Prachett called The Nation, recently published. A good friend of ours who knows we've made a habit of reading Prachett to each other sent it to us and we unwrapped it with great pleasure, and shortly after Christmas got down to the serious business of reading it aloud.

Only it's not really that kind of book.

We've long admired and enjoyed Pratchett (recently knighted) for his wry, witty satire, mostly of England and all its institutions. The Church of England comes in for a thumping, along with Oxbridge, the bureaucracy, the monarchy, hatred of Oliver Cromwell (yes, that is actually its own institution over here), and so on. He does all this in a parody of the fantasy genre (thereby increasing the satire), but has believable, lovable characters which are dickensian in their eccentricity, yet somehow familiar. He writes about people in such a way as to remind us of people we know ourselves. And whether it is the solid, dependable Vimes; the utterly sincere Commander Carrot; the overly interested Death or Albert (his butler), or the fearsome Granny Weatherwax.... they bring a smile to one's face as they are recalled. Because Pratchett knows how to pass on his enjoyment of the world he has created.

And it's funny.

Sometimes the jokes build up for chapters and are suddenly unleashed and the unwary reader finds himself laughing too hard to read. Sometimes they are rather awful puns (or a 'pune' - a play on words, don't you know). Sometimes the joke is ironic and has a rather nasty twist.

But all that is past.

It had faded slightly, I thought with the most recent series about the Wee Free Men. Sure, it was funny, but a lot more meaningful and with a much stronger agenda than previously. I could be wrong about this, and only remembering the great fun the other books were without remembering the agenda clearly. He has always had a strong message in each book, but it was possible to nod your head in the direction of the message and still enjoy the book.

But The Nation was different. In that book it is not possible to enjoy the book without the message. The two are interconnected. The humour is barely there. The world is different.

A tidal wave wipes out a boy's entire nation, leaving him with a stranded white girl and some unpleasant gods to recreate his little island world. It starts black and gets blacker. God is critiqued, discarded and replaced by Science. A little girl's rejection of imperialism and etiquette resolve a crisis situation so that a nation's sovereignty is almost preserved, and Pratchett creates his ideal: a place where Science reigns and politics comes second; and religion and God have scuttled away having no place to stand. Dawkins and Einstein interact on his island paradise; the natives have telescopes and all is well with the world.

Except that his basic thesis has a flaw. For some time now Pratchett has peppered his novels with gods. They are mostly quite amusing, if somewhat delusional and basically they are only as powerful as the devotion of their followers. So they keep trying to rustle up followers and most fail and are forgotten, and so grow weaker. If the gods are good for anything, it's amusement value, behaving irrationally in much the same way as the greek gods, which seems to be the model he is working from: he doesn't really attack the Christian God outright (except somewhat obliquely in Small Gods).

All this changes in The Nation. The problem of suffering and evil is raised and used to reject the gods and later God outright. God has no pity and there is no mercy. He is seen as even more malevolent than the impotent gods of the island's nation, who at least only want beer all the time. Pratchett seems to think that God requires slavish obedience, and repays this obedience with only misery, fear and more misery.

The perspective is different to my own, as is probably evident. I liked the fact that he was more or less consistent, but I found it a hard book to read because it was so black and so, so sad. There is no happy ending in this book, unless you count the telescopes and the scientists scrambling all over the place - which could only comfort someone who has an unthinking faith in science as a creed, or perhaps who earns a living from making telescopes. It's a book without hope: the best we have is this life (in which terrible things happen without rhyme or reason and which can destroy the virtuous just as much as the fool) and then we die. Even science isn't attractive, but rather the best you have available to you: it doesn't comfort you or help you make sense of life. There is nothing that can do that.

Terry Pratchett is dying. Hopefully quite slowly. (He is suffering from an uncommon form of Alzheimers.) As he helpfully points out, we might die first. But as he is dying, he is making his message crystal clear: choose Science, not God. It's science as religion. And what is worse, and I think why I was so sad as I finished the book, it isn't because he thinks Science is good and God is bad, but because God is bad and Science is a useful way of stopping him. To get God out of our heads, we need to get Science into it; replace irrational stupidity, which is what he feels faith must be, with rational, reasoned... well, trust in Science really. It's that very British kind of religion, a respectable religion, that one doesn't have to feel ashamed of when listening to Radio 4 or reading The Guardian.

He hasn't won me over. I think there are many reasons to trust God (without rejecting science). The one which comforts me in the empty, lonely coldness life can bring is the death of his Son for us: showing a God who is so much more good than the small category we have for 'good' that our mediocre category must overflow and burst and become something quite different.

But he raises a really good question for us: when the tidal wave comes and takes our 'everything' what will we do? It's a question all of us do well to answer before the wave hits, because it does hit eventually. Even if we sail through life, we all end up where Pratchett is now: staring down death, which ultimately steals all we have from us. Just for the record, when the tidal wave hits, my money is on God's unprompted promise of resurrection from the dead, vouschafed by the resurrection of his own Son. I'll take that over telescopes any day of the week. And twice on Sunday. JMB

Praying for us

2008-12-02T19:13:00.002Z

Another heartfelt 'thank you' to all those who diligently pray for us - we do appreciate your care and concern for us, and we are grateful to God for his continued blessing and kindness towards us in Christ.

So here is another installment of information for those who care for us in this way. Please join us in thanking God for...

* Keeping our heads above water in the recent bouts of illness that have come our way. One of us always seems to be either getting or suffering or recovering from some kind of cold like disease. Merciful it hasn't been anything like Mark's long chest infection and Jonathan seems to bounce back reasonably fast and not become too unhappy when he is sick.

* Our liberation from 'survival mode' which we've been stuck in most of the year. Now we can finally find a rhythm and do some extra things or things that have been shelved while we just gritted our teeth and got through. It is fantastic to be out of that mode and we are all feeling the benefit of less pressure.

* The time and space to be able to say 'yes' to some ministry opportunities. Mark is teaching the Moore College correspondence course at St Ebbe's; Jennie is leading a group of women students at St Ebbe's student ministry each week and is trying to get more involved in the church's toddler group (which is slightly tricky as Jonathan's daytime sleeps keep moving a bit). Being involved feels more 'normal' than what feels like a year of merely attending church each week, which we've had to do for most of the past year. We're both thankful for these oppportunities to serve God.

* Jonathan's growth and development, which continues at a sharp clip. He's now wearing 18-24 month size clothing, eating with great enthusiasm and walking about like a little robot. He is usually excellent company and appears to have charmed most of the old ladies in Oxford. Last week he held a bus up while a line of elderly women each stopped to speak to him at length as they were getting off the bus (he worked out that if he put his hand out in the aisle as they walked past, they would stop and talk to him - which thrilled both him and them, less so his mother and, one presumes, the other passengers who were neither little old ladies nor Jonathan).

Please join us in praying that...

* Mark would continue to make good progress on his doctorate and with language acquisition. Now that he can focus all his energy on learning the language properly, he has made significant progress in Classical Greek (somewhat more complex than its Koine cousin), and is hoping to sit the exam about April next year. He is also working on two chapters of his thesis that he hopes to have written by this time next year and hopes to have something serious done by the end of December. Pray that his hard work here will pay off and that writing this thesis will be deepen his love for and knowledge of God.

* Jennie will use her time wisely and well. She holds out fond hopes of doing an exam on the Greek text of Revelation (hurrah for Koine!) around July. There is much to be done between now and then and moments need to be snatched and used well. She has a small pile of other writing projects to finish as well. Please pray that what she writes might be useful to others and that she will be able to be efficient and focussed in her spare moments.

* Mark and Jennie will be good parents for Jonathan, being wise in their interactions with him and faithful in their prayer for and discipline of him. Pray with us that Jonathan will come to know and love the Lord Jesus early in his life.

Thank you for your prayers.

Gratitude

2008-11-26T21:58:00.006Z

One of the features of our unit which gives us great pleasure is the window in the dining/lounge room. It faces out over Oxford and helps us realise what season we are in.

A tree grows just outside this window. In summer it completely blocks the view of the road and the surrounding suburb. It's luscious green leaves soak up the excess heat and unit feels enclosed within a glen type arrangement. It feels refreshing just looking out the window.

In autumn, the tree starts to lose its leaves and the road becomes more visible. The road is hardly noticeable though, because of the beautiful orange then yellow foliage. Squirrels scamper up the tree, organising their winter hoard. Pigeons rest on the branches. At night the yellow street lights shine upwards through the yellow leaves and so even in the dark the tree is a thing of beauty.

And then comes winter, sweeping away the last leaves from our tree. Now we have a clear view of the road and the suburb... and the sky. We watch the clouds billowing across the sky, the rain coming in and blowing away. The sunrise spreads its purple red fingers across the sky, the colours changing at every moment. And all against the bare, cold branches of this lonely tree, made more pitiful by the occasional pigeon which rests alone on its outstretched arms in the cold rain.

We are glad God made this tree and lets us watch it change throughout the year. And that in winter, when it rests from all its labours, we can watch such a glorious sky. If we were on a ground floor apartment we wouldn't have such earthly delights. JMB

Milestones

2008-11-17T20:26:00.011Z

Last week we celebrated two major milestones in Jonathan's life. They might seem small, but they open up great possibilities for him, for which we are grateful.

The first is the screwed-up-nose face. This once discovered, was promptly used to communicate a wide range of emotions and concepts. He's used it to communicate many things from "I'm not eating that!", "That child just hit me on the head with a toy", "Give me that camera!", "Raw broccoli tastes weird" through to "I'm screwing up my nose just because I can".
It's a great step forward for him, giving him other options apart from the edges of the communicative spectrum: the cry, the whine and the winning smile and contagious giggle. Now, he can communicate uncertainty, displeasure, disdain, and just have fun screwing up his nose, which is always a good thing.

The second milestone was the first step, following closely by the second, third and fourth steps. There was no falling from our perfectionist son, who has been cruising since he was eight months and practicing walking at any and every opportunity. Jonathan does not like falling. The few times he does fall now he usually doesn't hurt himself but wails loudly, we think because he is cross with himself for falling. So, if walking was going to happen, there would be no falling, and so while we think he's been ready to walk for a while, there was (at least in his mind) probably the possibility of falling, which precluded the possibility of walking. But this has been overcome and now there is walking. This of course, opens up many possibilities. Already he has started pouring the energy he poured into learning to walk (without falling) into learning to climb, which is the next stage. And then there is running and dancing, and later, running away and jumping in puddles (for which we are well located).

And of course, by the end of the week, it was all old hat and he was pulling faces and walking at the same time. He's a clever one, this boy. JMB

Genuine Cornish Bears!

2008-11-10T21:05:00.007Z

This is a genuine Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant. Often known just by its initials (TDE).

(Eraser included for comparison purposes only.)

No really. It is. It is a Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant. Have another look. It is a Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant. Just tell yourself this as you take another look. It's latin name is Loxodonta Tasmana Pumilius Pumilio. It's a very rare species of elephant, so it's possible that you've never seen a photograph, or even seen the latin name for it before. But life is all about learning new things. So here's your new factoid for today. The genuine Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant.

There's a story behind this genuine Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant. I bet you guessed that would be coming. It's not to late to move on to another blog.

We went to Tasmania in 2004 for a two week holiday. It was the first time that we took more than one week of holidays at a time and that we decided to do more than just encamp in the one location. We travelled around Tasmania in our car, having driven to Melbourne and then catching the impressive ferry to Tasmania. We had a blast, and saw lots of non-elephant related things. Although we did see this elephant-themed sign which still gives us the giggles years later. Some might say we giggle easily but they don't know us very well. Our giggles begin deep within us and usually manifest themselves as an amused smile or a hearty chuckle. Mark occassionally even laughs - which most people find disturbing.

It's a great sign. But, on reflection, it's a bit of a tangent from the very important story of the Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant (or Loxodonta Tasmana Pumilius Pumilio to give its Latin name, but you can shorten it to just TDE if you find either 'Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant' or 'Loxodonta Tasmana Pumilius Pumilio' too cumbersome for everyday use).

The story goes like this. One day in Tasmania we stopped at a medium sized town (for Tasmania) and, among other things we did there, entered a larger than average Newsagency (for almost anywhere, unless you happen to be in a place given over to unusually large Newsagencies, in which case you might want to write a blog entry on it - people are writing blog entries about all sorts of meaningless chaff these days).

In this Newsagency was a largish stand given over to a range of animal themed, casted plastic toys/models by a company with a European sounding name. The animals (the toys/models, not actual animals, of which there weren't any in this very civilised larger-than-normal Newsagency) were of varying quality - some looking remarkable lifelike, once one factored in the fact that they were significantly smaller than the genuine article.

Jennie likes elephants. Really really likes elephants. They're in her top three animals (unlike cows, which she considers a kind of mould). So we bought her one. The one in the photograph as it so happens.

We stuck it on the top of the dashboard of our car. From time to time people travelling in our car would ask us, "What's up with the elephant on the dashboard?" A not unreasonable question to ask when someone is transporting you at high speeds in a metal box - it doesn't hurt to vet the driver carefully. But perhaps doing it before you get in the car would be advised.

We would answer triumphantly, "It's a genuine Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant!" Being the perfect joke for us. We would lay the irony on thick (not easy to do when pronouncing an exclamation mark at the same time) and the joke would reference something only we knew anything about, thus preserving our general batting average for our jokes (somewhere just slightly above a perfect run of golden ducks - yes folks it's an animal themed post today).

Until one day.

One day our passenger (an Australian, as it happened) replied brightly, "Really?! I didn't know they had elephants in Tasmania!"

There was stunned silence from Baddelim for fifteen seconds as we processed the words, reprocessed them, turned them around and processed them again just in case we were missing some really fiendish reverse irony. Then through the dawning horror we had to work out what to do. The whole point of the joke was to have a small laugh at the Baddeleys as it was obvious there is no such thing as a, wait for it, Loxodonta Tasmana Pumilius Pumilio (but its friends just call it TDE for short). It wasn't supposed to set people up for social embarrassment (apart from being exposed to such lame humour). We didn't have any contingency plans ready. How does retrieval ethics work in this situation, when the good of humour has been lost? (Small Moore College ethics joke there.) Digging the person out of their hole seemed impossible, but just letting it go would leave them open to potentially much greater embarrassment down the track. We undid the damage we did. Unsurprisingly, the person has never spoken with us again about any elephant related topic.

We've never enjoyed our joke the same way ever since. And, like war, you can't be only half-committed to a joke.

With this little back story in place, we would like to share with you, gentle (and stubbornly persistent, if you've reached this far) reader Baddelim's latest English expeditionary discovery. Presenting a sleuth, or sloth if you prefer, (yes, those are the right collective nouns for bears, only polar bears have the collective noun 'pack', presumably because it is too cold for either detectives or sloths in the polar regions) of genuine Cornish bears!
And I bet you didn't know that they had bears in England. That's two new things you learned today. So now you're ahead for tomorrow as well. (Please, let the reader understand!)

MDB (JMB didn't think I could turn the story of:

we bought a toy elephant in Tasmania.
years later, we saw some life-size wooden bear statues in Cornwall.

into a soaring epic with a little lesson about the vicissitudes of life and laughs. She was obviously right, but I sure spent some electrons proving it.)

Stopping Traffic

2008-11-03T20:59:00.006Z

Walking down to the shops, head lowered against the cold, cold wind (it snowed on Tuesday night), I reached the traffic lights. I pressed the button and looked up to wait for the 'walk' sign. That was when I noticed that the traffic lights were not working.

Inwardly I sighed, and calculated how long it would take me to walk down to the next crossing. As I did, I glanced up at the traffic, and noticed that a bus coming along the road was flashing his lights.

"But I haven't done anything!" I wailed inwardly.

And then I realised that he was slowing down.

"Oh, he's stopping to let me cross" I thought, surprised at the concept and slightly worried. No traffic would stop on the other side of the road, so I would no doubt inadvertently delay this (lovely) bus driver.

Even as I thought this I glanced to the left, and there was a car, slowing down. Stopping even.

I crossed the road. In peak hour. Without waiting. With no lights forcing the traffic to stop! And nothing short of miraculous - a bus stopped for a pedestrian when not forced to do so.

When I recounted this to Mark, we both remembered our first taste of Sydney traffic. Even on side streets we learned (very quickly) to stop and make absolutely sure that no cars were coming or intending to come in the near future, before venturing to cross. In fact, for a while, we had a theory based solely on our experience, that in order to retain your NSW driving licence, you had to provide evidence that you had caused serious harm (of a physical or psychological nature) to at least one pedestrian per year. Nothing else seemed to adequately explain the aggressively anti-pedestrian policy we encountered. I can safely say that if after six months in Sydney, a bus had stopped to let us cross the road without being legally obliged to do so, we would have stayed safely at the sidewalk, assuming that this bus was trying to lure us onto the road for some nefarious and possibly lethal purpose.

Here in Oxford it seems that the opposite rule applies, given the number of times we have seen really dangerous jay walking in the last year. (Top of the list are those with limited mobility who we've seen walk out in front of traffic. By Sydney standards, limited mobility with regards to jay walking may mean wearing inappropriate shoes for a short, sharp sprint. But in this context when I mention limited mobility I do mean limited mobility: wheelchairs and walking sticks not excluded.) In Oxford, the traffic just... stops and there is no yelling, horn blowing or road rage that we have encountered. Of course, it makes driving a nightmare because pedestrians expect the traffic to stop and act accordingly.

Possibly a new advertising slogan for pedestrian tourists (you know, the ones with a small carbon footprint...): "Come to Oxford: Enjoy the Traffic". JMB

Photos courtesy of the ruined cathedral in St Andrews.

Signs You Are In Another Country Part I

2008-10-26T13:19:00.000Z

One of the things we have really enjoyed about living in England has been the signs about the place. The English, so we are told, love to be instructed, which is the function of most signs.

The English also have a far more sophisticated approach to the (wait for it) English language than that with which most Australians function. This is the land where Yes Minister is more of an instruction manual on the uses of ambiguity and understated misdirection in daily life than an exotic excursion into purely political misuse of language a la Yes Minister in Australia. England is a country which revels both in what the English language is capable of doing, and the legitimate ambiguity and range of meaning inherent in the simplest of phrases. At times it appears that almost every game show on Radio 4 is designed for language afficondos to show off the potential of English for amusing miscommunication and skillful precision - often at the same time.

We are of the opinion that it is only this profound self-awareness of how easy it is to misunderstand even the simplest communicative act that can explain English signs. English signs are prosaic in a way that makes mere prose look like Wordsworth. They leave nothing, completely, absolutely, utterly nothing to chance. If a sign delivers information, it spells that information out in excruciating detail. More often than not it will then proceed to help the reader understand exactly how they are to respond to receiving such information. Nothing is left to chance. Every time we read a sign over here we get the impression that the writer thinks that we are idiots...on a good day.

There also seem to be more signs over here - things that would just be trusted to someone's common sense in Australia will probably have it's own sign here. This maybe because anything designed to tell an Australian what to do will suffer being ignored (at best) and altered or defaced (at worst). Either way, there is probably a serious case to be made that manufacturing signs in Australia is a waste of public money. Obeying signs is really not the Australian way. It is probably on that secret list of 'unAustralian' qualities we need to avoid.

So, we have been enjoying the signs over here, and had thought to run a sort of competition listing the top three signs we've found. But there have been so many, that we thought we'd turn it into a kind of series that we'll probably return to from time to time while we are over here. Our first offering is this set, that we believe illustrate the pedantic and multiply redundant nature of English signs.

These signs we found in Penzance (of Pirates fame). They surrounded a large pool, filled with seawater. There were a number of signs around the fence, designed to appeal to a broad range of people.

First, there is the explanation of why you should not swim in this pool after it is closed.

I can't imagine the average Aussie's attention span surviving past the beginning of the fourth line, let alone "operational procedures mean the depth of water cannot be guaranteed" which in Australia would read something more like, "water may not be the depth it appears".

Then, in case you are of a more legal mind, there is a more obscure sign explaining under which circumstances you may enter the pool and when you may not.

Note that "Opening Hours" cannot be left to the reader to interpret for themselves. It needs the explanatory phrases, "when the gates are unlocked", and "and the pool is patrolled". And that last phrase needs its own qualifier, "by lifeguards". What possible chain of events required such a careful excluding of every possible interpretive cul de sac for the basic instruction, "Do Not Enter When Pool is Closed"? After a few encounters with signs like this we begin to worry whether this country is either exceptionally lawless or exceptionally stupid and we've just been oblivious to it. We think they should have given us a sign about this at Heathrow.

Then, in case you don't understand any of this, there is a simpler version.

And finally, if this has all been rather difficult and you don't understand what all these signs are telling you, there is one with a picture.

Nothing. Completely, abolutely, utterly nothing is left to chance. Just stay out of the pool already, OK? MDB & JMB

The Baddeley's are Moving On...

2008-10-17T23:10:00.000+01:00

From the Master of Studies that is.

Not from Oxford.

In fact, we are pleased to announce that we are staying in Oxford.

The person in our family who came up with that joke, really enjoyed it. That should clue you in as to who it might have been...

We are relieved to have a decision (you can tell by the fact that this is going up some time later than our last post suggested it might that it's been a Big Week for decision making). After a tricky time of deciphering exactly what was meant by the offer Oxford gave us, we finally got some clarity on this and could make an informed decision.

Mark has been offered a position in the MLitt programme. If his thesis written work is good and he does well in a further Greek exam (Mark's fears about his performance in the MSt exam half-way through the year appear to have been well-grounded - Oxford would like some further assurance on that front) then he'll be upgraded to the doctorate programme. As this enables Mark to keep the supervisor he had for the last year, it enables us to stay at Oxford with the people we've already begun to get to know, and as the examiners recommended Mark for the DPhil once the Greek was satisfied, we think this is a better route than taking the doctoral offers from Durham or Edinburgh.

So there it is, possibly the biggest decision we'll make for several years is now done. We're putting down longer term roots in Oxford. And we couldn't be happier. Praise God. MDB & JMB

Green

2008-10-11T15:47:00.004+01:00

We had an unexpected few days where we had no commitments, no looming exams and no reason to stay in Oxford. And some very kind friends offered to lend us their car.

So, we jumped in said car and took off to explore Cornwall. We stayed in a ramshackle old farmhouse which although furnished with 1970's furniture was probably older than white Australian settlement. Apart from the furiously fast traffic on the main roads, it was totally quiet. We could see the stars at night. And there were various farm animals about the place. Sheep in Cornwall seem to be roughly as stupid as sheep in Australia. There's a factoid for next time you're playing Trivial Pursuit: The Farming Collector's Edition (UK/Australian comparison version)

Everywhere was green. Luscious, deep, vivid green. Odd-shaped green fields, embraced by green hedgerows, containing large green trees... The people who owned the farmhouse looked amazed as we described the drought in Australia and how it turns things a dirty kind of yellow. Farmers in Cornwall get concerned if there is an absence of rain for more than a month.

We had a great few days - the bulk of the MSt was behind us and the Vive Voce (oral examination) still to come - which no-one could tell us how to prepare for. Jonathan really enjoyed the increased amount of space he had to explore in the farmhouse, which was several times as large as our two bedroom flat. There were lots of things to see and absolutely no need to go anywhere. We enjoyed finding a church on Sunday, and met some friends of a friend (quite randomly) and had tea with them during the week - which made it even better. It added a distinctly Christian note that hadn't been part of our experience in going to York, Wales, or Scotland.

So, here we are. Back again after our few days rest. Refreshed, and ready for a decision from Oxford as to whether they will offer Mark DPhil candidature and what preconditions they might require. (Check back here early next week if you are interested as we will post something when we have a firm indication.)

Mark has done his Vive Voce on the Wednesday just gone. It was a definite examination rather than a chat, with the examiners testing Mark's views on a couple of scholarly debates that his dissertation touched on, and seriously challenging his position that Origen's influence on third century theology is generally overestimated. We even have the results - Mark has successfully completed the Master of Studies in Theology (Patristics), with grades that, overall should qualify him for an offer. (The pleasant surprise was getting a 'First' for the dissertation given that it was written entirely while ill).

But the offer is still yet to be officially made, so there is still uncertainty to face over the next few days. But we're grateful that Mark has successfully completed the MSt and so there will be doctoral studies happening somewhere over here. And in the midst of all this, we still have the pleasant memories of a beautiful, green part of England. JMB & MDB

Baptism

2008-10-04T15:20:00.013+01:00

Jonathan was baptised on 21st September, 2008.

Here is how he looked before the baptism.

And here he is after.

Before he was baptised, the congregation prayed...

O God, our Father, we thank You for Your great love for us and the promise You have made to us through Your Son Jesus Christ that You will be our God and the God of our children also. We ask that Jonathan will grow up trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and knowing You as his Heavenly Father. Strengthen him with your power, and give him victory over the world, the flesh and the devil, so that he may live a life that will please You. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Which we think is a great prayer to be prayed for him, and may well adopt it to pray it for him more frequently.

The congregation welcomed Jonathan after he was baptised with these memorable words...

We welcome you, Jonathan, into this congregation of Christ's Church. Do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, fight bravely under His banner against sin, the world and the devil, continuing as Christ's faithful soldier and servant to the end of your life.

Which we also think is a great welcome and highlights for us just how valuable things like liturgy can be. It is a very 'manly' welcome, that stresses conflict, a refusing to be ashamed, and bravery - notes that many Christians today wouldn't choose to stress if they were to craft a congregational welcome (or come up with one spontaneously, for non-liturgical traditions).

All in all, it was a great morning, and we're very grateful for what Christ has done through his death and resurrection that has caught Jonathan up because he is part of this household which is founded on these realities. Our prayer is that as he grows up we'll show him what it means to live in this grace, and he'll own it for himself.

Jonathan Dean Baddeley. Brave soldier and faithful servant of Christ. We can't think of a higher accolade we could ask for him.

MDB & JMB

It's In!

2008-09-15T16:20:00.016+01:00

The dissertation was handed in about 10am on Friday morning.

Later that day, Jonathan obliging did a victory dance in honour of this great event. Being a little shy of 9 months old, he doesn't really understand that in this dimension (unlike Pylea) children are not obliged to engage in dances to express their parents' emotional state. So, he made a good effort to fulfill what he thinks are his filial duties.

It was an excellent victory dance. It was quite complex and moved through a kind of latino phase before emerging into a final hip-swivelling, energetic jig, which aptly expressed the immense joy the removal of this load has injected into our lives.

So impressed were we by his efforts, we have contemplated renaming him Numfar, but that might be confusing.

Thank you to those of you who have been praying for us. There were moments during the week when it looked less likely that it be finished in time: like when it took Mark almost a full two days in the last week to recover from a trip to the library! The final sprint was an all-night affair involving both of us, accompanied at various times by Jonathan (who had a bad cough and kept waking up). But by 8am, it was completed and bound and ready to go.

Mark's supervisor was quite pleased with the final product, which was particularly encouraging given that Mark has been ill for almost all the time he was working on it. It also means we are still slightly hopeful that we may be able to stay at Oxford. In any case, we now have a few weeks to rest and recover before Mark does the Viva in early October and we find out what the future may hold for us. Mark has blood tests on Wednesday, but is feeling much better. And made his first real Dad joke on Sunday. (But then, he's been making Dad jokes for some years; only now it is legit).

We now turn to the long list entitled: Things We Need To Do After The Dissertation Is Submitted. JMB

No longer do the dance of victory, Num... no, um, Jonathan!

We've Been Tagged.

2008-09-05T13:22:00.007+01:00

We have to complete a 'meme' apparently, divulging six random facts about ourselves to the waiting world.

Apparently there are rules about this as well. We have to tag people and so on.

Well.

We're not going to follow them.

We're on the other side of the world.

So, what'dya'gonnadoaboud'it?

Well, we'll hand over the random facts. We won't do the tagging, not because of the beligerent attitude but because there is a dissertation due next week. And anyway, we not really good at linking to other blogs. Like Facebook, this is a skill on our list of things to do after the dissertation.

Random Fact 1
We like gloomy, rainy weather. Thunderstorms, especially Queensland thunderstorms are occasions of great excitement. Pouring, torrential rain is also cause for rejoicing. A check of the weather for the week revealing a full week of wet weather is our idea of a Good Week. We are constantly surrounded by people who find rain a tragedy, but we secretly thank God for it. Though, as it turns out, not so secretly anymore. Yes, we're the traitors people. String us up.

Random Fact 2
We don't own a TV. When we were in Australia and we owned a TV, whenever we really liked a TV show it would be axed or moved to an impossible timeslot (like 3am). So, we tend to watch DVD's of TV shows. Our favourites are: Morse, Lewis, Press Gang, Veronica Mars, Buffy, Angel, Bones, Gilmore Girls, Sherlock Holmes, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Firefly and for a brief week Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. We don't just watch TV either, to the annoyance of most of our friends (and unwary acquaintances), we analyse the shows we watch. A lot. Continually. With great excitement.
If you look at this list, you'll realise that all these TV shows have something in common: they explore what it means to be human and to relate to others. That interests us a great deal. And a good script doesn't go astray either.

Random Fact 3
We used to get together at the University of Queensland when we were studying there in the early 1990's and pray for revival. Fairly seriously: about 5 hours per week. There were four of us who got together regularly and we would read bits of the prophets out of context and pray. The group was called Dead Prophets Society, (named by Mark), and although we didn't get the great exciting, earth shattering revival we prayed for, God did graciously answer our prayers in that now it is easier to hear the gospel at UQ. You have to avoid certain people if you don't want to hear it, as we understand it. God was very gracious to answer our prayers like that. And Mark and I were falling in love at the time, which is kind of an added bonus.

Random Fact 4
Mark wore a black cape to our wedding reception. We only got one photo of it. But it was cool. He looks good in a cape. Swashbuckling good.

Random Fact 5
We both like cooking, together. It is almost impossible to do this these days, but we used to love planning a menu for a dinner party and then cooking it together. We even had speciality areas. Our greatest moment was cooking a roast dinner at a houseparty/camp for about 120 people. We worked on it all afternoon and tag-teamed the last hectic hour. As far as we could tell, people enjoyed the meal and we were very pleased with ourselves.

Random Fact 6
We like books. Lots of books. We like to own the books we read. Mostly so that we can go back to them and lend them to people (and lose them forever). We like reading, together, out aloud, to our little boy (who also loves books), and by ourselves. We use books to stimulate us, recharge us and to, yes, you guessed it, analyse the world. When we move (which seems to happen more often than we would like!), we usually feel a sense of belonging and calm when our books are unpacked.

We have officially provided you with some random information. If you read this and own a blog, and wish to contribute to the random facts floating about in the ether, consider yourself tagged, gentle reader. JMB

Praying for us: the August Edition

2008-08-30T18:25:00.000+01:00

Thank you to the lovely people who've asked how we were going and said that they have prayed for us. We greatly appreciate your concern and interest.

Here are some things to give thanks for and to pray for us as we head into September, if you are so inclined.
August has been a tricky month. Mark is trying to write a dissertation for submission in 14 days time. He has been hard at work for nearly two months, but has been battling illness for most of August. This has made the process really frustrating for him and far more intense than we had expected. Thankfully he is a lot better now, but even quite simple things continue to exhaust him and he will have to work very hard to get it done on time.
Please pray that God will enable Mark to finish the dissertation on time and without further difficulty, and thank God for answering our prayers and restoring Mark to health.

We tried to have a holiday in August, going up to St Andrews to see a potential supervisor for Mark and staying a week in Stirling. As Mark got sick and couldn't do much work it didn't quite work out the way we had planned, but we had a great few days before then in St Andrews, Edinburgh and we went for a great drive one day around one of the Lochs north of Stirling at the foot of the Highlands. Scotland is absolutely gorgeous, so just driving through the country was a marvellous thing.
Thank God for his care of us in providing a holiday for us and in keeping us safe as we travelled around the place.

Unexpectedly we received an offer of a place at Edinburgh University. Mark now has two places as well as the possibility of study at Oxford for the next academic year. As far as we can tell, we can make a decision as to which one to take up after the results come in early in October.
Thank God for his kindness in providing good places for Mark to complete his PhD and ask him for wisdom as we go about making a decision about where to go if we can't stay in Oxford.

Finally, we have arranged for Jonathan to be baptised on 21st September. It's been a long road to come to the point that we think that this is a good and right way to declare that he too lives in the sphere that the cross of Christ has carved out, because he is the child of disciples of Jesus. But we're here now, and so Jonathan's status as someone who will have every privilege to grow up into faith in Christ and the confidence that God will be faithful to those opportunities will be declared through baptism. We are glad that this can be organised before we might need to move. We are grateful that our son is growing and developing so well: he is cruising around furniture now and seems to enjoy life a great deal. He has been a blessing to us in this rather difficult year.
Thank God for Jonathan's life and pray for his salvation. Pray also that we will be faithful to the promises we make in September.

One for the Covenanter Fans

2008-08-21T20:58:00.011+01:00

As you know, we've been to Scotland recently, and while we were there we spent a blissful, cold day in Edinburgh. It was an unexpectedly rich day because we found two things: the Covenant and the place where it was signed.

So this is one for all you Covenanter fans out there.

I know there must be a few.

Or at least someone?

No?

You've never even heard of them?

*sigh*

OK. Well, humour me anyway people. If you want to find out about them, you can read my longer post here.

And if you want to become a fan, you can check this site out, and for the low, low price of five pounds per year, receive their newsletter and become an official fan. Or you can just get excited about the Covenanters and become a fan for free.

We wandered down to St Giles Cathedral, because we had read somewhere that Knox (no, not him, the other Knox, the slightly less well known one who was involved in Scottish Reformation), had pastored a church there for a while. We found a statue of him in a corner. He looked out of place, among all the fancy stained glass windows and such. It seemed poignant somehow, having him stand, holding his Bible, poised as a preacher. He looks unimpressive amongst the trappings of the cathedral and no attention is drawn to him.

Yet so many people know God because of him. So many people are safe from God's anger forever because he preached the message of Jesus faithfully.

On the opposite side of the cathedral, they engage in activities that would have made him very cross indeed. Lighting candles instead of praying to God. Ostentatious organ playing (and I like organ music, but this was way over the top). Large, audacious stained glass windows. I suspect he would smash his own statue, and then set to work getting rid of all these other distractions to hearing God's word and taking it seriously.

On we went, to the Thistle chapel, carved impressively from what looked like wood. There we stood in the tiny space where the Queen comes every so often to do something official. The heraldry around the place represents the famous houses. I'm not sure what house was represented by this deer, but I suspect their motto would go something like: "We run very fast from the people with guns". Sometimes wisdom is in speed not bravery.

We saw memorials to Mrs Oliphant (something for another post), and to Thomas Chalmers (I'm a big fan; one of the most impressive Evangelicals who ever lived: Scotland's equivalent of Wilberforce). It was exciting.

And then there it was.

The National Covenant.

It's a bad photo. It was behind glass. And it was faded.

But there it was.

I won't explain why it is important, because the Covenanting fans will already know. And that is what this post is all about. Giving something to the Covenanting fans or fan, as the case may be. (And anyway, as I've said, you can read all about it here or here).

Shortly afterward, we came upon the church in which the Covenant was signed: Greyfriars. There is also a prison near the church, where some Covenanters were held (many died in prison), before being punished. And an official memorial, which although I looked for it, I couldn't find it.

But I did ask the nice man at the door if I could please look at the very place where the Covenant had been signed, and he ushered me in to see it.

It was signed under the pulpit, and although the pulpit was replaced in the 1950's, it was replaced in the same place as it was in the 1600's. And so there it is: the place of the signing.

Time has moved on. Scotland is not what it once was. The Covenant is an old, faded document, and the church it was signed in hardly seems sensible to all that their Covenanter heritage represents.

But the testimony of these faithful Covenanters lives on, bearing witness to their great and faithful Lord and Saviour. JMB

Best of British #2: Little Boxes of Colour

2008-08-16T15:32:00.013+01:00

One of the UK's great accomplishments is the window box or hanging basket. It may be duplicated throughout Europe for all I know, but here in England and up in Scotland (my only places of research) I can report that they are in fine form. They are all about brightening up things after the grey, dark winter. You prevent winter seeping into your soul by planting bulbs and plants to shatter the gloom with their giddy colour when Spring comes. It's a cold climate survival thing, I'm sure.

There are the basic ones, with the same flower sometimes in a differently shaped pot. These are for beginners like me, if I were to do one of these. (For me the basic skills of finding the flower, the pot and marrying the two before the end of Summer would be accomplishment enough. Then actually keeping the thing alive would be the daily struggle. If I were forced to grow what I eat I would quickly starve to death as the only plant I can successfully keep alive is Rosemary, which does not have sufficient nutrients to sustain life. But it tastes great with roast potatoes and lamb and that is important).

Then there are the more complex designs.

And some people can't choose just one, so they have... lots. And who are we to argue?

Then there are those which have evolved in the mind of a true gardener, who with acres of land and as much time and money at his or her disposal, would create a garden too magnificent for even Monet to paint. These displays are exceptional. They blend colour and shape. They draw the eye for a second glance, not for the sake of any one flower but for the total effect. If 'Art' hadn't moved on and become something quite odd and inaccessible, one would even be tempted to call them works of art.

My favourite is the one on the window near where we live. I don't even know how they got it up to where it is positioned, which is itself worthy of admiration. But it has evolved over the summer so that as flowers died away new flowers (still perfectly colour co-ordinated) have taken their place.

Actually constructing one of these in the first place is impressive. Constructing one which evolves as the seasons change is mind boggling.

This is the kind of thing which probably involves several people and they sit down and discuss during the long cold dark days of winter, while drinking hot cocoa. Probably there are debates about the best contrast of this flower with that, and when exactly a flower will reach its used-by date, and even which scent of which flower may overpower the scent of another. And all this in the spirit of civic mindedness, because window boxes are for public display. They are not closeted away in seclusion but are out there for all to see and enjoy. Aussies have their BBQ enabled back yards, the English and the Scots have planter boxers out the front. As we have commented before, this is an excellent feature of British life, and says more about its values than just the high price of land.

The window box. I commend it to you, good people. You don't need a garden. You just need a box, some earth, some seeds and a moment of inspiration. You can even grow Rosemary in it if you are completely incompetent. These boxes of colour are good for the soul. Other's souls. JMB

In the NORTH

2008-08-08T18:50:00.003+01:00

That's where we are this week. The roadsigns all have 'NORTH' in capital letters as you leave the south.

And here in the NORTH, we are enjoying amazing scenery, friendly people and nice, gloomy weather with rain every other day. Just the way we like it.

We'll be back next week.
JMB

Weathering a War

2008-08-02T21:46:00.008+01:00

We travelled north this week, so that Mark could look into another possible option for doctoral study in October up in Scotland. On our way, we stopped off at a second hand bookshop which boasts that it is one of the biggest and best. We didn't think it was as good as Goulds. But then it really would be hard to beat Goulds. Gould's is a very impressive, rambling bookshop with piles of unsorted books all over the place. Barters, by contrast was neat and well presented, but (we thought) rather sparse. It probably is only possible to do one or the other well.

However, this bookshop had various curious features which made our half hour stop there mildly enjoyable. It was built in an old railway station, and played up that aspect of its history. There were waiting lounges, paintings of railway stationmasters, a model railway running around near the ceiling through the shop and so forth. Cute.

But what really caught our eye was the poster on the way out:

Yes, you read it right: Keep calm and carry on. And the crown gives it away: this is not just some friendly advice from one citizen to another, but this is a directive from the (then) King of England. Apparently it was almost issued to the public (by the Ministry of Information) at the outbreak of World War II, but never quite made it.

It's rather like the Australian ad campaign to us all to: "be alert but not alarmed" with a number to ring in case we should become very alert to the possibility of terrorism (without ever moving into the 'alarmed' category, mind). Or the American version - superbly captured by Kramer on Seinfield with his mantra 'Serenity Now' designed to ward off the slings and arrows of outrageous (mis)fortune by the simple application of making something true just by saying it. And which requires ever more manic renditions to create this impassible oasis of unperturbness.

'Keep Calm and Carry On' is that strange thing, the official war propoganda that John West rejects. But of a special English flavoured sort. It captures something of the ideal English citizen.

We've gotten this impression from the impact of the credit crunch. In Australia it is of course, entirely the government's fault (previous or present, pick one), and they should fix it. Here, people talk about going back to WWII rationing, or asking why the government didn't 'put money away' for this kind of thing, and there is serious attempts made to cushion the blow particularly for the most vulnerable (by the government and other groups). I'm not arguing that there are no disconnected, angry people, but there is a lot more interest in everyone doing there part, or getting other people to do their part. The government is not the only actor in national affairs.

We like it.

As for the poster, well, it has captured the imagination of the good folk at keepcalmandcarryon.com who will sell you various items of apparel and such helpfully inscribed with the message to keep calm and carry on. I imagine it is of great benefit to be reminded of this in times of crises, less intense but none the less as real as the crisis of World War II.

There you are driving down the road with an impatient driver travelling too close behind you. What do you do? Keep calm, carry on.

Too much to do in a day, not enough time? Keep calm, carry on.

Can't work out whether you are alert or alarmed or making other people alarmed by your alertness? Keep calm, carry on.

Throat hoarse from an excessive need to call down 'Serenity Now' on your current situation? Keep calm, carry on. Maybe a little less fervently or drink some lemon tea for your throat. But feel free to carry on by all means. (Maybe you could get out of earshot of innocent people around you too...)

Frustrated by hostile forces bombing your city and threatening to invade? Scream, run for your life... Oh. Wait. No. Keep calm, carry on.

Not advice for the faint-hearted.

The Perils of Kite Flying in London

2008-07-25T17:40:00.000+01:00

In Mary Poppins one of the characters, Mr Banks is rather uptight. There are various reasons for this, not least of which is his grey, colourless working existence in which the poor man never approaches job satisfaction. Eventually through a series of unfortunate events, the inhibited Mr Banks learns to go fly a kite with his children, and all is well.

The proposition to go fly a kite is put simply:

With tuppence for paper and strings,
you can have your own set of wings.
With your feet on the ground,
you're a bird in flight!
With your fist holding tight,
to the string of your kite!

Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height
Let's go fly a kite
And send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let's go fly a kite!
Written by Robert B. Sherman

It looks so easy. And I guess the obtaining of the kite and flying thereof may be easy. I have no practical knowledge of nor interest in the subject.

But it occurred to me on our recent visit to London that finding the place to fly a kite may be problematic. Can one flit through the grounds of the Houses of Parliament, kite string in hand? No, security would be fairly strict about high spirits in such a formidable place. The park is an obvious place to go.

But going to the park is not as easy as it sounds.

We walked through a fairly small park. Around the size of a block of land (by Australian standards). It was littered with copper looking statues, gorgeous full bodied roses, luscious green grass and shady trees: an idyllic setting in the warm summer sunshine.

At the entrance to this small paradise this set of By-Laws was posted.

I did not shrink the copy. That is how small it reads in real life.

I still don't know whether we did the right thing walking past the sign. I don't know whether we were even allowed in the park. I don't know whether we did anything in the park that was not allowed. I don't know whether we didn't do something in the park that we were obliged to do. I don't know whether I am even allowed to comment on the By-Laws in this manner. I don't know because I can't read them.

It's disconcerting. I am used to striving to be a good citizen, and laws are a good way of knowing whether you are achieving this goal or not.

So you can see how I would be sympathetic to Mr Banks. With all the will in the world, he may wish to fly a kite and discard his inhibitions, but is it allowed? Are there certain conditions under which it is forbidden? How would he ever know? The uncertaintly can't be good for anyone's health and well-being.

Above the By-Laws was posted the opening hours sign. This too is slightly perplexing. You will notice that the Gardens are open daily from 7:30am. All is well. (Unless, of course, you are one of those sprightly bodies who bounce out of bed at 5am; you would then need to wait around for two and a half hours before you could set your kite (and inner child) free to embrace the skies).

But the closing time is more complex. The park closes at a different time depending on what date it is. I am used to some variation in closing outdoor places of activity: usually there is a summer/winter difference.

However, if you look closely at this sign you'll notice that it isn't enough to know what season it is, it isn't even enough to know what month it is. The beginning of August has a different closing time to the end of August. And not only that, for some of the dates you need to know whether British Summer Time has started or not.

On top of that, you will notice that at the bottom of the sign is a statement that the gates can close 'approximately 20 minutes earlier than the time stated'.

One can see a perplexed Mr Banks, having worked out the date, decided whether it is or is not British Summer Time, retrieved the kite, discarded his inhibitions, trying to work out whether he has any time left to fly his kite in the park. Or will he misread the time and be locked in the Park overnight? This is almost certainly committing an offense against which the By-Laws warn, and may result in a fine or prison sentence.

For that matter, is he even allowed to fly a kite in the Park - or have the By-Laws Committee been stacked by the local Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Pigeons and Other Small Birds and specifically outlawed the flying of kites as causing damage to the self-esteem of those birds unable to soar to the heights a kite can reach? These are not questions of slight importance. There are consequences.

It's a complicated business, having fun in London. There are laws not only to be obeyed, but to be deciphered. There are times and dates to be carefully calculated. The matter is not to be undertaken lightly. Care-free kite flying is something that only exists in fairy tales.

It's probably a lot less stressful to work in a bank than fly a kite in London. JMB

A Curveball and a Crossroads

2008-07-18T21:25:00.005+01:00

From time to time, we write a post which is more than mere entertainment, because we know there are kindly folk about who pray for us from time to time. This is one of those posts.

Oxford has many good and excellent things to commend it. Mark has arrived home from a lecture or a seminar stimulated and refreshed such that one can almost see his brain ticking. There are many great people here, both at Wycliffe, church and other colleagues Mark has gotten to know, not the least of which is his supervisor.

One negative would have to be the administration. Attentive readers would have noticed that we are sometimes even slightly sarcastic regarding the administration.

And this is where the curveball comes in.

Oxford has recently changed the rules regarding its admission into the doctoral studies programme, insisting on a Masters (done at Oxford) with a certain grade to be obtained in each piece of assessment. This in itself is fairly standard practice now in the USA and nothing to get too excited about.

However, as you may recall Oxford releases none of the grades for any piece of assessment until after the next academic year has already commenced. So, if you don't make it into the doctoral programme you don't find out until its too late to apply to another university.

Being pessimists, and having heard stories of, shall we say, unusual criteria used on examinations/essays (a recurring issue everywhere in humanities where marking is less quantifiable than for mathematics), we decided several months ago to apply to a few other universities around the place just in case. As it happened, this was providential as it proved remarkably encouraging during a rather tough time. For example, Oxford told Mark his proposal for doctoral studies was insufficiently original. Three other universities found it sufficiently original and sufficiently interesting that they have made serious efforts to make contact with him. One potential supervisor couldn't take him on because of an existing high supervision load, but actually made the time to meet with Mark and talk about his proposal and his options so he '...didn't fall through the cracks'.

As it happens today we received a formal offer from one of the best places to study early Church history in the UK: Durham university. It has a large group of early Church history lecturers, including some with impressive reputations through to some up and coming young scholars. It looks like an exciting place to study early Church history and theology.

All they want from Mark is for him to finish the Masters he is currently working on.

So, we have to decide what to do. This is where the crossroads comes in.

For those of you who generously pray for us from time to time, please join us in asking God for a wealth of wisdom to make a good and right decision which honours him. And join us in thanking God for answering our prayers to open a way for Mark to do doctoral studies here next year.

Oh, and for those of you who are interested, this hasn't been a wasted year. Mark has had a good chance to be acquainted with much of the literature and one of the key texts in the original language. His dissertation will provide the context for the key theologian he is studying. That is to mention only the things which have direct bearing on the final doctorate, but there have been many other benefits also.

So, we may be off to Durham. Or we may stay here in Oxford.

At least we aren't moving countries this year. JMB

Bus Stop

2008-07-11T22:52:00.003+01:00

We had to go to London a few weeks ago to sort out a passport for our little boy. I worked out that the easiest way to get there was to catch a series of buses: three in all. I allowed an extra hour for our trip and we set off with three and half hours to get to our appointment.

The first bus was late. Roadworks in Oxford and peak-hour combined to slow things right down. But only by 10 minutes. So, 50 minutes of my extra hour left. Not too bad.

The second bus was late. Traffic congestion into London was heavy. So, there we lost 20 minutes, which meant that I only had an extra 30 minutes left.

The third bus wove slowly through the treacle-like London traffic. We were within about 500 metres of Trafalgar Square when we noticed that the bus was not moving. It was mid-way through a merge into a different lane and had been that way for some time. We also noticed that none of the other traffic was moving as far in front of us as we could see. The traffic, including our bus had stopped.

We gave up at that point, realising that we would not get to our appointment on time. But we thought we would go to the passport office anyway and try and make another appointment for another day and make it as late in the afternoon as we could. We decided to catch the bus all the way to the stop we wanted, rather than get out and walk (which would certainly be faster) mostly out of curiosity. Would the traffic ever start moving again?

Eventually it did. Slowly the bus jerked into the neighbouring lane and the traffic inched forward. The bus stopped at Trafalgar Square, and the loud speaker announced the stop, people got off and the bus doors shut, as they normally do.

The bus continued on at a painful pace, and suddenly about a metre onwards from the bus stop, the bus doors opened again. "This bus terminates. This bus terminates. Please leave the bus immediately and take all your belongings with you. This bus terminates".

We left the terminating bus in gales of laughter, which was hardly fair. The poor bus was clearly so utterly demoralised that it simply could not go on. Where did it go after it ejected all its passengers? Is there a quiet spot near the Thames where depressed buses go to sob at their perceived failures to deliver passengers to their destination? Do they retire in despair to the country like overworked horses?

Needless to say we arrived at the passport office almost exactly four hours after leaving home. Thankfully they rebooked our interview for that day so if could all be done on the day, and our boy now has a passport.

But we learned a lot about English buses. They are late. They are reasonably comfortable (important given that they are late). They have fragile and delicate egos. They are not victorious over the monster that is London traffic. JMB

Best of British #1: BBC Radio 4

2008-07-04T19:53:00.002+01:00

It's brilliant.

If, in Australia, someone had asked me to describe my ideal radio station I would not have described Radio 4. I wouldn't have been able to. My understanding of radio has been completely transformed by the experience of listening to this. There is so much that one can do with radio, which I never knew was possible. I have had the very rare experience of feeling like I am the target audience of a media outlet. The irony of this is unsettling, but that just means it's a truly English experience...

Some highlights include:

The gameshow that is based around literary figures. Contestants have to answer questions about the person and write a parody of their work amongst other things. The first one I heard was on Jonathan Swift and I was amazed and delighted. The second show I heard was on one of my favourite authors - George Eliot - and I was amazed and delighted and excited! Here was a nation where George Eliot was not just known, but read and appreciated. The parody of Dorothea's letter (from Middlemarch) still makes me smile when I think about it. I could never have imagined such a thing could exist!

And it's not stuffy and boring. It's clever and witty and laugh-out-loud funny. Often.

I can't remember laughing at things on the radio in Australia. Mostly I only ever listened to it to either keep myself awake or put myself to sleep (depending on the context and therefore on the station). I enjoy listening to BBC Radio 4!

The second thing they do really well is that they don't Have An Agenda like Australian radio (and other media). Yes, of course they have an agenda, but not so much that they won't let someone get their views across. Radio interviewers seem to be fairer and seem somewhat interested in divergent views. It almost makes me believe that there are some media workers who are interested in truth.

The outcome of this is that listening to debate on radio is interesting. Not the frustrating exercise of quasi-censorship which was my experience in Australia. Here, even where it is clear the reporter has an axe to grind they just grind it instead of using it to create severe structural damage.

(This has certainly not been my experience of the newspapers over here, by the way, but I've only bought about 3 during our entire time here).

The third thing I've enjoyed about BBC Radio 4 is one of the few genuinely positive things about colonialism. In Australia, we've realised that the empire is dead. For some time. Over here, not so much. In fact there are segments of society who seem quite sure that the Empire is alive and well, and they are in charge of it. Still. It's disconcerting. Makes one retrieve the atlas just to double check.

But one of the good things about this attitude is that reporting is far wider than England and far less parochial. I've listened to segments on the development of hip-hop in Beijing, the rise of child evangelists in America, methods of water preservation in Australia and various farming experiments undertaken in Africa. It isn't limited to countries where Britain has had some involvement (though those countries are few and far between!) It's is a better style of investigative journalism as well, which asks many questions and doesn't feel as driven as Australian journalism to get a particular outcome. It feels like the reporters really want to know. I think it's very cool.

Also, reports undertaken referring to ex-colony trouble spots are far more passionately reported than I am used to. It's as though people really care what happens in tyrannical regimes and disasters. Oddly, emotion isn't completely absent (despite the stiff-upper-lip reputation of the English), and the cool professionalism of Australian reporting (which flies in the face of its largely non-objective content) seems unappealing in contrast.

Finally, I love the English interest in curious details of its own history or current life. The story about architecture of nineteenth century factories and how that relates to the breastfeeding policies imposed by many factory employers. The one about the discovery of a large number of artificial hands discovered in the basement of the house and the investigation into why they were there and where they came from. The array of explorations into why some migratory creature does or does not appear in smaller or greater numbers in this or that part of the UK for greater or lesser time than normal and why this might be. And so on.

It is fascinating.

There is something about this which betrays a grand, rich view of life. It is not all boiled down to the pale, bland lowest common demoninator resembling yesterday's cabbage which is often what is served up by the Australian media. With BBC Radio 4, no one listener could possibly be interested in all that is reported. (I confess that I wasn't that interested in the discovery of the artificial hands; I just continued listening in a kind of fascinated horror as the story unfolded). Few would have the background and education required to access all of it.

But that doesn't mean that the story is canned. It goes to air anyway, and those who can or want to, access it. If you can't or aren't interested, you just hang about till something you like comes on. Or, you get interested or try to access it and get your world expanded in the process. (I now know the secret of those hoarded artificial hands and I feel I am a better person for it).

The overall effect is of stimulation and engagement, which I would never have expected to be really possible with radio.

Can't stop the signal, Mal.

And why would you want to stop this signal? There's a world in these radiowaves. JMB.

Even in Pagan Temples...

2008-06-27T15:21:00.005+01:00

A little while ago I met a dear friend of mine in London where she had a few hours between flights. As well as discovering the impracticalities of an historical city for pram access, we also discovered St Paul’s Cathedral.

St Paul’s is truly remarkable. Stepping out of a grey London day and into this cavern of gentle, golden light is startling. It is clearly built to be magnificent. The ceiling should loom, but instead it sets the mind free to imagine the ceiling is in fact the sky, filled with sunshine and delight, in contrast with the gloom outside. One begins to feel that in here is real life, and outside, as Plato would say, is the cave.

It’s an extraordinary work of architecture, which deserves admiration.

The statues are similarly admirable. In books they are always small, and that has been my experience of them on the whole: as small, two-dimensional objects. In reality they are enormous: one looks up at them. They are bigger than people and set on pedestals, so that for the first time I can see (vividly) where the saying comes from: “to put someone on a pedestal” – they are bigger than you, you are smaller than they. And these statues, accompanied as they are by various characters from Greek and Roman mythology are magnificent: people, men mostly, long and muscular of limb, strong foreheads suggesting courage and steely resolve, their achievements carved into their pedestals. Here are the heroes… of war, mostly.

What on earth do they have to do with Christianity?

What, for that matter, does this brilliant architecture have to do with Christianity?

Redecorate in places, so that the rather Zeus-like representation of Christ is replaced by, say, Zeus, and rename the saints as characters from mythology and there you have it: a Greek or Roman temple in the heart of London. Easy. You could probably do overnight if you had enough people and enough paint.

I am not certain that is possible to design a church or building so that it is undeniably Christian. I suspect the cross-shape of an ordinary cathedral and some churches is probably the closest we can achieve, if it was felt that we really needed to do so.
I am not particularly offended that St Paul’s is so… pagan. I don’t know that it was much of a surprise. And I am all for the English (and any other nationality) having what amounts to a place where they can celebrate their war-heroes. Being a soldier is not my idea of fun, and I think it is a good idea to honour people who protect their country.

But war heroes have little to do with Christianity when all is said and done.

So I was pleasantly surprised by Evensong. Evensong is based on the 1662 Prayer Book, designed mostly by Cranmer to declare God’s Word as clearly and frequently as possible.
At 5pm, as we were still there, we took a very, very well behaved four month old baby (who only made a noise at the end during the hymn when he was sucking his socks), and sat in the bishops’ seats to celebrate evensong. Scripture after Scripture was read aloud or sung by an extraordinary choir; we said the Apostle’s Creed, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer. The only additions were the prayers and the final hymn, and the introduction that got side-tracked with some information about the Saint of the day (which is not in the prayer book).
So, we meditated on God’s salvation, God’s judgment, the kindness of God to humanity in sending his Son to die for our sins, and our need for God’s grace.

Here in a pagan temple, with idols, freemason symbolism, statues commemorating wars and war heroes and even people wandering about who would deny the truth of Jesus’ message and his resurrection – here – God’s truth was spoken, loudly and clearly.

It’s not just a tradition. This is God’s Word. It doesn’t return to him void. It is never wasted.

So, here in the heart of a pagan temple, God is working to his own purpose every day at 5pm.

I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing praises to you before the gods. I will bow down towards our holy temple and give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word according to all Your name. (Psalm 138:1-3 NASB)
JMB

I need to add that I know that St Paul's is technically in the shape of a cross; but such was Wren's cleverness that he managed to focus the attention of the building onto the dome which dominates the building. As I said, very very clever architecture. One can't help but admire it; he makes the building feel a different shape to what it actually is.

Slain: One Jabberwock

2008-06-23T22:02:00.005+01:00

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

And then came the Jabberwock. One large angry exam, based on 75 pages of classical Greek and the entirety of Anthanasius' thought and context. Spewing fire and smelling foul, it launched itself at this young man.

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought

Dressed charmingly in sub fusc and ready for the monster, he sat poised in the examination room, full of lurking proctors and perspiring students.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

So, they said in serious tones: You may turn the paper over.

And there it was in all its fearsome foulness: the exam.

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

Pen scratching paper, scrawling for three hours. So few hours into which long days of learning are condensed. Making sentences make sense and all awhile against a ticking clock.

"And has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

The exam is done.

Dead.

Finished.

Its vileness disposed of.

Of course, there is a number that needs to be attained as the result of this exam. We don't find out till October whether this hoop has been succesfully passed through, but the important thing about this exam is that it is over.

One dead jabberwock. Well done that man!

Callay! Callay! Indeed. JMB

Morse

2008-06-03T15:18:00.006+01:00

Jennie and I are in the process of watching the second season of Lewis on DVD. They arrived in the mail the other day and we are slowly watching them - slowly because we want to savour and enjoy them. And there are only four episodes.

I must say that Lewis was a pleasant surprise for us. We are great fans of the Morse series, and used the movie-long episodes intensely in 2006, during some very difficult patches, to switch off. Morse is the antithesis of American-style crime drama with their gritty hyper-realism, interest in the mechanics of detective work, and bold colour schemes. And about the only title in that style that we enjoy at all is the show House (and that’s because he’s really a medical version of Sherlock Holmes), Bones, and as a guilty pleasure, NCIS (the latter two primarily for the interactions between the characters rather than anything to do with what the plot is about).

Morse is really about life, not detective work. It’s main character, Inspector Endeavour Morse (and you only get that first name once in the entire series), is an ‘Oxford man’, who, it is suggested, never graduated in the course he read for, and brings his literary and aesthetic values to his policework. He is a bachelor, who regularly finds a relational connection to the female characters (often romantic) caught up in the murder he’s investigating. (In fact, in the first couple of seasons you can fairly reliably be sure that the murderer or accomplice will be whichever woman he falls for. A dynamic that they cleverly twist in the pilot episode of Lewis.)

The murders are solved, in that the Byzantine causes that led to the terrible deed are finally unravelled and exposed. But it rarely does much good. The murderer often dies instead of being caught, and often not before they finished killing off all or most of the people caught up in the state of affairs. Morse rarely does much, in terms of what American style shows look for—justice is rarely served on the murderer, and the heroes don’t save anyone. There’s no great Law and Order style speech where the bad guy is sermonised by the hero and has to sit there and wear it.

And the pace of the movies reflect this. They are slow, s-l-o-w, very slow. A sloth moves faster while carrying several tortoises. There are long periods with no dialogue and no action, where we just watch the characters move from point A to B. Scenes where the plot doesn’t move forward at all—Morse just sits in a pub with Lewis and talks. There’s long sweeping shots of the glorious Oxford countryside and magnificent Oxford mediaeval architecture, and generally put to some powerful piece of classical music. I’ve lost track of the number of people who have told me that they love the show, but admit that they’ve never seen one to the end, because they fell asleep part way through. There’s no plot driving the movie on. It’s the kind of viewing experience where you stop for a while and watch life unfold around you.

And this is because these movies are really about the nature of life, and the kind of strange and potentially disastrous turns it can take. The murder/s are almost incidental, except inasmuch as the blackness of murder highlights the importance of the things that Morse is discovering about how humans tick, and how relationships can lead to very wrong courses of actions. They make Morse’s discoveries significant in the way that only a lamented death can.

That's what makes this show stand out. It uses the context of murder to create a seriousness about reflections on human beings and life. The murder is more than an intellectual puzzle to be solved. The solving of a crime is not about meeting the post 9/11 need for authority figures to be utterly reliable and omniscient. Morse is a statment about human life; its highs and its lows. We were always impressed that they managed to do it with Morse, and are a bit startled that they have continued it with Lewis. But it is their success in accomplishing this that makes the combination of Morse and Lewis something extraordinary. Morse dies at the end of the series, soon after Sergeant Lewis receives his promotion to Inspector. The death of one main character and his sidekick becoming the main character for a new series says something eloquent all on its own about how life is to be lived and taken for what it is in the face of death. MDB

Week of Drunk Turtles

2008-05-24T22:29:00.004+01:00

We're back.

Part of the exhilaration of studying at Oxford comes from the mysterious process known as administration. In the case of Oxford it is less like a mystery wrapped in an enigma and more like a mystery wrapped in an enigma and buried deep in an unknown land. As a friend of ours observed, "The information you really need to know you invariably find out accidentally".

And that was what happened to us.

Mark went off to a seminar where he happened to chat to a guy doing a course similar to his, who commented that wouldn't it be great when the essays were handed in in only two weeks time.

Mark had read the red book, which has different information to the grey book it turns out, and the grey book was the one to believe. This time. (The grey book has an entire regulation on what is to be done in the event of an examiner dying, which takes up half a page. This is an important situation to be able to react to and so I am glad they had planned for this eventuality. But I wish they'd also included information to do with handing in assessment: like the policy on word counts, style information and preferred referencing style. The red book has some of that information, but who can trust the red book?)

So instead of having 4 weeks to polish off one essay and write one from scratch, he had two.

After the initial adrenalin rush, we sat down and thanked God that he's given Mark the capacity to write a good 5000 word essay from scratch in two weeks, and had a council of war.

And on Friday, three hours before they were due, Mark submitted his essays.

Now there is only an exam and a dissertation to go, and then hopefully, he'll be accepted into the PhD programme here and we can breathe out.

It's been an adventurous couple of weeks. We're looking forward to a more mundane week this week, where Mark only has to get 75 pages of classical Greek under his belt.

It's turtles all the way down, folks. I think they might be drunk.

Death and Structural Damage

2008-04-05T22:14:00.001+01:00

On our brief expeditions around this country, we discovered the depth of commitment to the monarchy. I personally am not overly interested in the monarchy. Yesteryear's monarchs with their pomp and excess, not to mention the ego of someone like Henry VIII can be interesting. Clever monarchs, like Elizabeth I, are fascinating in their approach to politics and recrafting their worlds at times of major change. But while I have no objection to Elizabeth II and think she's done a good job of weathering the entrance of the monarchy into the modern world, I don't really care.

I guess I'm a Sunday monarchist. Praying for (and therefore thinking about) the monarchy is something I only do on Sundays, in church. I might pray for MP's, Prime Ministers and other governing bodies at other times in the week, but it really wouldn't occur to me to put the Queen in that category.

However, I'm in England. Not the same as Australia when it comes to people's approach to things monarchical...

And this began to sink in when we went to York.

Because of my view of the monarchy, I had never given much thought to the way the folk here think about Cromwell and the Civil War in the 17th Century. I always assumed that they would line up with me, more or less. Despotic king looking to scupper the great reforms which had come to England and the people rising up under the leadership of Cromwell and putting an end to this for the good of the country.

Definitely an oversimplification, but if you want to assign black and white hats to a complex situation, I would have given the white hat to Cromwell. (It would be a round hat, of course, but it would be white...)

This view was strengthened by one of our favourite authors - Terry Pratchett. In one of his books he has a thinly disguised version of the Cromwell story, which paints his version of Cromwell as the heroic sacrificial matyr for his country, standing alone and persecuted against a despotic, egotistic, and amoral tyrant. What we passed over when we read the novels was the way his descendant (Samuel Vimes) still suffers from social prejudice for something his anscestor did centuries before. Now we know that Pratchett's take is definitely not the view of the English - it is a bit like an Australian waxing lyrical about the excellent strategy and skills of the English Generals at Gallipoli.

On Anzac Day.

It's a minority view. It couldn't be said to be all that popular.

So, when we went to York we visited the museum there. There was a long, intricate display on the Civil War as it affected York, including a nifty interactive map with lights showing the locations of the different battles and their outcomes. As the display unfolded, however, it became very, very clear that the Yorkshire district was not pro-Cromwell.

At all.

In any way.

Cromwell was the bad guy. The really bad guy.

And as we wandered about York it became clear that this was not merely a view held by some eccentric museum curators. The commentary on the holes in the walls of the city included the damage done by Cromwell. And as we walked home on our last night there we passed the door of the house of the valet who accompanied Charles I on the evening before his death. It wasn't even the house he had lived in but it was the house where he was born. This guy, who no-one had ever really heard of, was a hero for being pro-Charles. He wasn't even a lord or duke. He was the valet.

Well, it's the north. They're like that. We both taught Reformation for long enough to know that the north of England was never exactly for the reforms which swept England over the hundred or so years before the Civil War. It makes sense that Northerners would be pro-Charles and anti-Cromwell.

What we didn't expect was that this strong anti-Cromwell feeling would exist in Cardiff, Wales. Wales, which had to endure so much at the hands of the English monarchy.

But here we have Caerphilly Castle. We visited here on a freezing cold day last year. It was our first castle and we were quite excited. And we were duly impressed. Caerphilly castle, while in ruins had turrets and was definitely stately.

As with most exhibitions, there was a valiant attempt to educate the public so that we could seriously and properly enjoy the castle. Saying, "Wow! Cool castle! Wouldn't it be great if it had a dragon?" doesn't really cut it. What the exhibitors are aiming for is more along the lines of: "Hmmm. Excellent 12th century architecture on this section, as we can see from the sandstone exterior." With a long pause to really savour this at a deep level.

So we learned all sorts of things about the castle. One of these things was that by the 13th Century it was no longer of any strategic value for the area and was not really used by any of the monarchs.

We also learned that part of Caerphilly Castle is warped. It was damaged sometime after it fell out of use. It looks like someone very large has sat on it and squashed it. This is the uneducated view of course. The actual reason, according to the literature is that Cromwell did it. It was Cromwell.

He came and attacked a castle in the seventeenth century that had not been used since the thirteenth century.

The literature also said that it was just possible that this damage could have happened from the soil shifting and resettling in a different way.

But the preferred interpretation was that it was probably Cromwell.

Yes. Of course it was.

Even in Wales he's the bad guy.

Mark and I are pessimists. We see this as just common sense: when things go wrong, you're prepared, and when they go well you get a pleasant surprise. It's a win-win. You can see there are good grounds to be positive about pessimism.

So our criteria for success when involved in events and ventures is fairly basic: if there is no death and no structural damage then it was a success. Everything else is gravy.

I think Cromwell might be the first person I've come across to fail this criteria. I'd known about the death, but it appears he's responsible for all the structural damage in this country as well.

So here's a new criteria of success:
1. If there is neither death nor structural damage unless there is a resident despot to be overthrown.
2. If there is such a despot to be overthrown then any death and structural damage may be justified. However it will certainly be held against you (along with any other incidents for several centuries either side of you) till the end of time.

Sometimes success looks a lot like failure. JMB

Spring

2008-03-23T18:16:00.008Z

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of...snow. Young men love snow.

At least in Oxford.

The coming of Spring heralds momentous changes. Birds enthusiastically twitter. Flowers are in bloom such that you can't avoid the daffodils. Squirrels bound. And magnolia trees hold out branches full of promise and exquisite buds.

Winter with its cold and wet and dark and dank is gone. Now is the time for...well, snow.

At least in Oxford.

Yesterday there was a high wind and the snow was almost horizontal.

This morning it was gentle, silent, magical snow, cascading from the sky.

And we've had it verified: it is actual snow. Not enthusiastic frost. Snow.

We're a bit surprised. They don't do things this way in the colonies. We tend to schedule snow for winter. But it's a nice surprise nonetheless.

JMB & MDB

In Anticipation of Sunday

2008-03-21T05:17:00.001Z

"We come down to the resurrection of Jesus. It's so petty, it's so trivial, it's so local, it's so earthy-bound, it's so unworthy of the universe." (Richard Dawkins)

"...Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (Paul to the Corinthians 1:24-25)

He is risen indeed!

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!

2008-03-14T11:29:00.004Z

The infamous Australian 'war-cry' seems singularly appropriate now that there are three Aussies in Baddelim. We received Jonathan’s citizenship papers yesterday and to mark this important occasion, dressed him in his Australia shirt (kindly given to us by our church at Northmead before we left).

We told Jonathan that he was now Australian, but he seemed strangely unmoved by the turn of events, defaulting to his usual strategy in all situations: looking cute.

Now he won’t be sent to Christmas Island or any other random Pacific island when we return home. Nor will he be unfairly blamed for throwing other children overboard. Or locked up in a detention centre. He’s a legitimate Australian.

Welcome to Oz, kiddo. Youse is a true blue, dinky di, ridgy didge Aussie. Oi! Oi! Oi! JMB

When Goodies Turn Bad

2008-03-06T18:00:00.000Z

TV is a window into the soul. Not so much the soul of an individual as of a culture. Watching the occasional excerpt of a Japanese game show or the melodrama of Iron Chef clues me in that the world that the Japanese inhabit has some very different features compared to mine. I can’t even begin to imagine what would give rise to such shows.

We don’t have a TV here. England never took the path Australia did and abandoned the practice of annual TV licenses. So we opted not to buy a TV with annual license (and saved a bucket of money in the process!). We’re more into watching TV shows that we have the DVDs for, reading, and playing games (computer and board). Between what we save on no TV and no license, we can budget to buy a TV season or two. So far that’s worked out really well for us. When Jennie’s feeding Jonathan at 4am an episode of Gilmore Girls is far more useful than whatever random gleanings fall from early morning programming. But one of the bonuses that came from our two trips to York and Cardiff last year was the glimpse into English television.

Overall it suited us very well. There seem to be a lot of the kind of English dramas that we love. Shows like Inspector Morse, Judge Deed, the Inspector Lynley Mysteries and other, less murder-mystery themed dramas are very common. There is much less American programming (and almost no Australian, except for, sigh, Neighbours). When American shows were advertised one got a glimpse into some of the difference between English and American culture.

American shows tend to go for the ‘big sell’, at least based on how they are advertised in Australia. They are glamorous, full of action, and full of people taking themselves very seriously. CSI: New York, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent are probably the worst offenders, but it’s a close field.

The English completely subvert it. The adverts for CSI and Law & Order almost parody the show, the voice over mixing with the actors’ lines to give the impression that it’s a satire. It suggests there’s something there that’s very different between those two English speaking cultures. And it’s a difference where Jennie and I fall more in with the English than the American way of experiencing the world.

However, we also got a glimpse of just how different English culture is at certain points. Like many males my age, I loved The Goodies as I was growing up. The surreal lite humour that also marked the humour of Monty Python and The Goon Show was quite unlike anything else, and quite captivated me. Even now I have quite fond admiration for the three rogues at the heart of the show.

So imagine my dismay to find Bill Oddy heading up a show called Autumn Watch (it has a sister show for another part of the year very cleverly named Spring Watch). The dismay wasn’t that he was heading up a nature watching show. I’d already known that Bill Oddy was a noted animal watcher and conservationist. We’d also gotten the impression in our short time here that the English took animal welfare far more seriously here than tends to happen in Australia.

The multiple opportunity shops around Oxford for animal charities are a bit of a hint. Let’s see, there’s the Blue Cross, the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, and no, I’m not making that one up), Animal Samaritans, Dogs Trust, and the Born Free Foundation (not an exhaustive list by the way…). Also the fact that, in a country that suffers from both foot and mouth disease and mad cow disease, the meat is labelled according to how well the donating animal was treated (and not how likely the meat is to kill you) was also a bit of a clue.

The clincher was handed to me this morning by my dear wife. The Big Issue was carrying an advert for the “Nile Cycle Challenge”—a chance to pay money to cycle along the Nile. That bit I can understand (not really appreciate, but understand). But part of the selling point is “visiting the Brooke’s animal health clinics along the way.” The cycling tour is being put on by Brooke, “healthy working animals for the world’s poorest communities” so I can get why they’d want to expose people to their work. But seeing animal health clinics is mentioned in the same breath as seeing the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings as part of the selling point. That’s a pretty serious view about animal welfare.

“How was the trip to Egypt?”
“Fantastic! I got to see the animal health clinics! Oh yeah, I also saw the pyramids, they’re pretty big you know.”

A nature watching show here doesn’t seem out of place, to put it mildly.

No, the dismay was due to the kind of nature watching show Bill Oddy was heading up. Forget David Attenborough, the Crocodile Hunter, or even Crocodile Dundee (‘nature watching’ is possibly being used with some artistic license in the last case, but arguably no more than the previous two entries). No, imagine someone added a voiceover to Neighbours that explained the plot (again, term used with artistic license) in nauseating detail and maximum melodrama. OK. Got that? Now imagine it was about animals.

And so, we had an instalment on the long running saga of the West End Foxes. Each contributor (i.e. fox) having their own name, their own attributed personality, their own motivations, and their own plot. All of it explained in the kind of anthropomorphic terms that would make even David Attenborough blush. So we had the story of how the old hand in the area who’d worked closely with a new boy in the previous season and shown him the ropes had gotten injured and was now having to watch his back for a possible take over attempt by the young hand.

We also had an apparently very popular segment about a deer with the stirring name of Maximus who last year managed to hold his bit of breeding ground against all comers for a week except against one monster who managed to turf him out in the closing days. We got to see how he went this time, despite the ‘blow to his confidence’ from the late loss. (He was fine, no need to worry there). Here’s a little taste of the trials and tribulations of Maximus from another episode, complete with sports’ style commentary:

But the most head-scratchingly puzzling bit of the show was the story of the wild boars in some part of the country. We had, in instalments, over the course of the show, footage compiled from a full week of shooting that produced a couple of minutes of visuals of a boar family, complete with piglets but sans the alpha male. This lack of the big boar was apparently a bit of an issue, local rumour indicated he was large (well yes, he’s a boar) . And so, throughout the show, we cut to the cameraman sitting out in the bush (quite literally) in the English cold, and watched footage of…well plants and trees moving in the wind in the English cold night air. While this footage was being shown live, the absence of the boar on the screen was discussed in extraordinarily earnest tones, along with a mini nature class on some of his salient features (he’s big, in case you weren’t aware. After all, he’s a boar). Somewhat to everyone’s surprise (although not mine I have to say), after a full week of avoiding the cameras, the boar didn’t make an appearance on live tv during the hour the show was airing. Go figure.

We were, by the end of the show, thoroughly bamboozled. How could animals be turned into a soap opera and treated with such intense seriousness? It was, at times, a level of melodrama that would feel quite at home with Grisham or Dr House. It suggested to us, that there are aspects of the English way of seeing the world that we can’t even remotely grasp.

But here’s the kicker. The English love irony. And part of the effect of irony is that, when it’s done properly, one can never be entirely sure if the earnest straight bat is what it seems to be. Sometimes it can be one sustained joke. It’s hard to imagine AutumnWatch being ironic, they never once ‘break cover’ and do anything even slightly tongue in cheek. But the English treat irony as a sport (and they’re a bit better at it than most actual physical sports). One only has to watch an episode of the Office to get a glimpse of how terrifyingly they can keep a straight face in the middle of sustained, earnest irony. And so we’re left in a quandary. Animals as melodramatic soap opera? Or sustained joke? Either way, it illuminates something of the English culture for which there is no Australian equivalent. But it’d be nice to know if we’re supposed to be laughing at the show, or with the show. Getting that wrong could just be embarrassing… MDB

Morning Prayer

2008-03-02T18:01:00.008Z

Wish us good morning when we wake
And light us, Lord, with thy day-break.
Beat from our brains the thicky night
And fill the world up with delight.

Nice to see that even great poets and thinkers are not morning people.

(Gerard Manly Hopkins: translation of St Bernard's Jesu Dulcis Memoria.)

Facebooked!

2008-02-16T18:06:00.001Z

Some of you may have been looking for us on Facebook. Up until last we week we had a combined profile (Jennie.Mark Baddeley) on the basis that another two email accounts (which is pretty much what Facebook is, only with pictures), could be fatal. And the whole 'one flesh' relationship of marriage was the spiritual justification for this. High moral ground is always a great place to stand.

But Facebook didn't agree.

They kicked us off because we weren't one person. And so we don't have an account anymore. Maybe we'll go back on as individuals sometime, but given how far behind we are at answering emails I doubt we'll be doing it anytime soon.

So this is just to say that even though we aren't on Facebook any longer we do still have a meaningful existence. We just have less cows thrown at us and no-one writes on our wall or plays scrabble with us, or gives us presents which hatch into tigers, or steals our superpowers.

And yet, somehow, life goes on. JMB

Baddelim Humour - You've Been Warned

2008-02-06T22:04:00.000Z

Life here has been returning to normal. 'Normal' as in what passes for that as Jonathan passes the five week mark. He's begun learning to smile and seems to enjoy baths. We have been to church the last two Sunday's as a family of three - quite a milestone for us. It was kind of cool to go together as a unit of more than two. Jennie has managed to do some writing (almost finishing her SALT article) despite Jonathan's ongoing assault on her valiant attempts to sleep.

I got to my lectures last week (having decided to drop eveything except what I absolutely had to go to, given that the illness wiped a solid three weeks from my life). Despite the fact that I was up by half-way through last week and got to the lectures, it took a disturbingly long time before my body recovered enough for me to start to feel like I wanted to do things, or was able to read with profit. This has meant that, apart from the last three days, the last time I did solid work on my essays was December last year... It's a small cause of stress. Tomorrow I meet with my supervisor and we're going to try and hammer out the questions for my two 5000 word research essays. It would be an exercise that would have gone better with some more recent work behind them. I think it could be safely said that I'm now solidly behind the eight ball. Not disastrously, but certainly enough to work up a sweat.

But enough of such emo style trappings! One of the things Jennie and I enjoy is a good laugh. It's always a sign that our emotional balance is in the black. One of the things that interests us is the broad variety of what people find humorous. There's been several occassions when we've found something "hi-larious" (to quote the philosopher Jayne Cobb) only to find people we know divided between those who end up in tears, and those who look at us strangely and back away slowly. So you've been warned. Jennie stumbled across this yesterday, and it's the funniest thing we've come across for a while.

It's Hugh Laurie of House and Blackadder fame singing a love song. It is (of course) a parody of the genre. What particularly tickles my funny bone is that he successfully subverts both parts of the genre. As the song continues he abuses both the rhyming with 'mystery' and the requirement that his song should be about his hopeless love for his beloved. It is, for us at baddelim, quite delicious.

You've been warned.

MDB

All Smiles

2008-01-25T18:41:00.000Z

Mark is feeling better. He got out of bed for the first time in over a week. We have been celebrating over the last few days by napping frequently and sitting quietly. And smiling from time to time.

Jonathan has a circus. It was gift sent all the way from Australia, from his friends Aunty Emma and Uncle Linden and Abby. He is pretty happy about that. It is bright and lies next to him on his mat while he kicks his legs. This means he can bash it with his hands and make it move. So, although he was one day shy of four weeks when we took this picture, he's smiling.

A much better week. Maybe we'll actually have something to say next week.

For now, thank you to those extraordinary people who have done our washing, made us meals, answered medical questions and completely spring cleaned our kitchen. This stopped us descending into complete chaos. And thank you to those people who have sent presents and cards and messages; now life is saner we might be able to respond. Thank you particularly to those who have prayed for us. Few weeks have helped us realise just how much we depend on God for everything all the time and we are grateful for his ongoing kindness to us in Christ.

And for those people who frequently would rail against us for not asking for help - well, never fear. We've asked for so much help in the last month it makes up for the years of never asking for it at all. I think we're square. JMB

Mad Cow Disease

2008-01-18T23:39:00.000Z

So it hasn't been the best week. In fact, we're kind of hoping not to have another week like this for a long time. Mark has been in bed sick all week, experiencing a level of pain that has been fairly extreme in its intensity and duration and I've been looking after him and Jonathan. To make matters worse, Jonathan has been particularly unsettled this week, some days requiring some kind of human company for the full 24 hours for him to settle. And so, we've been in survival mode again; it's been a hard week for both of us, and we've greatly appreciated home cooked meals and other practical help from those at church and Wycliffe College.

Jonathan has weathered it all very well though and has gone through something of a growth spurt. I think he'll have outgrown his newborn jumpsuits soon.

As with all times of crisis and distress, it is useful to reflect on the miseries others face which are far worse than your own. In the spirit of this, I offer some reflections on this:

Consider, gentle reader, the poor benighted creature who woke up one morning and thought to himself, "I think I will make a ceramic cow covered in cups and saucers, plates and teapots with paint tubes for its udder". And this thought doesn't go away after a decent cup of coffee and the harsh light of day. Instead, this person sits down and makes just such a cow.

Consider also that once made, this person takes the cow to a shop and the shopkeeper thinks to herself, "Ah! A ceramic cow covered in cups and saucers, plates and teapots! Just the thing. I want to sell this in my shop."

And this shopkeeper does not keep the cow hidden behind the counter for when an apologetic looking customer walks in and stammers, "Um, I heard that you, um, sell ceramic cows covered in cups and saucers, plates and teapots. Is that true? It's not for me, you understand, but for a friend. He has a whole collection of ceramic domesticated animals wearing kitchen utensils, but I, I mean he, doesn't have a cow. It would go so well with my, I mean his, donkey covered in toasters and his pig entirely covered in knives and forks."
Whereupon the shopkeeper would pull out said cow, sell it to this customer for his friend, who would depart the store, carrying a brown paper bag with a slightly guilty but triumphant look on his face.

No, my friend, that is not how this shopkeeper approached the sale of the cow. It is in the window of the shop for all to see, and in my case, photograph, because I have never seen anything quite like this. And because once I'd seen it I had to go back and have another look.

We don't know for sure whether there was a customer for this creation, but if we assume there was, then this too is worth our pity. Someone, somewhere could well have this cow on their mantelpiece. Not being involved in this cycle of insanity which involved the making, selling and purchasing of this cow makes one realise how fortunate one is.

And hopefully next week will be better. JMB

At last - photos!

2008-01-13T18:15:00.001Z

Well, here is our gorgeous son, Jonathan. (I realise that being able to call Jonathan 'gorgeous', 'adorable', etc is only a possibility for a certain number of years before his sense of manliness kicks in and he insists on tougher kinds of adjectives...)

You can see the point about the eyelashes. As one of the Special Care nurses commented, they are really lovely eyelashes, but completely wasted on a boy. He'll never appreciate them!

When I downloaded the photos I remembered that we'd taken a photo of his nametags in hospital. These were interesting because they kept multiplying. Anytime a health professional was left alone with him they felt the need to label him again. He ended up with five. We did toy with adding another nametag with completely different details just to mess with them, but thought that it may be possible that they wouldn't quite see the humour in the situation.

There were also some photos of Jonathan's canula. It was horrible watching them put this in him (babies have tiny, tiny veins) and he bore up under the whole thing remarkably well. But once it was in, he didn't seem overly bothered by it. He loves sucking his hands, and one of his favourite things is to try and fit both hands completely in his mouth while sucking madly on them. I'm not sure what would happen if he ever managed to succeed. But the canula became a bigger version of his hand and he chewed and sucked on it with great enthusiasm.

The other thing he liked to do with his canula was bash things. In particular, the side of his cot was a favourite target. He'd lie there placidly making little snuffling noises and suddenly there would this series of thuds. The first time it happened (at about 4am) was quite alarming.

Thank you to the many people who have emailed or 'facebooked' us in the last week or so. We've appreciated hearing from you! Hopefully we'll be able to respond in the near future. Thank you to those who are continuing to pray for Jonathan. He has been putting on weight well up until at least Friday morning (when he was weighed last). He's been a bit unsettled since then with whatever tends to be described a 'colic' and this has really thrown our routines out the last three days (Friday night Mark held him from 11pm to 3am with almost constant crying and wailing) but might be settling a bit now (it's a bit hard to tell). All part of what my dear husband is fond of calling the 'rich tapestry of life'. JMB

We're Home!

2008-01-08T14:35:00.001Z

Hurray!

We came home on Sunday evening and great was the rejoicing. It is good that we have hospitals (and such good ones), and they have come so far in the last 100 years. But it is hard to be in hospital for any length of time. There is a bewildering sense of vulnerability and unfamiliarity which colours every hour.

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us. God has been immensely kind to us and we are grateful for the way he has preserved Jonathan from his conception through to now, his 12th day in the world. It has been a great encouragement to us that so many people have cared about us and Jonathan and prayed for us all. Thank you.

And it is good to be home. We have spent the last 24 hours settling in and trying to find the bones of routine which might work for us. Jonathan is a lot more settled than some babies I have known, and certainly very settled for a child who shares our DNA. He has put on quite a lot of weight in the last week (thankfully) and we are slowly working out his feeding. I am, I must say, heartily sick of theories of breastfeeding. They all seem different and at least partly contradictory, and those who hold them do so with some degree of fanaticism which is tiring, to say the least. However, we muddle on and will eventually get things sorted I am sure.

The other great thing about being home is being able to sleep more. We are currently sleep deprived, obviously, but in the way we'd expected: we've both been students and know what losing sleep feels like. And it feels so much better than subsisting on 2 hours/day in 20 minutes blocks! It's also good to have another person around to decipher Jonathan's more incomprehensible moments. Having a new baby is really an exercise in interpreting loud mime.

One of the curious things people keep saying to me is "Enjoy your baby" or something similar. I do find this odd as Jonathan is one of the great things about the last 12 days. It would be hard not to 'enjoy' him. He is a tremendously brave, charming little baby, even when he is unsettled. In fact his reaction to the world - a place where he gets hungry and feels pain and so forth - has reinforced the sense that this world is really a hard place to be in many ways. Throwing your head back and wailing fits with the kinds of suffering (minor and otherwise) that we endure here. To introduce a little person to this, and to comfort him and tell him about a God who loves him even in a world like this, as he gets used to this difficult, puzzling world is one of the most useful things I've ever done.

As for Jonathan's eyelashes, well yes. But then his Dad has really gorgeous eyelashes so it isn't too surprising! When I have time to recharge the camera (which is very high up on my to-do list), and export the photos I will do so and all the world will behold these eyelashes, and other general cuteness. In the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it that Jonathan is really rather adorable! I couldn't possibly be biased or anything... JMB

Update

2008-01-03T00:19:00.000Z

Thank you for praying, God has been very generous in how he has been answering our prayers over the last 48 hours. I thought I'd let people know how things have been going before I turn in.

Jonathan is responding very, very well to the extra milk he's been receiving. He's no longer listless, nor crying constantly. He has good colour and is generally very contented (even to the point of lying happily in his cot for half-an-hour today when he woke up before his feed time). He doesn't enjoy the twice-daily regimen of antibiotics that he gets through a cathater semi-permanently located in his arm. He enjoys even less the taking of his blood that has happened one to two times per day to run various tests. But that's ok, his parents aren't the world's greatest fans of that either. This is not least because of the ambience of the place where it happens - special care, where all the drastically premature babies (and similar cases) are looked after. It's a place where they have pictures up of the babies that lived...

The blood cultures have shown no infection after twenty-four hours, which is what we want, but isn't conclusive until 48 hours have passed. His ammonia levels (I think) came back under the high end of safe within about 24 hours. All up he's doing very well, and is getting even more compliments for his cuteness (and yes, about half the comments focus in on the eyelashes). At the moment they want to finish the five day course of antibiotics and, if nothing else goes wrong, will probably release Jennie and him when they're done- either Saturday night or Sunday morning, Oxford time.

Jennie is doing much better, getting between four and half and five hours sleep over the last two days - usually broken up into chunks of no more than one hour. Nonetheless, the drastic change in Jonathan has done her a world of good. She laughed for the first time two days ago, and we began having the space and energy to just enjoy Jonathan for the first time today.

We're very grateful for God's goodness towards us in this. Thank you who have prayed. I'm off to bed. A new day starts soonish. MDB

An Announcement

2007-12-31T23:55:00.000Z

I am pleased to announce the birth of Jonathan Dean Baddeley at 2:32 am on the 27/12/07. He was 8lb 10oz or 3.9kg at birth. Jennie handled the seven and a half-hour labour so well that the attending midwife 'thought it was a shame' that the final stage had to be done with the assistance of forceps as young Jonathan got a bit stuck. That's possibly not surprising given his size.

The birth was induced. The medical types had been concerned about Jennie's blood pressure and some other issues in the final weeks, and this grew in the final days. We spent the day before Christmas at the hospital as a routine check-up with Jennie's GP ended up in a long stay at the Radcliffe Hospital as they ran a bunch of tests on her. This meant that Jennie pretty much slept through Christmas Day, as you'd expect. Then on the 26/12/07 we were back at the hopital not-so-bright-eyed but certainly early. They decided that they'd like to induce as soon as possible and it just so happened that there was a vacancy that day...

From here the news gets a bit grimmer, but it's nothing to panic about. Due to the concerns that led to the inducing they kept Jennie in for five days for observation and some regular tests. That's ok, except that being in a ward of four new mothers, each with a child, and with Jonathan (after the first day) eating with increasing franticness and regularity (eating for almost three hours straight one night), and with the Hopsital's own schedules of meals, tests, and me not being allowed to be there for 12 hours a day Jennie was getting between 1 to 3 hours of sleep out of every twenty-four, day after day.

I'm not sure how she's managed to cope - I doubt I could have, and certainly not as well. But it certainly has taken a toll. We both got the whole 'less sleep' thing going into this, but I feel that keeping her in for five days with an unsettled baby turned this into something of an extreme sport. (The tone may be light here, but understand that there is a lot of anger here at the inability of an institution to have a suitable policy in place for someone staying in for more than one or two days. Which is a shame, because otherwise the Radcliffe has been on a scale that begins at 'highly competent' and ends at 'amazing').

I know that many of you were entitled to a personal notification of the birth. I'm sorry it hasn't been forthcoming, but I've been trying to be at the hospital for the full twelve hours I was allowed to be there to pick up what load I could, add in a couple of hours of travel time, and there wasn't much time (or energy) left over for me either. I apologise, however. Nonetheless, we still mightn't have gotten around to it even today if it wasn't for the developments of today.

Today was the day that Jennie was going to be released as they were increasingly happy with what they saw from her tests. However, almost as an afterthought they thought they'd just give Jonathan one more check over with the paedatrician. The midwives also thought he looked a bit dehydrated.

The results were fairly concerning. He'd lost about 20% of his birthweight in 4 days, where 12% in 7 days was enough to push alarm bells. As a result his ammonnia (I think that's right, some element however) is imbalanced and his 'infection count' (which is probably his white blood cell count, although I didn't think to ask) is high. Unfortunately that meant they had to eliminate the (highly unlikely) prospect of meningitis. That required a lumbar puncture. Unfortunately it didn't work, so they're going to have to develop the blood cultures to see whether there is an infection there or whether the result is just due to the dehydration (the most likely scenario). But until the results come in Jonathan is on a course of antibiotics.

I had gone back home to get the stuff Jennie and Jonathan would need for another few days while the new rehydration regimen did its work when the results for the infection count came in. So Jennie was woken up five minutes after she hit the bed (again) to get the news that her new son was about to have a needle stuck in his spine and had to deal with it on her own. This has been a truly awful day.

Nonetheless, although we've been fairly rocked by today (when I got the news that they were keeping them in another two days, and before we found out how serious things were, I had to walk away I was so angry at the thought they were going to subject Jennie to another 48 hours of no sleep without doing anything to help), there's a lot we're grateful for and would like people to give thanks for. We're grateful that the problem with Jonathan not getting enough food from the breastfeeding was picked up before we went home today.

We're grateful that it doesn't look serious at this stage (they decided not to put him in intensive care, which was a really good sign). We're grateful he's responding so well to the new regimen--eating everything, and sleeping between feeds,and already more alert and active when awake. Everything looks very promising.

And we're grateful that Jennie has her own room now (it happened immediately after I walked away when the midwife got a glimpse of how upset I was, and not after the two previous occassions when I talked calmly and respectfully, yet fairly forcefully, on the two previous days-so not happy about how we got it, but still very grateful it's been given). And has already gotten a couple of hours sleep as a result. This in turn will help with milk production as lack of sleep inteferes with the milk coming through.

Nontheless, things are, it seems, potentially serious and so we would value prayer. Especially for Jonathan that God would preserve his life and enable him to come through this unscathed. For Jennie, that she would start to get enough sleep (even five hours broken up over the day would be a big step forward at this stage). And for both of us that we'd be wise and godly parents of new Jonathan.

I'm assured by the multiple female staff (including a cleaner) that he's very cute. Apparently it has something to do with the long eyelashes he was born with, which is a bit of a rarity among baby connoisseurs.

Apologies if this has been a bit too light in tone in places given the gravity of the news at this moment. But Jennie and I don't always like inflicting our somewhat black-shaded view of the world on others (while we've cried today, neither of us were really surprised at the development) and I'm probably not at my best to calibrate properly. And I also didn't want to take away from the great news of Jonathan's birth, and that God has looked after him so far. In the midst of the frustration and concern, we have been blessed. Please pray, but rejoice with us as well.MDB

Winter Wonderland

2007-12-24T19:29:00.000Z

Last week we woke up and the world was white.

We thought this was extremely cool. We also thought it was snow. Because, well, snow is white and this was white, so why wouldn't it be? Our snow education classes in Australia were fairly vague about the specifics of snow, but we did pick up the general 'whiteness' factor as being important. And as everywhere was white, we figured it had snowed.

So, we put on as many clothes as possible and went for a walk.

We admired the snow. It was on berries...

...on evergreens...

...on ivy...

...on lawns...

... and on more prosaic objects, like fences and cars and pebbles. It was a great walk. When we got home it got progressively whiter.

But it turns out that all that is white is not snow. Who'd have thought? This was just frost. Apparently frost is also white. Snow is crunchier. So, we have two different kinds of white cold stuff: one is frost (and therefore nothing to get excited about) and one is snow.

Well, frost still turns the world into a beautiful (and very cold) place. And it was cool to think that it was snowing for a day, even though it wasn't. JMB

Black Forest Birthday

2007-12-21T11:17:00.000Z

This post is a response to the interest in whether there was a baking project for Mark's recent birthday (and if you don't know the date I'm afraid I can't divulge it - part of the division of labour in our marriage is for me to protect the identity of this date). The short answer is: Yes. But cake is only one feature of a birthday celebration. I think to create a good birthday, several things are required.

The first is conversation. This was covered by spending the evening with Jensens, talking and playing Bohnanza (an obscure bean growing game which can become strangely addictive, depending on your personality). We had a great evening, and managed to make some headway with the cake.

Because the second important feature is cake. The cake was Mark's favourite: Black Forest which I made using real chocolate, so it was very chocolatey (the way it should be), and covered with ganache (which involves more chocolate. And cream).

I still haven't quite made peace with the oven, so it doesn't do cakes quite right yet (everything else is fine - it's a fan-forced oven and we are both a little bit in love with it. It works so well, but of course, our last oven did not, and so my cake making was adjusted to a strange and recalcitrant oven and hasn't quite worked out what to do in the presence of an obedient oven that actually wants to help). So, the cake sank a little, but as it was a very large cake and there was a lot of cream to hold it together, that wasn't too bad.

My only real disappointment was that the British don't sell cherries in juice (that I was able to find), and so the best I could do was cherry pie filling which I privately thought was a bit clunky. However the excessive amount of chocolate and cream was a good distraction from the cherries, so all was well.

The third feature is steak. This is not a universal requirement for all birthdays. Just for Mark. So, I went to the covered markets and checked out all the butchers, scorning their boar, deer, goat, duck, pheasant and other exotic dead animals for sale. I found the butcher that seemed to take beef the most seriously and asked him for his best piece. It cost so much I felt like I was doing something illegal, but according to Mark it was very good steak, so it was worthwhile. It's probably a good thing that Mark will only be having three more birthdays over here...

The fourth part of Mark's birthday is to thank God for Mark. I think Mark is a remarkable man, and has used his years well. This is never to be taken for granted and shows that God is at work in his life which is a thing to rejoice about and to thank God for. So, we did that as well.

The only difference this year was we did some of the things on different days so that Mark wouldn't miss out if Tiny decided to come early. He really had no intention of making an appearance early, however so we enjoyed Mark birthday celebrations at a leisurely pace instead. JMB.

Homey Things

2007-12-19T21:31:00.000Z

Yes, you have missed out on the final installment of the 'walk to class'. You should feel very ripped off. It should appear this week sometime, but right now the author of that series is working very hard with the Cappadocians and may not be disturbed. Feel free to contact our complaints department to lodge a complaint. We care about your pain.

Instead, you get to see some of the excellent things that God has given us to make our lives so much more enjoyable.

The first are our bookshelves. Mark put these together with a manual screwdriver (no mean feat); I hammered the backs onto them and here is one of them:

Of course, an empty bookcase is not the same as a full one. Particularly when it is full of some of your most favourite books in the world. Here is the one in our bedroom (there are another two in our lounge room). This one contains all our commentaries, important books that we can't do without (like Robin Hobb, Greg Bear, George Eliot, Chaim Potok, Terry Pratchett, Gurps series, etc...), and a small collection of books we really want to read in the next four years. It immediately made our bedroom feel more home-like!

The two bookcases in the loungeroom have mostly academic books, theology and philosophy, our DVD's and all the recipe books. (Providentially, Barth's Dogmatics and Brunner's Systematic Theology fitted exactly on the same shelf...let the reader understand. This caused me great amusement).

Mark in his role as 'Bob the Builder' also constructed a laundry hamper, which even has drawer-like sections and a shelf on top.

I was so impressed by this. I love things with drawers and compartments and so forth. And I like things to have their own spot, particularly dirty laundry, and this version has two drawers, so you can sort the colours from the whites in the process of putting the washing in the hamper, compressing two tasks into one smooth task. It's this kind of efficiency that makes my world a better place. (It's a personality thing; I take no responsibility for it).

We received this as a flat-packed parcel and Mark took it into the spare room. There were all kinds of noises and some long silences; the couple of times I ventured in there he was lying on his back, with assorted wood panelling in all directions, and once it looked like he was building himself into the laundry hamper which would have been an interesting outcome. And then I walked in and it was done. It went from this assortment of wood to this functioning set of drawers in one evening. It was like a small miracle! I was impressed.

Most impressive of all, however, was his construction of The Kitchen Trolley. To understand why I might be most impressed by this, you need to understand that constructing this involved a puzzling set of instructions with strange looking diagrams, screws, wheels, panels and a lot of other things which did not, in my opinion bode well. The only thing I knew about flat-packed things is that they often go wrong and are never the same as the picture. I didn't think I could really contribute to the process, so I went and did useful things in a different room. My expectations were not high. Yet the outcome was as miraculous as the laundry hamper - moreso as the complexity was greater, and it not only looked like the picture but functioned better than the picture had led us to believe.

To understand this, you need to know that our kitchen is fairly small. If you were the kind of person who wanted to swing a cat (not that I would advise it for various reasons, including the injuries likely to be sustained in the aftermath of the cat swinging exercise; cats understand vengeance), you might be able to swing one in the kitchen provided it was a small cat and your arms were not long. Probably you would just give up and find another place to swing the cat, I would imagine. The kitchen is small.

However, there is very little bench space and this probably wouldn't matter, but we like to cook together and there isn't really enough room for us to do that. We discovered this little trolley in the Argus catalogue. It was the skinniest one they had, and I still had misgivings about it taking up too much room in the kitchen and defeating the purpose of freeing up space. However, when this was built and we wheeled it in, it fitted snugly against the wall and didn't jut out into the doorway at all. There is now less room to swing a cat, (which is fine as we don't have a cat and are unlikely to swing it in the kitchen in any case. Unless it was a Schrodinger's cat, in which case we wouldn't know whether we were swinging it in the kitchen anyway.) But importantly there is more room to work in the kitchen because of the extra bench space this brings, which is at exactly the right height for me.

And there's more. It brings with it much needed storage space with a collection of shelves on wheels with nifty little boxes and drawers, which is fantastic given the limited amount of pantry space and shelving we have available. (Mark has several Coke caches around the house, in various cupboards, as the bottles won't fit in our 'pantry' which is small bookcase inside the electricity measuring cupboard).

Best of all it means that we can both work in the kitchen at once without ending up entangled, which is important when there are urgent Gravy Issues to resolve.

We have enjoyed these additions to our home immensely. And I'm very impressed with Mark's ability to turn flat-packed products into useful objects without power tools. JMB

Praying for us

2007-12-17T21:49:00.000Z

This is our monthly update, letting those of you who are interested in praying for us know what we would most appreciate prayer for, and to let you know some exciting answers to prayer as well, so you can thank God with us.

Last month we mentioned how excellent it would be when Mark finally got a sense of his assessment. This has now happened (mostly). There is still some confusion over exactly what language some of the texts will be that he is to be examined on, and what those exact texts will be, and these are by no means minor details. However, the key pieces of assessment have been identified and some of the administration is being sorted. We are grateful that this has been settled, and it means that Mark is now busy working on his essays and starting to work towards his exam and dissertation.
Please thank God for this being settled, as well as for the excellent supervisor's report Mark received at the end of Term 1. Now that Mark knows the shape of his assessment, he needs to do a substantial amount of work over the next few months. Please pray that Mark will use his time well and be able to complete the assessment he needs to hand in.

Last month we also lamented our absent boxes, which if you are a regular reader you will know have now arrived. We were very glad to see certain items which have made our lives much easier and more enjoyable. Everything arrived unscathed, which surprised us and some riskier decisions (like bringing the breadmaker) are really paying off. We are grateful that God has blessed us in this way.

Jennie is pleased that she has made head way on a number of projects. More could be done, and hopefully will be done in the next little while before the baby comes (despite diminishing energy!), but she is grateful for the progress that has been made. Please thank God for this progress and pray for wisdom to know how to use the energy that she has.

Our biggest concerns this month have centred around the birth of our baby, due in a couple of days, though we expect to be waiting longer than that. Everything is now ready, as far as we can tell. Jennie is quite tired, but well and the baby seems to be enjoying the present confinement, communicating no burning curiosity to explore the world outside. So, we continue to pray for a safe delivery of a healthy baby, who will grow up knowing and loving the Lord Jesus, and for wisdom as parents.

These are the most significant things on our horizon at this stage. We continue to enjoy living here and getting to know people at Church and Wycliffe. And we continue to be amazed at God's generosity in bringing us into his kingdom to love and serve him.

Thanks again for praying for us. JMB&MDB

Going to Class Oxford Style (II)

2007-12-12T17:27:00.000Z

Well, we’re here at the side door to New College. I’ll hold the door open for you and we’ll go in.

That’s the way ahead, let’s walk to the end of the small passage and look out.

We’ll be taking the small door over on the far side of the courtyard on the left. No. Not the door directly facing us. Our door is facing at 90 degrees to us, and is much smaller. We can hardly make it out from here. We’ll move over to that side of the courtyard and turn left.

That’s where we’re going. It’s quite small. No really, it’s a small door:

Let’s turn around for a moment and enjoy the statues on this side of the side entrance

Jennie wasn’t going to take a photo of those until she realised that the one on the right was on his knees. Her words at that point? “A kneeling bishop? You can’t have a statue suggesting bishops kneel…” Very droll. But it did mean we got a photo taken. Let’s turn back around and walk into the small doorway and see what’s next.

Breathtaking sight. Often a bit lost on me as I was rushing to the lecture and couldn’t stop to take in this little alcove along the way. But breathtaking for all that.

We’ve just passed through the other alcove and are looking at the next, much smaller courtyard. This time we can see the doorway we're going to walk through, even though, again, it is at 90 degrees to us.

That’s the building where my lecture room was, over on the right hand side, on the ground floor. Most of it is given over either to faculty studies or residences for members of the College. People live there.

That’s the path retraced. Let’s walk over there and have a quick look around before we leave New College.

That’s the building we have just come from. Like the one where my lecture room is, it is primarily a place where people live. I really can’t imagine living in a place like this. You can see where J.K Rowling got the idea for Hogswarts (and Pratchett his Unseen University).

And there’s the view just a bit to the left of where we’ve come from. Some turreted walls begin that continue for a while. Why a College needs fortifications, I’ll never know. Perhaps Old College really didn’t like this upstart newfangled place. Or maybe they took their academic disagreements way too seriously back then. After all, the pen is mightier than the sword. (And those fortifications are mightier still…) MDB

Going to Class Oxford Style

2007-12-10T22:30:00.001Z

One of the real treats about studying here at Oxford has been the amazing buildings one gets to see on the way to and fro. So we thought we’d spend the three posts this week giving you a small visual tour of what it is like going to lectures here. Today is arguably the least entertaining of the three (unless you work for Main Roads or somesuch) as we’ll be taking the journey from Wycliffe Hall where my study desk is through to the outside of New College (which is ‘New’ in the sense that it has been around since the 14th Century…) where I attended some great lectures on Heidegger’s Being and Time this term (that finished the week before last).

Wednesday we’ll pick up the journey inside New College to the building where the lecture room is situated. And Friday we’ll follow the path I take to meet with my tutor/supervisor in Christ Church.

But such a journey of a thousand miles (not literal miles, in case you’re worried, they’re merely poetic) begins with a single step. And so here we are at the intersection outside Wycliffe Hall. It took more than a single step to get here from my study desk, but that’s poetic license for you.

We’re facing in the opposite direction to where we are about to go. The benefit of this however (apart from the virtual exercise you’re about to get by turning around) is that it captures just how ‘modern’ (and therefore ugly…) some of the buildings in Oxford can be. It’s not a tourist city, where nothing has a function except for tourism. The old buildings are put to new uses, and in places new buildings (even by Aussie standards!) have been constructed. Well, it’s time to push off.

This is the road that is the most direct route from Wycliffe to New College, hence (once I worked that out—which took four weeks…) is the route I’d take. It’s also the route we took to Matriculate. On the left is a magnificently kept public garden that stretches for a fair while (nothing like Brisbane’s Southbank or Sydney’s Centennial Park, but a good size nonetheless). On the right, are some more fairly modern buildings. We’ll walk on.

We’re now passing around the gentle curve you could just see in the distance in the previous shot, we’ll keep walking.

We’re another 100 metres or so along, and the park is behind us, there’s buildings on both sides. Let’s look at the building to our left.

That is the engineering building. Personally, I suspect it’s wasted on them. From my experience of engineers I think most of them would be more comfortable in one of these buildings that we passed by a bit earlier on our walk.

Anyway, aesthetic failings of engineers aside, we’ve now reached the ‘city centre’ of Oxford and pedestrian traffic has picked up a bit.

We’ll be passing through the intersection and going straight on and just around the corner.

We’re just gone around the corner and turned left. Behind us is the place where the photo of me was taken immediately after I matriculated. This arch is apparently a big deal. If I understand things correctly then it was made to help counter an English version of the Aussie cultural cringe, duplicating the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. So I suppose it warrants a closer look.

Sigh.

Anyway, our trip goes under this arch and down the alleyway, which is, for me, one of the most quintessentially mediaeval-feeling parts of Oxford.

We’ve just turned right. Notice how the entire feel of the place has changed. The lane is small, the walls loom and they are a much darker colour than much of what Oxford is built with. There’s a few places in Oxford where you turn a corner and feel like you’ve completely changed your surroundings. This is definitely one of those.

We’ve just turned left, we’ll be heading to the end of the lane, even though there’s an option to turn right. Turning right would take us on around the side of New College, and we want that door up ahead. It’s the side door to New College.

There we are. We’ve made it to the door of New College. As you can see most people who are not named Goliath don’t need to use the whole door they made. So they’ve kindly set up a kind of small-door-within-a-large-door arrangement. A kind of kitty flap for normal sized humans.

You’ll notice I mentioned this was the side door. Non-residents can’t get in through this door unless we just happen to get there as a resident is coming or going. That’s right, for the first couple of weeks, I was taking the wrong entrance to class (and it made me late twice as I had to wait for someone so I could get through). Nonetheless, that ill-fated path is far more picturesque, so we’ll pick it up again on Wednesday. But before we go I want you to look up for a moment.

That’s an Oxford college for you. Even a minor side door has exquisite statues 10 metres above it, that are virtually impossible to make out clearly without some kind of telephoto lens. It’s an amazing place to walk to class. Maybe John Woodhouse would like to incorporate some features into the new Moore College? MDB

The Christmas Pudding Event

2007-12-07T22:54:00.000Z

Last year I decided to make real Christmas pudding. This was partly an experiment in whether I could make complicated things. And partly because I think Christmas rocks and should be celebrated, and celebrations are made more enjoyable by good food.

Consequently, I went out and bought a real pudding basin – not as easy as it sounds. It took me a while to find one. I also figured out where the two places were in Australia where you can buy real suet and obtained some (surprisingly inexpensively). I found a recipe by a person who is really committed to Christmas pudding. (No really, he is – he has very strong views on how the breadcrumbs in the recipe should be made and so forth; a company even sent him their pudding bowl to review on his website).
I negotiated the various options for keeping the pudding off the bottom of the saucepan for 8 hours while it cooked. (I disregarded the suggestion on the website involving hanging the pudding from a broom suspended by a coat hanger; there was just too much that could go terribly, terribly wrong with that, what with gravity and boiling water and all). I even worked out what on earth was going on with the ‘string handle’ and the pleated baking paper and foil combination that was meant to tie the entire thing together.

All in all, it was the kind of learning experience that Develops Character. And it didn’t taste too bad on the day, so it was all good.

This year I decided to repeat the experiment. We have no idea when the baby will be born, so I figured I could make Christmas pudding early, and if nothing else, we could at least have Christmas pudding on Christmas Day, unless we were otherwise occupied, as for instance may be the case if we were spending quality time at the delivery suite in the JR Hospital. But we would no doubt appreciate Christmas pudding in the wake of such an event in any case.

So, I set about making Christmas pudding in early-mid November. Here in England I thought it would be remarkably easy to make Christmas pudding according to this recipe. This is the country of pudding basins and suet after all.

The pudding basin wasn’t too hard to find. It was about 3 times more expensive than the one I found in Australia, but that is fairly normal for most things. The suet however was trickier.

I set off to find suet at the place which would obviously sell it: The Covered Markets. (which will get its own post fairly soon). There were four butchers there. One specializes in sausages: the most extraordinary array of sausages, many of them local recipes from around the country, and all of them looking like they have had more of an association with actual meat than the average sausage one encounters. Another sells all kinds of exotic things: pigeon, rabbit, pheasant, goat and so forth. The other two are slightly more prosaic and sell ordinary meat as well as a few more interesting things on the side. In all, one would imagine that between the four of them, something as uninteresting as beef suet would be easy to obtain.

None of them sold suet.

In fact, a couple of them never sell it; the others told me that they were getting it in for Christmas in a few weeks time.

There are two problems with that.

The first is that any self-respecting Christmas pudding cook knows that the Christmas pudding needs to be made early. I was making it in about mid-November, which is late (and I felt a slight sense of having let down the side by leaving it so late: what would other Christmas pudding cooks think of such a thing? Most committed to the whole Christmas pudding ideal would have it made in October, so that the taste can really develop). A few weeks before Christmas just doesn't cut it!

The second problem is far more ideological: this is England. I can understand the special circumstances of Australia, where the heat means that the regulations surrounding the obtaining and sale of suet are seriously restrictive, which means that few people actually sell it. But it really isn’t hot over here. And there are all these ‘English’ recipes which call for suet.

So, I went back down to the shops near where we live, thinking that the ‘Organic Butcher’ probably wouldn’t have it, but I’d give them a try before I resorted to fake suet (which just isn’t the same!) To my surprise they had it. They had ordered it in especially for a person who was also cooking Christmas pudding and they had stashes of it in the freezer. The butcher told me that it was becoming more a rarity in England as people didn’t use it much. As I reflected on this it made more sense: I am really beginning to get a sense that an awful lot of people here don’t cook or don’t know how to cook. (That at least would explain the spam fritters!)

The ingredients all lined up (the suet is front left; quite prosaic after all that effort!) The breadcrumbs are made according to the very strict and precise instructions on the website and are on the right hand side, for those who are concerned that all the instructions were followed precisely.

Thankfully buying the dried fruit and various other ingredients was reasonably easy, and the pudding is now made and ‘developing’ quietly in the cupboard.

The excellent thing about England of course, is the fantastic quality of the cream we can buy to go with the pudding. I’m sure at Christmas we can (finally) justify buying clotted cream… JMB

Unbelievable Customer Service: the good, the bad, and the simply…unbelievable

2007-12-05T22:41:00.000Z

Customer service in England seems to vary in much the same way as Melbourne weather varies: it has extremes. It doesn’t really do just ordinary or middle of the road. In England we’ve decided, you seem to get unbelievable customer service the like of which we have never encountered (and didn’t think possible) – and you can add the adjective ‘good’ or ‘bad’ before unbelievable in that sentence. Either fits. As of today, we have another category: just 'unbelievable'. You'll see why.

I’ve already blogged about the unbelievably bad, and as that is resolved I think we should move on.

What we haven’t done is speak of the unbelievably good, and the simply unbelievable.

The unbelievably good is (itself unbelievably) to be found in, of all things, a bank. Yes, you read correctly, a bank. We have been impressed beyond our belief with our bank. Our general attitude to banks in Australia was tolerance. The service was usually average to uninviting; the bureaucracy involved in what seemed to us simple transactions was excruciating and the general experience of ever having to deal with the bank about just about anything was painful. And of course, banks in Australia now charge fees for any kind of contact you have (or don’t have) with them. That, we thought, was just how banks are. Thorns and thistles of a sinful world pop up in unexpected places and banks are just one place where they cause frustration. At least they don’t stop you in the street at gunpoint and make you hand over all your cash, ‘in the interest of their shareholders’.

Now when we return to Australia and need to endure such things again we can lie back and think of England. Because in England there is at least one bank that has completely changed the way we think of banking.

It all started when we went to open a bank account. They allowed us to do this from Australia (for a fairly hefty fee), and were incredibly well organized about it. They gave us the correct forms to fill out (not to be taken for granted). They told us this or that would happen, and lo and behold, this or that actually did happen. They told us to go to London with our passports when we arrived and collect our keycards. And when we went to London with our passports, we were actually able to do just that. Not only that, but they had a special waiting room for folk in our situation with tea, coffee and hot chocolate laid on. They actually had someone come and speak to us – one-to-one – and explain how everything worked. She spent about ½ to ¾ hour with us and answered all our questions, set up internet banking for us, and so forth and was genuinely friendly. And she told us the startling and extraordinary news that our bank does not charge us fees. (This we initially met with suspicion and incredulity… and then as it sank in were more and more amazed. What about the poor shareholders that we are always been told about in Australia? Were we expected to make donations? How does it work that the bank earns interest from our money and doesn't collect fees from us for the privilege?)

Every time we’ve been into this bank we’ve had a good experience. The most extraordinary time would have to be when we were randomly walking past the bank at about 4:50. To our surprise it was open. Partly out of sheer novelty value we walked in: new experiences and all – what would the inside of a bank look like after 4:30pm? The place was buzzing. There was a customer service counter, and as Mark had an Australian cheque in his wallet which was more than three months old, I thought it might be good to ask whether there was any possibility of actually depositing it in our account. I held out very little hope that anything would come of this and expected to be told off for even asking.

So, we waited in the queue (like good English people) and watched in amazement as the three customer service people interacted with great enthusiasm with some tricky customers. By the time our turn came it was just before 5pm and we were feeling a bit bad for bothering them so close to closing time and were going to leave, but the woman who came to serve us was so keen to help us and wouldn’t hear of us leaving. We explained the situation with the cheque and said that all we wanted to do was find out whether it was possible to deposit it in our account, and that we’d be happy to come back and do that some other time. We just wanted a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. She seemed to take it personally that we might leave before having deposited the cheque and not only told us we could do so, but insisted on explaining to us how the process would work. (We didn't actually care, but she was very committed to explaining exactly what the process would be, what our options were and which option she considered the best one for us in our situation). She then co-opted one of her assistant customer service people to take us upstairs and explain the situation for us to the teller, so that the teller would be sure to choose the option most beneficial to us. We protested that it was too close to closing time and we’d be happy to come back, but as it seemed that this would cause her great distress, we dutifully followed the assistant upstairs where he explained all to the teller. The teller then explained to us exactly what the implications of the option we’d chosen were, and then apologized for charging us a fee for that service. Quite frankly, we’re happy to pay fees if a service of some kind is actually performed.

So we were impressed: of the three employees we dealt with just before closing on a Friday afternoon, all three were courteous, communicated clearly and did their job well. And the money even arrived in our account, along with a letter from the bank explaining exactly what had happened in the transaction. Efficiency and competence from a bank - who'd have thought??

We’ve visited the bank in its various branches at other times to sort things out and it has always been much the same as that experience. It’s making us begin to believe that banks can be something other than an exercise in frustration we've experienced in Australia. No doubt when we come back to Australia, we’re going to be those annoying people who say, “In England, our bank would never…”

So much for the unbelievably good.

Now for the unbelievable.

I ordered a cot mattress from a reputable company on the internet. They said that they would deliver it the day after it was ordered. That would be today. I can't help noticing the absence of a cot mattress in our unit.

Late this afternoon I looked up the site to find more information on delivery. There they say they ‘expect to deliver the goods within five working days’, between 7:30am-6pm, which is not exactly helpful. That means that either Mark or I have to be here to take delivery for the next four days. I looked further at the site to try and find out whether there was any indication of whether they had dispatched our mattress specifically rather than just their general delivery policy, of which they have two which contradict one another.

Finally, I found a ‘track order’ section of the website and found our expected delivery date. It was listed as “5 January 2010 – 7 January 2010”.

It’s not so much that this is bad customer service. I mean the information is there. In fact, it’s very specific information: they show a significant ability to plan, given that they aren't just planning on delivering it at any time in general in 2010, but between 5-7 January in that year. That's incredibly precise for three years out. I have no idea what I’m likely to be doing 5-7 January 2008, let alone 2010, so it is worth recognising their obviously excellent forward planning. It's curious that a company with those kind of logistical capabilities has such trouble delivering its goods in the same year as the purchase, but one must give credit where it is due.

But I have to say, it's not the information that I was hoping for. I admit, I was hoping for a date that was more in the region of this year. Maybe even in the next few days. Not 2010. Call me fussy, but when I buy something, I don’t really want to have to wait three years to take receipt of it. Especially not when we’re likely to have a small child in the next few weeks. It seems that it is easier to bring a child into the world than it is to transport a mattress from one side of Oxford to the other.

About as unbelievable as not paying bank fees! JMB

Expressive English

2007-12-03T12:38:00.000Z

We are in the process of changing from the night congregation at St Ebbes to the 10:00am congregation, in the lead up to Tiny’s arrival. The thought of taking a newborn out into the English winter at night being something we’d probably hold off on until we’re ready for slightly more advanced parenting challenges. Sunday just gone was a small interruption into that process, however. St Ebbes was holding a kids’ Christmas event in the late afternoon. Over here in England it is generally expected that if you have someone’s kids about that time (say over to play with yours) that you’ll feed them around then—afternoon tea is sort of that, the afternoon night meal. Possibly has something to do with the moon being visible at 4:30pm in winter.

And so St Ebbes was providing afternoon tea for a few hundred children. Each child got their own Christmas box packed meal—a specially made cardboard box with a Christmas design on top (all made by a parishioner), two very small sandwiches, and (separate) sausages, one mandarin, a cupcake, and a lindt ball (!). They also got a small popper—orange or apple. These were all made or provided for by parishioners. Jennie and I helped out with the packing of these goodies into the boxes, which meant that we then went to the 11:30am congregation.

It was interesting to go to the third congregation. It was, even more than the night congregation, for uni students. If we’d been feeling old in the night service (which we had…ridiculous at the grand old age of mid 30’s) then it was even worse at 11:30am. Unusually in my experience, this congregation only exists when term is on—it’s so for uni students, that it shuts down between terms. So the week we went was the last one for 2007.

The thing that struck us when we went to the service yesterday was how expressive the English are in the public arena. Not the preaching so much—while that has been of a very high quality in exegetical rigour, theological reflection, drawing out the implications, and as a piece of communication—St Ebbes is sort of known as a preaching church, so, while appreciative, we haven’t been surprised by that.

No, what we’ve been constantly struck by has been the unbelievable quality of the English public Bible reading and praying.

The praying has been reverent, meaningful, theologically rich, and substantial without being either stodgy or overblown. And the people praying have ‘gotten’ what it means to pray publicly—they are neither just speaking to God as though they were on their own, nor are they speaking to the congregation. They are praying prayers that lead the congregation into praying with them. And so far, it has happened 100% of the time at St Ebbes.

The Bible reading has been everything I have ever looked for when preaching on a passage to be read. It has been read to us, by people who are confident with language and its use. It is paced, inflected, and there is no stumbling over the words. Most of all, it is read out with meaning—every sentence and phrase sounds like actual speech, and is easy to pick up on things that are being said. And again, it’s happened 100% of the time here, through a multitude of styles.

Cut back to Australia. In my experience, often the best one can hope for in a church that values the Bible is for the Bible to be read without too much stumbling over words. It is rare (not unheard of, but definitely rare) for the Bible to be read in such a way that the reading itself is sensitive to the literary and linguistic clues as to the meaning of the whole and reads the passage in such a way as to help the hearer ‘get it’ (without being hamfisted in over reading those clues, or over emoting the passage). It is rare even in Moore chapel, where the people doing it are both gifted and training for a lifetime of doing it. And the story is similar, but not quite as bad, when it comes to public praying.

Yet here at Ebbes, the readers and prayers have spanned the chronological spectrum from early twenties to sixtyish. And it has all been edifying in the best sense of the word. I wish we could bottle it and send it home.

It could be argued that Ebbes is an unusual sample—a university church in Oxford. No doubt there’s some truth to that. I doubt all English are this articulate in public. But I’ve been to university churches in Australia. And I’ve never seen anything like this, and it happens every week here. There’s something bigger going on.

It suggests to me that one of Australia’s distinctive cultural features is being inarticulate and hamfisted with language. I think this is why the Sydney Diocese’s ‘plain style’ of preaching works so well in Australia. The average Australian listener doesn’t ‘get’ anything other than the most prosaic and stripped back kind of style. We trust a Joh Bjelke-Peterson’s stammering or a Pauline Hanson strine or a Bob Hawke ‘common man talk’ far more than anything that might suggest that the person is comfortable with speaking publicly. We like our leaders to be as bad at public speaking as we are. I suspect it’s one of the reasons why our politicians have pretty much given up on doing anything other than speak to us in sound bites. One sentence to capture a complex issue in as stripped down a form as possible.

I’ve always noted how much easier Americans seem to find speaking in public. There’s minimal self-consciousness or nerves, just a confident expression of whatever they think or feel. Like the Romans of old, they seem to get how important public speaking is for a country of world rulers. But it’s clear the English have their version of it. Not so much the American sense of speaking in public, as an interest in language and how it works to enable them to express it well in a public setting. (Interestingly, the English also had a world-spanning empire, and still think of themselves a bit that way). In their own ways, both countries seem to get the value of communication.

What do we have in Australia? We are good at sport. And the quintessential Aussie bloke way of communicating is to punch his mate on the arm. When it comes to Australia, it really is the case that we say it best when we say nothing at all.

You see it in the movie Cosi. The protagonist has managed to pull off a performance of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte in a mental hospital, with no training in diversion therapy or the like (it’s an Australian comedy, as you’ll gather). It has been, as is the wont with such movies, a transforming experience for many of the characters. We come to the great final scene, the dénouement, when something of the experience is to be captured for us. We don’t get any great speeches as per West Wing. We don’t get any witty statements that capture the issues as per Yes Minister. We get a long period of silence as the core characters look at each other. Then the head of security, who’d been as close to a nemesis as you get throughout the movie, says to the hero, in as matter of fact tones as possible, “You did good.” And the hero walks off in silence. Cue credits.

I suggest that if we’re looking for ‘Australia values’ for these citizenship tests, we could start by putting down something like ‘I swear to always be mildly inarticulate in a public setting.’ It’s as Aussie as…(silence). MDB

I Don’t Like Mondays: Part 2 (Now with added York)

2007-11-30T23:14:00.000Z

We return to the gripping story of Monday the 26th of November. But this time around we've added some random pictures of York for your viewing pleasure. Think of it as a slide show of 'what we did on our trip to York' with a discussion about Monday running in parallel. It's a blog entry for GenX and Y and other strange types that enjoy multi-tasking. (We start with some glorious ruins of an abbey, a result of Henry VIII's closing of the monasteries):

You know what it is like when you are waiting for something good, something nice, something that will just really hit the spot. And then that thing gets delayed. And then delayed some more. And then some more. And yet, you don’t stop anticipating what it will be like when it finally arrives. You still look forward to it, knowing how good it is going to be.

We had two things like that over here in Oxford. One was that our shipment of 15 boxes would arrive.

Eight large boxes full of items that we thought would really help us manage daily life better over here—linen, baby clothes for Tiny, adult clothes for us, some kitchen gadgets like a bread maker, special pizza tray, and mixmaster. Our dvds—quite a number of hours of viewing for a couple without a TV. Some board games like Settlers of Catan and its expansions, Tigris and Euphrates, the epic War of the Ring (yes, if you have a spare entire day, you too can recreate the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy of books as a boardgame), Bohnanza, and even The Game of Thrones (which we’ve never had a chance to play so far). We like our games, you might have spotted.

Seven book boxes full of…well books. These are divided between two groups. The first is the books that would really help our studies along—essentially work tools. These are books on John’s Gospel, some systematic theologies and treatments of the doctrine of the Trinity, a good chunk of patristics, and the like. The other group contains books that we need for our sanity.

(This is the other side of the York Minster from where the other pictures were shot. The York Minster includes some quite stunning gardens and multiple large old buildings around the outskirts of the gardens. They're impressive, but a minnow to a whale compared to the Cathedral.)

This is one of those things that non-readers probably just don’t ‘get’. For many people reading is like housework. It needs to be done. It probably even has to happen fairly frequently. But it is a chore. Something you do because you need to, and you move through it as expeditiously as possible. Statements that books are needed, let alone for mental health, seems a bit bizarre.

But for some of us, and Jen and I definitely fall into this group, it really is the case that we need to read. And we need to read things just for the pleasure of the reading, or because we have an interest in the area. Documentaries, radio, conversation, don’t really work. Even newspapers and magazines don’t quite have the requisite effect. There is something about the sustained storytelling of a novel, or the sustained exposition of a work of non-fiction that keeps the mind and the sense of being open to the world ticking along. Sooner or later (and usually sooner) we need to read.

And so the other set of books are enjoyment books. Novels that we’ll really want to read again in the next four years. Books of history, theology, and cultural analysis that are on our ‘read sometime in the next four years’ programme. Books of poetry that are on Jen’s ‘read regularly’ list to sustain the soul. You get the picture.

The nice thing about the last ten weeks is that we’ve coped so well with little more than two suitcases, a fully furnished flat, and purchasing a fair amount of kitchen stuff. By the standards of typical Western materialism we’ve been almost camping! In fact, it showed that it is possible to function with a lot less stuff.

(What's left of a tower as part of an old fortification. Looks far more impressive at this distance than close up. The neat part of the defensive strategy were a series of signs right around the mound saying 'keep off the grass'. As long as you had a critical threshold of literate invaders, this tower should have been impregnable.)

However, it’s also shown that certain of the gadgets that clutter one’s life can make a huge difference. We’ve noticed the absence of many of the things in the boxes many times over the last ten weeks.

So, we’ve been looking forward to these boxes arriving. A lot.

So guess which day they came?

That’s right, and they arrived about five hours after we got into bed.

Baddeley’s don’t really function well on either:
a) low sleep
b) radically changed sleep

Both of those together are synergistic. Just not in a good way.

(Before we get inundated with messages about sleep and small babies...Relax. We're aware of the issue. But it doesn't seem like there's a cure, it's just something we'll have to persevere through.)

Anyhow, you know how you look forward to something and look forward to it and look forward to it, and then it comes at precisely the wrong moment. You can neither savour the moment, nor do you quite have the resources to cope with the extra load it places upon you.

That was Monday. The boxes came, and the rejoicing was a fairly tepid ‘I suppose this is good;’ ‘Yep, been waiting for this for a while now.’
(Part of the cemetery connected to a small church buried away in the centre of a town block. It didn't face onto any street at all, you had to walk down one of two lanes to get to it, and the lanes only existed to get you to the church. Why you had such a church right on the doorstep of the cathedral, and several other churches in easy walking distance is beyond me. But it was active up until the early nineteenth century.)

Receiving the boxes required a bit of work. The delivery company would charge us extra to take them to our flat (and even more to use the lift…). So I did it. This involved a minor logistical exercise that I’m proud to say I worked out the first day I faced it.

There are 8 boxes.

And 7 book boxes.

There is one lift.

It’s fairly small.

and it takes a little while to move several floors. So it is the rate limiting step.

So the way to tackle the move is to get all the boxes from outside the block to the lift. Then move the 8 boxes into the lift, go up with them, and unpack them out of the lift onto our floor. Head back downstairs and repeat the process. Then move the fifteen boxes into our flat. This way I have the minimum number of journeys in the lift. This may seem like a small thing, but you’d be surprised how many people need to be faced with the problem a couple of times before they twig to it.

So the boxes came in, and my body was not a happy camper. My brain was occasionally shorting out and coming back on line. (Seriously, there’d be times I’d just sit there and have to wait before my brain seemed to want to get moving again). This was OK for the box moving bit of Monday.
(This is the part of the York Minster that seemed to get used most often to do actual church stuff. On the other side of the raised platform there were multiple rows of chairs laid out.)

However, there was another task that Monday required of yours truly.

It was the other thing that had been anticipated. Remember I’m over here to do some doctoral work on a guy called Athanasius? All through this term I’ve been working on everyone other than Athanasius (not quite, but it seemed like it). Writing a two thousand word essay each week for a discussion with my tutor. It’s been great. But I have been waiting for the chance to write one on Athanasius. To get stuck in to him, use some of my previous thinking and reading, and produce something I could be pleased with. So guess what day that had to be written?

That’s right. Monday.

I got to write my long anticipated essay while my brain periodically went off-line every so often.
(An arrow slit in the defensive walls that go right around a fair sized chunk of the modern city of York. Not that the walls are modern, just that the city is now bigger than them. Just so that we're clear on that point.)

This was the Monday that not only was tough going, it took the enjoyment out of two of the things we’d really been looking forward to.

Bad Monday.

MDB

I Don’t Like Mondays. (Part 1)

2007-11-28T23:28:00.000Z

Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
I wanna shoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oot the whole day down

Unlike Boomtown Rats we here at Baddelim don’t really have it in for Mondays. While not quite rating up there with squirrels, we’re happy to live and let live when it comes to Mondays. (And how exactly does one go shooting a day anyhow?!)

However, some Mondays distinguish themselves. And not always in a good way. Monday just gone was like that.

The difficulty was that Monday began without the normal ending process of the Sunday immediately preceding it. Somewhere a bit after eleven o’clock we began to make moves towards bed. We naturally tend to a bedtime after midnight, and it requires constant vigilance for us to keep our body clocks from being set too far back. Unfortunately, the more tired we get, the harder it is to marshal the energy to not stay up. One of those perverse paradoxes that makes being a Baddeley so much…fun.

So we were tired, which was why we were heading off to bed a bit late. (It takes time to go to bed early, because most of us resists the brain saying ‘go to bed now’ - so an eleven o’clock start to the process wasn’t a good sign). And then Jen informs me that she’s had constant stomach pain since 5pm in the afternoon (there’s apparently a “don’t worry Mark with trivial information” clause in our marriage vows that I don’t remember signing off on). This is a bit of a concern. Particularly as Jen had that the previous night, and couldn’t sleep for the middle three hours of the night as a consequence. (Can I just observe once again how grateful I am that I am not the pregnant one?)

The pain fits none of the criteria the amazing Radcliffe Hospital (and it really is amazing, it’s one of the best things about being here—which is pretty amazing in itself, as it’s got a fair bit of stiff competition) told us about in the pre-natal intensive we attended. It fits none of the criteria in any of the books we have. Jen even spoke with a midwife about this pain before and was assured it wasn’t an issue. Apparently the body generates all kind of random pains in this last stage. (Again. Grateful pregnancy is not me.)

Nonetheless, seven straight hours of moderately intense abdominal pain is probably worth some kind of check. And, as part of the amazing health care we get here, we have a 24 hotline where Jen can call a midwife and get an immediate answer. There’s a person at all times whose job it is just to take calls. You couldn’t colour us more grateful. We’ve used it once before when something unusual happened and they were fantastic, and assured us that it was nothing special.

So we called, expecting another, “It’s nothing” response. We like those. They’re very comforting.

What we got instead was, “Ring the delivery suite and tell them what you just told me.” Possibly not the answer we were looking for. And delivered (Jen assures me) in the kind of tones that suggested that the person was not weak-minded and so the Jedi mind-trick wouldn’t persuade her that these weren’t the droids she was looking for…

So Jen did what she was told (it’s possible that the Jedi thingy was working in reverse). The delivery suite listened to the information and said. “You need to come right in.” Again, not really the answer we were looking for.

So we looked at each other and realised that this could be it. The most likely scenario, we figured, was that they suspected preeclampsia, and if that was the case there would be a quick caesarean and not-so-little Tiny (that’s the pre-birth name so we wouldn’t have to call the new Baddeley ‘It’ all the time) would be coming three and a half weeks ahead of schedule.

That’s when it began to hit us just how unready we were at this stage. We haven’t taken delivery of the cot yet (not until the end of this week), although we have a travel cot. The hospital overnight bag wasn’t fully packed. There was no food in the freezer just ready to go (there’s only snack dispensers at the hospital…). We didn’t have a list of what to pack that wasn’t already packed, nor where those items were located.

Oh yeah. And we didn’t have a name.

We’ll probably need one of those.

We had a shortlist, for both genders. But you can’t really apply Heisenberg’s Uncertainity Principle to names. The child would probably want a particular name of their own, rather than a haze of probabilities around a small cluster of names. Not that using different names for the one child wouldn’t be entertaining for us…

What we did have was Michael Jensen who was quite happy (not quite happy, but certainly not disgruntled) to be woken up just before midnight to drive us to Hospital. (We’re rather pleased with ourselves for arranging to have such a good neighbour in the same block of flats.)

This was a good thing, because that meant we had someone reliable for those times when you really just have to go, and you have to go now. We tried cabs once before when we had to go to the hospital. We tried four taxi companies. One wouldn’t answer their phone. It gets better. One had their phone disconnected (!). The third had a working phone and actually answered. It seemed like a winner. But they didn’t have any cabs available for an hour… The fourth one promised to send us a cab. But didn’t. So it was good to have the ‘Michael Jensen, hospital driver extraordinaire’ thing worked out.

However, we were flustered, on the back foot, and how can I put this? Not really in the mood. We were ready for bed. We still had three weeks to go. We were still thinking in terms of ‘soon’, not in terms of ‘any moment now’. We hadn’t done any of the running it through in our heads in advance that we do to plot out possible responses to things when we know something momentous is coming.

In a word, we weren’t ready.

We got to the hospital around midnight. And received simply the best treatment we have ever received from a medical institution. Both the receptionist and the nurse were everything you would want: confident, competent, nice, and relational. They put us at our ease without being cloying.

The first thing they did was measure Jen’s blood pressure and seemed to relax once that was in the clear. They seemed to carefully avoid the ‘preeclampsia’ word, but we’re fairly sure that was what prompted the call in.

Having gotten us in, however, they were taking no chances. Jen was placed on a bed in fairly short order and hooked up to two machines. One to measure the child, one to get a reading on her. We were told that they’d measure things for about 20 minutes and then a doctor would be in to see us. Oh, and to give Jen something to do, they gave her a button to press every time Tiny moved. As they didn’t even look at the tally later, I suspect it wasn’t even connected… (Jen assures me that they did look at the results of her tallying, and that they do turn up on the graphs generated by the machines. The things we try and convince ourselves of when we don’t want to admit that we were just being kept occupied…)

The amusing thing about that was that Tiny clearly didn’t appreciate the cold metal sensors even partially invading Tiny’s world (please note the skilful avoidance of any hint of gender there…). And so Tiny exploded into a sustained period of quite intense kicks. Which has been one of the few times I’ve seen this, because it seems that Tiny already has a Baddeley sense of humour. Apparently aware of Jen’s desire for me to witness this activity, Tiny has mastered the art of stopping kicking just at the point that Jen calls me over to look. But even the pursuit of a long running gag seemed to take back seat to sustained aggression against the metal pads.

About quarter to one in the morning, the nurse contacted us over the intercom to let us know that the doctor would be delayed because one of the births ‘wasn’t going well’ and had been taken to surgery. She said he would be with us as soon as it was finished, which ‘should be soon.’ About twenty past one in the morning she came back to let us know that there was no idea how long the doctor would be. She looked over the charts, really liked what she saw, and so took Jen off the machines. Tiny promptly returned to the “don’t kick when Dad might see” game—despite the fact that, Jen assures me, for the last few months 1:30am has been prime kicking time. The nurse still had no idea about the abdomen pain, which had continued throughout, and wasn’t going to discharge us without the doctor seeing us.

So, about 3 in the morning, two very, very disorientated and tired Baddeley’s looked at the funny doctor as he did doctory things, asked doctory questions, and declared everything in order. Oh yes, the abdominal pain was probably muscular, as everything expanded to get ready for D-Day. That was good to find out.

So around quarter to four the Baddeley’s made it in the front door of their flat. Apparently it’s easy getting a cab from the hospital than to the hospital. We promptly collapsed into bed. But only after acknowledging that the good thing out of this little false alarm was the way it flushed out where we were unready. We think we were probably 70% ready. But for something like this, 90% is really a minimum. Thanks to this, we know now where the problems are, and can take steps this week to address them.

However, that wasn’t the end of Monday… oh no. Not this Monday. This Monday had more to give... MDB

View from our Balcony

2007-11-26T17:35:00.000Z

Last week we took this picture.

This is the view from our balcony. The beautiful tree in which squirrels and pigeons play is now bereft of all its leaves, except those at its base. When it rains and a lone pigeon huddles in its branches, it feels as though one is seeing a visual image of forsaken desolation.

And this photo was taken just after 4:30pm. About half an hour after sundown. So notice the thing in the photo that shouldn't be there. (A Clue: The Bright Light is Not the Sun). That's right, by 4:30pm, night has completely fallen.

Winter is coming...

JMB

Food Glorious Food (Part 1)

2007-11-23T23:24:00.000Z

Prompted in part by our surprise at some of the food issues we found in England when we arrived, and in part by /Karen/’s suggestion that we look into some quite specific foods (such as bubble and squeak, which sadly will not make an appearance in today’s blog), we decided some weeks ago to devote some space to blogging about food in England. Our apologies to the gentle reader of this blog who finds the subject boring and frustrating. Please accept our assurance that we will return to our trip to York very soon. (Yes, there’s even more to tell!) But for now, the more prosaic issue of food...

First to say that this is a country for berries. Of course, we arrived at the tail end of the berry season. But we still found succulent raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, redcurrants and so forth in ordinary supermarkets for quite reasonable prices. And sometimes even spectacular prices. Both in Oxford and in Cardiff we obtained punnets of raspberries for a pound! I even came across cranberries the other day (among the more specialist produce in the Covered Markets – this is where you go to buy unskinned (or skinned) rabbit, pheasant, duck eggs and pigeon, etc). The cranberries had been imported, but I had never seen cranberries in their original form before (only dried). We even came across ‘golden rasberries’—something we’d never even heard of before, and I really, really like raspberries and take a special interest in them.

Providentially, England is also the place for cream, and cream goes really well with berries. So it’s quite serendipitous all around. There is single and double cream, cream from different parts of the country (West country seems to be superior), and various other versions of cream, culminating with clotted cream. Clotted cream looks remarkably like butter and is so thick it seems to come as a solid. Presumably it is called ‘clotted’ cream because this is the effect it has on one’s arteries. But, if one is going to indulge in cream, one might as well indulge. Half-hearted indulgence seems somewhat misguided. Having said that, we actually indulged in clotted cream yet...

The perfect evening would almost certainly include a bowl full of assorted berries, covered in thick, luscious cream. You could include chocolate, pancakes and various other delights to this assortment, but the quality of both the berries and the cream here would render such lesser provisions unnecessary.

However, every silver lining has its cloud, and England’s cloud is probably its meat. Its not news that England has enormous trouble keeping its livestock disease free: foot and mouth, blue tongue, mad cow and so forth. It’s simply not a healthy place to live if you happen to be a domestic animal. Before we came here, we had only a vague sense of the impact isolation had on Australia – and we would have spoken more in terms of foreign policy, the armed forces, intellectual and cultural history and so forth. We probably wouldn’t have said much about meat. Now we would. Because Australia is capable of keeping itself relatively free of these kinds of diseases and actually producing really good quality meat that is safe to eat and reasonably cheap.

Over here, the story is quite different. Pork is by far the most favoured meat (you might have noticed us mentioning it), and seems to be reasonably disease free. There are so many different kinds of bacon it makes one’s head spin. We’d sort of thought that bacon was, well, bacon. Lamb and beef are rarer, and less favoured. We were inordinately excited a few weeks ago to get a NZ leg of lamb on special for about fifty percent more than what we would have paid for it in Australia! (It was exceptionally good: we had guests over to enjoy it with us). Interestingly, it seems to be a bit of an Australian reputation to eat lamb—some American students here clearly had eaten little lamb despite being big red meat eaters, and made a comment to the effect of ‘you guys eat a lot of lamb in Australia, don’t you?’

We’ve found a few places which will sell us reasonably good meat at prices we can almost cope with. And we’ve been caught out a few times: for example, buying meat we thought was steak (because it was labelled as 'steak'), only to find that it was something very different… and not in a good way.

One of the strategies we worked out quite early was to make use of a crock pot, so we can get cheaper cuts of meat and make them delicious. We’ve never used a crock pot before, so this is opening up a whole new field of cooking for us. In case you’re not used to this style of cooking, it has three great advantages. You can use cheaper cuts of meat that need a long cooking time. You can prepare the ingredients four to eight hours in advance and then you don’t touch it again until it’s time to serve. And, if you do it right, you can get an amazing combination of hearty flavours that work well in wintry weather (and this is England…) So far we've been very happy with the results.

And the local library has provided some great slow cooker recipes, even to some scrummy looking deserts (we haven’t tried the latter yet). So, we aren’t particularly perturbed by the meat situation, though I think we are still a little amazed at the high prices compared to what we are used to. Perhaps we’ve just been distracted by the berries…

What does disturb us are the meat products in the shop which look like they should not be eaten by people. The most disturbing that we have come across was not just Spam, but Spam fritters: battered Spam, ready for you to take it home and deep fry it. Crunchy Spam. I realize that Spam is quite acceptable for some people, but I find it hard to deal with the idea that people are allowed to sell (and make money from) something like Spam fritters. I can’t help but think that in Australia it would be illegal – after all, in Australia there is legislation insisting that a particular percentage of a meat pie be actual meat; and meat pies would have to be a fair way down the list of 100 nutritionally best ways to eat meat. We had a great time with an old friend from College and his wife a few weeks back and mentioned the Spam fritters. He happily admitted to eating them, but then he’s the most culinarily adventurous person we’ve ever met. He goes out of his way to push the boundaries on what he eats. But even he admitted that, ‘Spam Fritters are really the kind of thing that you only ever want one of…’

We’d be more than happy to donate our ‘one’ to anyone who feels the need to embark on this glorious adventure. JMB

A Trip Home From Church With The Compliments of The Principal

2007-11-21T10:12:00.000Z

We are quite partial to the English musical comedy duo Flanders and Swan. Possibly partly for this reason, at our faculty farewell John Woodhouse (Principal of Moore College) serenaded us with their homage to English weather. (As Principal he, of course, didn’t do the serenading himself. He outsourced it. To a CD of Flanders and Swan):

January brings the snow
Makes your feet and fingers glow

February's Ice and sleet
Freeze the toes right off your feet

Welcome March with wintry wind
Would thou wer't not so unkind

April brings the sweet spring showers
On and on for hours and hours

Farmers fear unkindly May
Frost by night and hail by day

June just rains and never stops
Thirty days and spoils the crops

In July the sun is hot
Is it shining? No, it's not

August cold, and dank, and wet
Brings more rain than any yet

Bleak September's mist and mud
Is enough to chill the blood

Then October adds a gale
Wind and slush and rain and hail

Dark November brings the fog
Should not do it to a dog

Freezing wet December then:
Bloody January again!

So far we’ve had rain. Far more rain in our couple of weeks here then we have seen in Australia in the last couple of years. That’s a fairly obvious recurring motif in the song. All the rain tends to make things a bit dank and wet. The maximum temperature this Saturday is forecast to be 2. Yes, you read that right. We could safely classify that as ‘cold’. The sun now sets around 4:00pm in the afternoon. By 5pm it looks like 8pm in Sydney. So that would cover August’s cold, and dank, and wet with more rain.

Mist is a fairly common occurrence, and is simply glorious. All the rain means a good degree of mud. That’s September covered.

We had to go to the hospital last week for a pregnancy related check-up (news was all good) and at 7:30am there was the most amazing fog blanketing the area in and around our home. Not sure if you shouldn’t do that to a dog, but then the English do seem fairly precious about their canines. We’ll tick November off.

That just leaves October.

We’ve had the odd gale (especially in Cardiff, the wind must have been coming straight off the very cold ocean). There’s wind fairly regularly (wind and rain is not the best combination I can think of. We’ve had occasions when we almost couldn’t keep the umbrellas up to keep out the cold wet rain).

And then, on the way home from church on Sunday night, we struck something new. It had been raining on our way to church and throughout the service. On our way back to catch the bus home we had our umbrellas out as it seemed to be raining again. But something didn’t seem right about the way the rain moved in the wind when the light caught it—it seemed more responsive to the moving of the air. It was also very, very cold. And then, dripping off the end of my umbrella we noticed it. Ice mixed with water. Slush!

Somehow it made the freezing, windblown and wet conditions magical. The last time I saw slush…actually I don’t remember ever seeing it ‘rain’ slush. (I have eaten a ‘slushie’, I’m not sure if that counts for partial points.) We turned to each other (as we raced to the heated bus, I may have mentioned the cold) and grinned. Two idiotic Aussies enjoying some of England’s worst weather.

It was a great gift of God for the way home from church.

It was much better than the other possibility mentioned under the litany for October. Hail.

But I’m still going to buy a very warm and waterproof overcoat this week. And talk my budget conscious wife into getting one for herself as well. MDB

What Lies Beneath

2007-11-19T05:24:00.000Z

York is full of history, most of it carefully preserved, and honed for display to tourists with a history obsession (enter the Baddelim duo, stage left).

Some of this history is nicely tucked away in other historical sites. And some of it lurks underneath other buildings of historical interest. For example, forty years ago they realized that the York Minster was in the process of collapsing. This was because, while it had been expanded over the centuries, no-one had thought to expand the foundations to cope with the ever increasing load… The comforting thought here is that bureaucratic oversights are not merely a modern phenomena.

When they realized this (the foundation problem, not the modern bureaucratic oversight issue), and sank £2M into fixing the problem they got a side bonus. Underneath the cathedral were some of the remains of two previous cathedrals (Norman and Saxon, in descending order of depth underground). And the real find, the remains of a Roman Principia were also uncovered. All lying under the cathedral.

So, once we had spent almost two hours inside the cathedral, we then spent another hour under the Cathedral. (sans camera, I’m afraid—no pictures allowed. So please enjoy some more pictures of the Cathedral itself instead.) We got to look at the stone work from the Norman Cathedral, and then the Saxon Cathedral. Even some of the stained glass had survived. The most amazing piece was some blue glass that no-one can work out how it was made—the process has been lost. Which is a bit of a shame, the glass was over millennia old and was still an amazingly deep and bright blue. My laptop screen starts going dull two years in…

We also got to see the inside of a Roman building, with some of the fresco still surviving—it had fallen face down off its wall and so had (mostly) survived. It was a picture of a Mediterranean countryside. So it was like the B.C. version of a landscape painting, (or screen saver) but on a much bigger scale, giving the inhabitants a bit of an illusion that they were back home enjoying the wide open spaces. It could rain and sleet outside and they could imagine, in their toasty warm building, painted in warm Mediterranean colours, that they were enjoying sunny Italy.

Also on display underground were some of the large collection of cups, plates, archbishop paraphernalia (rings etc) all made out of precious and semi-precious material. If it hadn’t been after the architecture lurking under the present day Minster it would have been very impressive. As it was, it was ok, but its thunder had not just been stolen, it had been sold at the local pawnshop. (On another note, it’s probably the Protestant in me, but for all I appreciate the beauty, I wish the church hadn’t seen the need to tie up so much wealth in the medieval equivalent of an executive boardroom.)

The amusing bit in how they organized this tour of the foundations was that they left it until the end to show you the actual pillars holding the building up and to tell you the ridiculous number of kilotons they were supporting. More than one person seemed to move fairly quickly above ground once that had been brought to their attention…

Still, it was a cathedral. Why wouldn’t you expect multiple layers of history underneath? Isn’t that what cathedrals are for after all, to preserve history?

Well, how about the local pub? Pubs aren’t really known as great historical treasurehouses. That’s not really the essence of pubs in most people’s minds I think it’s safe to say. York had several pubs, all of them fairly nondescript (from a historical point of view, they all seemed wonderfully atmospheric from a pub point of view). None of them were really worth mentioning from a historical perspective. They were all a few centuries old, which meant they had been around longer than any building in Australia, so hardly worth mentioning really.

Yet, one of these nondescript pubs turns out to have an unusual basement. They discovered one end of the Roman baths under it just recently. So you can go under this pub and check out a small section of York’s Roman bath from around two millennia ago. And then you could have lunch there (the pub, not the bath).

Being in the construction industry in York, or a plumber, must be potentially a whole different experience with every job you do. Pick goes down, ground moved, ah, we’ve found another… Saxon fortification… Norman hall… Roman storehouse… (take your pick). It looked like they were doing some digging near a local corner store. Maybe we should go back next year to take a tour of what they find underneath that. MDB

Praying for us (II)

2007-11-16T18:05:00.000Z

Some of you have told us that you follow our blog and pray for us from time to time. This means a lot to us, so this is a blog entry just for you, to give you an idea of things you might like to thank God for and to pray for over the coming month...

Like Jacob having his wages changed 10 times under Laban's employment, Mark has had his academic program changed almost as many times in the past month. There is still some confusion as to exactly what it is he needs to complete in order to qualify for his degree. There are administrative requirements connected with this, with cut-off dates. It would be an excellent thing if the powers-that-be could come to a firm mind on the subject and communicate this to Mark before these dates kick in. On the other hand, Mark is finding the opportunity to engage with a variety of the early Fathers and to attend lectures, and sessions with his supervisor very stimulating.

We've been really grateful that our experience of the health system has been easy and useful in the lead up to our baby's birth. We've found the midwife/doctor arrangement to be sane and helpful. The only concern with the baby's health has been the possibility of it being too big (which is natural and normal for a Moore College baby, but they can't know that), but scans have shown that it is only slightly bigger than average. These are all things we are grateful to God for, so please join us in thanking him for his mercy to this little one, and to pray for its safe delivery in the near future.

We would really like our boxes to be delivered. Although we have everything we need to survive, in our boxes are useful things like gloves, beanies, etc, our doonah (all particularly useful now the weather has started to reach below zero), books for Mark's study, recipe books, baby clothes and other paraphenalia, which we would enjoy using. If we had an arrival date for these items, it would help our patience. However, Customs has had them for 3 weeks now, and the shipping company has told us that they want to go over this whole shipment, with no sense of when this process might be completed. We could get a phone call tomorrow, or in several months. We'd prefer to get the phone call tomorrow, if it's all the same to Customs. Meanwhile we have to decide whether to 'waste' money buying things we already have or hoping that, for example the boxes come before the baby is born so that we have some clothes for it.

We had a truly enjoyable couple of days at York (you may have noticed), and another couple of days away at Cardiff (which you'll hear all about...). We don't expect we'll do many other trips for quite some time, so we were grateful to manage these two and get a sense of the world beyond Oxford. We are grateful that God enabled us to have these refreshing, interesting trips, and that there were no complications with the pregnancy or accidents in travel.

Jennie has started to make progress on her various projects, but (possibly unwisely) is involved in three Bible study groups, which is not a bad thing, but along with sorting out various administrative details and preparing everything for the arrival of the little Baddeley, it chews up a lot of her week. Of course, the increasing immobility and tiredness which accompanies late pregnancy also contributes to this. She does enjoy the reading and thinking she is able to do, and is particularly looking forward to getting more involved in the translation work on Revelation.

We miss our friends in Australia. We are grateful that we know some kind people at Oxford. We, being eccentric, find making friends a long-term activity, and this is sometimes discouraging. We have enjoyed catching up with old friends who are over here and who we would probably not get the opportunity to hang out with this side of heaven unless we were here. All of this is very different to the people-intensive context we were in just two months ago, and so sometimes we feel disorientated by it. We would value the wisdom that comes from above as we negotiate the highs and lows of this and work at understanding how to love English people on their terms.

Once again, thank you for your prayers. JMB&MDB

A Quality Assurance Workshop

2007-11-16T17:52:00.000Z

Here at Baddelim we like to make the torturous task of source criticism as easy as possible for our gentle readers. Consequently, we have a system. It’s a kind of quality assurance program for reader satisfaction. However, it appears from some of the comments that, like all quality assurance programmes, a short training workshop is in order.

The cardinal principle of this quality assurance programme is as follows:
Whenever a Baddeley pens a blog, he or she places at the end of the blog a series of letters grouped together.

This is where it gets complex. The symbols ‘MDB’ refer to the writer ‘Mark Baddeley’. The symbols ‘JMB’ refer to the writer ‘Jennie Baddeley’. Although inclined in their hearts to evil, like all of humankind, neither Baddeley deliberately changes their grouping of linguistic symbols (known colloquially as ‘initials’), nor does he or she take on the persona of the other writer (or for that matter an apostle or church leader of any historical period, so you won’t need to go all Da Vinci Code on us either). In keeping with this exotic practice, we suggest that commentators also distinguish between the writer ‘Jennie’ and the writer ‘Mark’ or ‘Badders’—just, you know, to keep in the spirit of things.

We are committed to our readers’ satisfaction and believe our quality assurance program delivers the very best in reader care. MDB & JMB

Quest for an Archbishop

2007-11-14T01:25:00.000Z

My excitement grew as we walked into York Minster because it dawned on me that this building contained the tombs of past Archbishops of York. On the whole, I manage to contain my excitement when it comes to Archbishops of York, whether they be dead or alive, but there is one notable exception to this: Thomas Musgrave. I discovered him while doing some master's research work recently. He was Archbishop of York from the late 1840's to 1860 and his time there overlapped with Sumner's time as Archbishop of Canterbury. These are the two highest posts in the hierarchy of the Anglican church.

Why is this interesting to me? It's one of the few times (it may be the only time) when two Evangelicals held those posts. And its one of the few times where Anglican Evangelicals were possibly going to leave the church in droves because of a strange, long legal battle between a clergyman called Gorham and his boss, the Bishop of Exeter. Enter Musgrave and Sumner. They had the unenviable task of being part of the final court of appeal on the case.

Both Musgrave and Sumner were widely assumed to be obviously going to give in to Gorham because he was of their 'party' but it seems that neither went into the final meetings with any such presupposition. This meant that the court case dragged on as they went over everything again, and led to the criticism that they were 'weak'. In the end, they found more against the Bishop of Exeter rather than for Gorham, but were (of course) accused of being partisan anyway. If they were trying to please anyone, they only succeeded in annoying everyone. But this did mean that Anglican Evangelicals could (in good conscience) stay in the Anglican church because of this finding. And Musgrave was part of this, which I think was fairly momentous in the history of Evangelical Anglicans.

So when I realised that I might find the place where Musgrave was buried, I was excited. Excited, not because I know huge amounts about the man, (I haven't been able to find out much really), but I think he did a difficult job, received a lot of criticism for doing it and seems not to be the kind of man who thrived on conflict or who really enjoyed being in the public eye. It takes a particular kind of courage to carry the weight of that kind of role in those circumstances. I admire him for it. I was looking forward to paying my respects to him.

But I couldn't find him.

I found lots of elaborate tombs belonging to Important People.

Some even seemed to have had a strong sense that when you meet God you don't pretend to be self-sufficient; you ask him to save you.

Others thought it was all about them. And there are a collection of Archbishops who seem to have gotten carried away with their roles and seem as pompous as the most arrogant of the Renaissance popes. Of course, it could just be that they employed the wrong sculptor.

Others were odd. Like this man without hands. I don't know what happened to him (it was all in latin), but it doesn't look like he is comfortable.

And then, after trawling through all the tombs, looking at the faded lettering on worn down stones, trying to decipher latin, eventually... I found Musgrave!

I was pretty sure it was Musgrave, even before I saw the inscription, because I realised what I had not noticed until then: the various Archbishops' tombs had objects they valued symbolically carved onto them. So, here for example, we see this man's best friend:

Others obviously really, really liked their crooks and mitres.

I remember one holding what I thought looked like a prayer book, but Musgrave is the only one I can recall who held what looked very much like a Bible. Which isn't too surprising: it's one of the distinguishing features of an Evangelical after all. We don't have much to commend us. Most of us aren't particularly attractive or charismatic. And pretty much the entire ethos of Evangelicalism can be summed up as a desire to be ruled by Christ through his Word, the Bible. So, it isn't surprising that Musgrave is carved holding his Bible, which some people would sneer at (then and now).

And, as much as you can tell from someone's face, he looked like the kind of guy I thought he might be: gentle, retiring, given to kindness. Yet, he took on a role which would make him unpopular and conspicuous, and used it for the good of other people. So, I maintain my admiration for him.

I was glad to find Musgrave's tomb. It was more than art. JMB

*I think Musgrave is actually buried in a London cemetery, so technically this isn't his tomb as such, more a memorial...but that is a small detail included only for those who care deeply for small details.

Here Be Dragons

2007-11-12T07:46:00.000Z

One of the things we most enjoyed about York was the atmosphere - partly created by the presence of its many medieval buildings. It was the kind of place that if a dragon were to land on the roof of building as you were walking by, you would not be surprised. Probably seriously terrified (particularly if said dragon were to be clearly annoyed and breathing fire), but not surprised. It's the kind of place that Robin Hobb (or Megan Lindholm) fans would probably really enjoy visiting.

There were a couple of times we felt this. The first was as we walked through the cold night air to try and find our place. Although, as Mark has pointed out, this became an exercise in frustration, it wasn't that way for the first part of the walk as we came across various old buildings, barely lit in the dying light. The old gates of the city, the walls surrounding the city, the guardhouse, a school several centuries old: they looked to be the very things we have read about in fantasy novels for years, standing before us, unblinking witnesses to generations. Why should there not also be dragons?

The other most notable time was our discovery of the Merchant Adventurer's Guild. It should be clear that an 'adventurer' these days is a different creature to the one who would set out with a boat to find good trade (or loot) in the 1400's. So sucessful were the Merchants of York that they held a monopoly on all trade in York until the 1820's where the monopoly was only broken by a law was passing through both English houses of Parliament. This was the wealth centre of the city and some care had been taken to impress this on the humble wayfarer simply by the entrance.

To us, it looked exactly like something out of Hobb's Liveship Traders Trilogy. A passing dragon would not have been at all out of place. Some people with excellent taste were going to be married there the day we visited. It looked like a great place to be married: you could roast a small lamb on a spit, (an extra one or two for the dragon perhaps - or as the dragon would be an English dragon, perhaps a few spare pigs). And have a troupe of singers and players to dance the night away, in colourful clothes imported from exotic and distant places.

The old part of the city, particularly the street called 'the Shambles' provides the same kind of impression... and our favourite guardhouse... and so on and so forth. It didn't take us long to conclude that Tolkien (Father of the fantasy genre) really had needed to live in a country like this to write in the way he did. I don't think an Australian could have invented the fantasy genre, for example, and I think it would be difficult for an American to do so. I'm sure our dragons would be more ferocious (face it: an Australian dragon would have to be lethal just to match a real Australian animal. Unless it could outclass a taipan, red-back spider and alligator, for example, it would seem domesticated and not worthy of attention, let alone fear). I'm sure the landscape would be more dramatic, adding to the epic feel of the genre. But without towns like York, it is hard to see how the chaotic bustle of a medieval town, in a confined space with little sense of law and order could be captured so aptly.

So we came to York, and filled with a sense of adventure left again - slightly disappointed at the absence of dragons. JMB

Food@York

2007-11-09T10:58:00.000Z

This is a blog entry for those who would like a break from architecture, art, and history. It’s about food.

In our experience food in England is generally as bad as is claimed. And it’s generally claimed to be very bad indeed. Jamie Oliver notwithstanding.

This is just unpleasant backdrop to say that York was a consistent exception to this experience. We stayed at a B&B as that was the cheapest decent option we could find. This meant we had to buy two meals each day—not a nice thought from either the point of view of keeping costs down, of trying to buy something good for us, and trying to find something enjoyable, given our experiences so far.

But we needn’t have worried. The strength of “the English Breakfast” for tourists became clear. After having cereal, toast, eggs, bacon, and baked beans you weren’t looking at two meals for the rest of the day. You were looking for one and a half meals at best.

And those meals were of a much higher quality in York for what you paid. There were three standouts.

The first was a pub dinner on our first night. After a five hour train trip and the signs debacle, we were ready for a meal. Having heard that pubs and pub meals were a very different phenomena to Australia, we were keen to give it a try. For about £20 they fed us very, very well with food that felt like good home cooking. By Australian standards, that would have been too expensive, but from our experiences here it was a good deal. Jennie discovered that her previous enjoyment of lamb shanks wasn’t a fluke, and I confirmed my abiding appreciation of beef burgers. Almost as nice was the surroundings—the British pub has been, so far, a nice place to be. And the service, while casual, was as friendly and considerate as we’ve had (which wouldn’t be saying much normally, ‘service’ isn’t really something the British seem to do well, but this was good even by Australian standards). It was a great start to York, and helped overturn any residual feelings about that sign.

The second was a Spanish tapas restaurant. We had had a very Australian style of tapas once before in the Hunter Valley and had enjoyed it immensely. So we figured that this was a reasonable bet for something a bit exotic (neither of us are quite ready yet to try the quintessentially English ‘Spotted Dick’ or ‘Toad in a Blanket’. The names really capture the feel of English cuisine I think). This consisted of several small dishes that are shared. They had a package deal arrangement intended for newbies like us that offered a good range of dishes for two which again ended up being around £20 all up—which was an even better deal than the pub meal had been. This food was professional, restaurant style. It was also more hit and miss in actual enjoyment than the pub—some of the Spanish combination of flavours just didn’t sit right on our palates. But it was good quality and was a fresh experience to add to the mix York provided. We now know that we can enjoy authentic York Spanish cooking! An important life lesson there.

The third deserves an entry all of its own. We encountered the phenomenon that is Betty’s Tearoom. This is, as the name suggests, a tea room. Or possibly it is the Ideal tea room of which all other coffee shops are pale, inferior copies. It is decked out in 1920’s Art Deco style—looks like a scene from the restaurant on the Titanic. It serves tea and cakes and you can have High Tea (three tiers of sandwiches and cakes with your tea) there. It will, somewhat grudgingly, provide coffee and other drinks for those who don’t rise to the glory of tea.

However, this doesn’t really capture Betty’s Tearoom. This establishment is very, very serious about its business. The people on service—the person to check you into the table, the man who just stood at the top of the stairs to the basement to welcome you to the establishment and to see you off (I kid you not, that seemed to be his entire job), the waiters who took your order, the waiters who served the food, and the waiters who cleared the table (yes, three different kinds of waiters) were all immaculate and the height of professionalism. They also had all the charm and sense of hilarity of a depressed undertaker. It was a very serious business, to be partaken of, but not in a light-hearted, fun kind of way, you’ll understand. This is Tea after all!

There was a queue inside the shop, outside the door, and often for some distance beyond the shop for most of the two days we were there. Betty’s Tearoom runs its own cooking courses where you can learn to cook in the Betty Tearoom style, usually with a three course meal with wine thrown in for a cool £150 per half-day course. And it looks like it does a roaring trade. The cooking school had a faculty of around ten and a service staff of around five. No doubt fuelled by enthusiasm from customers from the six Betty’s in and around the British Isles. There is even its own cook book, so you too at home, gentle reader of this humble blog, can cook in the Betty’s style.

We went to Betty’s (feel free to have a guess at who just had to try this Tearoom. I’ll give you a hint, who doesn’t drink tea? Not him.). We queued for 45 minutes to get in. We looked at the menu. Looked at the pastries in the window (which were amazing). Took note of the prices. High Tea (sandwiches and cakes) was about the cost of a main meal elsewhere. That’ll give you a clue.

We enjoyed a herbal tea (Jen) and chocolate milkshake (guess). The chocolate milkshake was made with Betty’s own chocolate sauce. It was a very good milkshake, and tasted as though it was a very proper chocolate milkshake, for the discerning palate (no shortcuts taken). It was a bit intimidating, to tell you the truth. However, when Jennie was eating her Blackberry and Apple Pancakes she got that look that people get when their entire consciousness has been filled by the sensation currently exploding on their tongue. It doesn’t happen often with food for Jen, but it is quite amusing when it does. She completely loses her train of thought. With every bite…

A final special mention goes to the York Farmers’ Market. On the Friday the mall area was packed out with in the vicinity of sixty stalls selling produce of various kinds (mostly foodstuffs). Fruit and vegetables, cheeses, biscuits and cakes, and meat (including unplucked birds hanging off hooks—a new experience for me) tended to dominate. It will give you a sense of the fruit and vegetable situation around here in Oxford when I tell you that Jennie and I just looked at the healthy, fresh fruit and vegetables for several minutes and tried to work out if we could take it back with us. That’s never happened before on a holiday. The interesting thing however, was how much smaller the fruit and vegetables were, by and large, from their Australian cousins. They were like mini versions of things I’ve come to know in Australia. Maybe the size of the produce of the land is proportional to the size of the land that produces it? If so, I wonder how big things grow in America?

There were a couple of stalls cooking the meat products they were selling. The one that did the roaring trade was offering pig in bread. A whole pig cooked away over a spit, bits of it were cut off from time to time, put in between two slices of bread and sold, usually without anything else (especially not with anything that would look like a vegetable of any description. Just meat. And bread). Throughout the entire day, every time we walked passed the centre of town, the English were queued anywhere between ten and thirty deep in one long, polite, line to get their bit of pig. Often it was a family affair, with father and son queuing together and, from what I overheard as I walked passed, discussing the cooking pig in manly tones.

I don’t think I really grasped just how much the English are attached to pork until that moment, despite the huge amount of bacon and pork in the supermarkets (roughly on a par with the amount of lamb and beef in an Australian supermarket). One of our favourite fiction writers, an Englishman called Terry Pratchett wrote a book called Hogswatchnight set in a strange parallel world where the world really is on the back of a turtle supported by four elephants—a kind of parody of the Lord of the Rings genre. In his book, which is a thinly disguised parody of Christmas, Pratchett has Hogswatchnight be all about pig-related products. I had thought it was just an amusing detail. Now I realise he was putting the satirical knife into the heart of his own country’s taste buds. Quite delicious really.

It was at the Market that I discovered venison. Not discovered in the sense of ‘found out there was something in existence called venison.’ But discovered in the sense of trying some for the first time and being immediately converted. One of the stalls was selling venison burgers. And, as I may have indicated, I don’t mind a burger. So I tried a venison burger. I recommend it, it’s a bit like mildly spiced beef.

And yet again was the evidence of how widely different people’s tastes can be. I’m cautiously trying my first well cooked piece of venison meat. The guy after me takes the ‘venison and kidney’ option. The kidney is brought out. It’s in its own blood-filled sandwich bag. It’s purple. The gentleman says, “as rare as possible please.” And so this weird blue piece of meat is placed on the hotplate for maybe two minutes maximum.

I have come to like my beef steak rare. But there are limits. Some people, one suspects, would be happy to eat straight from the freshly killed animal. As long as the meat is just a bit above room temperature that’s ‘cooked’ for them. And kidney? Betty’s would never approve. MDB

Guy Fawkes

2007-11-07T06:53:00.000Z

Guy Fawkes is now officially over. For days now, people have been letting off fireworks of varying degrees of intensity, most of which culimated yesterday (officially the day). Some of them were quite interesting, though we aren't all that into fireworks, being big fans of a decent Queensland thunderstorm, which kind of overshadows pretty much anything fireworks can manage.

And we are fairly boring when it comes to the idea of fireworks let off in and around people's homes. We are quite fond of the Australian laws which indicate that only very carefully trained people who really know what they are doing can let off explosives. Such restrictions may dampen the enjoyment for some of the populace with mild pyromanic tendencies, but they tend to have more of their appendages attached as a result. We think that is probably a good thing, on the whole.

It's obvious that the English think such a view is a bit quaint. Mark explained the Australian practice of requiring people to have fairly rigorous certification at the lunch table at Wycliffe today. The response from the English was, "How much training do you need to light a match?" English fondness for amateurism over professionalism comes through again. (Mark's response was that it wasn't the match so much as the gunpowder that was the focus of the training. The American on the table suggested it was possibly 'the running away part'. When worlds collide.)

So, we weren't terribly excited by Guy Fawkes. But it is an intriguing idea. In 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament and so end Protestant rule in England. It was essentially a terrorist action. Yet, it became a national 'holiday' where people get to let off fireworks to symbolically commemmorate the gunpowder used in the plot. How things have changed. I simply cannot imagine 9/11 becoming the kind of holiday event where people destroy model planes or model buildings, or something similar. The idea is inconceivable. In some ways we see the world very differently from people of just a couple of centuries ago.

Still, a kind of holiday it became, involving fireworks and the eating of baked potatoes, I believe, and all vaguely connected with celebrating the deliverance of British Parliament.

But there's an interesting twist. It seems that, at least in the early 1830's, Guy Fawkes Day became a kind of 'let's blow up bishops' event. The focus switched from any kind of rememberance of a plot to blow up parliament (if that still remained even then), to a great outpouring of anger against the bishops of England. The bishops had just stymied the Great Reform Act, which would have allowed more people to be involved in the 'democratic' process in British government (it was passed in 1832), and they were not popular among the middle and lower classes. The bill had passed through the lower house of Parliament, but in the upper house (the House of Lords) the bishops were instrumental in its defeat.

On Guy Fawkes in 1830 (or it might have been 1831), the typical Guy Fawkes jingle of "Remember, remember the 5th of November..." was changed to:

"Remember, remember,
That God is the sender
Of every good gift known to man.
But the devil to spite us
Sent fellows in mitres
Who rob us of all that they can".

Effigies of bishops were burnt, some on the premises of the large castle-like buildings the bishops lived in. Dead cats, rocks, rotting fruit, all manner of other things were hurled through their windows (particularly the worst offenders - some were more sympathetic to reform than others) and their coaches rocked by mobs.

So Guy Fawkes, far from being a celebration of the English Protestant dream with bishops as the great guardians of the flock, became about mob violence against bishops. In a sense, it was an attempt to 'blow up' the House of Lords. A strange turn of events and one which Fawkes may have found ironic.

But then, the English do irony so very well. JMB

It's a Big Church, Ve-ry Big Church, It's a Big Church We're In-n...

2007-11-05T08:58:00.000Z

One of the highlights of York was its cathedral, the York Minster. We were quite distracted by it. On our way to somewhere else we went to walk past it but then spent about 1/2 hour just looking at one side of it and kept discovering things about it. Apart from anything, we were dumbstruck at its sheer size. We tried valiantly to capture a sense of its size on camera, but it is impossible to do it justice. It just goes on and on and when you get a sense of its height, you look at its width and are similarly confounded. Apparently they set out to build a big cathedral, and you can tell they must have got the mission statement right, because they got a big cathedral. Even Carlton Draught would be impressed.

What is amazing is that we were engrossed, and we've seen highrises. This is a cathedral that was built when many people lived in small one room homes (in which that one room included even the kitchen). It must have been immense to their eyes. In a time when houses didn't have glass, the cathedral has the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world.

The sheer size is a political statement - it is a testimony to the Archbishop of York's desire to be seen to be able to 'play with the big guys' and have his building bigger than the Archbishop of Canterbury's (Canterbury and York are first and second in the Church of England food chain). But it's also a theological statement. For medievals, this really was the house of God in some sense. And the sheer, over-the-top size impresses on you that God is A Big Deal. (The fact that it also impresses on you that his servant, the Archbishop is A Big Deal, we'll charitably put down to a fringe benefit). But this building took centuries of construction to make a point about the importance and glory of God. (Whether that's a good way to go about trying to make that point,we'll leave to one side. Let's not ruin the moment.)

As if the sheer size isn't enough, the building is covered with intricate artwork. Small gargoyles, a patterning under one of the door frames which details some of the key events of Genesis until about chapter 21, larger statues of people: the designs are carefully and beautifully executed. These we found mesmerising. There we stood: straining to see them, trying to work out what they are, getting very excited when we worked out what something must be because of the symbolism - we were two very engrossed colonials. You'd think we'd never seen a 148 metre long medieval cathedral with three 60m tall towers before!

The next day we came back and did the 'tour' inside. We found the inside still more dazzling. Of particular interest were the sculptures of the kings of England which sat under the organ. Clearly these were done after the kings were dead or those doing the sculptures would have found that kings do not (on the whole) appreciate candid shots or sculptures of themselves. Unless these kings were particularly relaxed about how cranky or clueless they looked, which frankly I find hard to believe (you'll need to click on the picture to see what I mean...).

So much more could be said! The corridors of tombs were fascinating and will get their own post; the ceiling was extraordinary in its height and decoration. We discovered that the cathedral was built on the site of an old Roman fort, and was actually the culmination of a series of cathedrals, the first built by the Saxons, then the Normans until finally the medievals built the finished product, taking a cool 300 years to finish it. (Obviously the mission statement didn't include a clause about timeliness).

But the thing that struck me as we walked through this and glutted ourselves on its beauty was that it was essentially a large open space. A remarkable large open space with an extraordinary ceiling, but at the end of the day it is a place for people to come together and hear what God has to say to them and talk to him in prayer. This is hard to miss, because although the cathedral is decorated all along its outside and inside walls, although the ceilings are awe-inspiring and there are all kinds of interesting memorials or tombs along the walls of other parts of it, apart from chairs there is nothing in the building. It's essentially empty. If you were a thief and inclined to steal things, there would be little to steal. Sure, there are some ceremonial cups and a few platters and candlesticks you might pilfer. But on the whole the only thing to steal would be some chairs (unless you were particularly enterprising and climbed the walls to steal a few gargoyles, but where you would sell these remains uncertain. I suppose you could be eccentric and collect them, a kind of mediaeval equivalent of pinching gnomes from people's gardens...).

For all its majesty, the cathedral reinforced for me that Christianity is all about relationships that you can't see: a relationship with Jesus and our relationships with each other. And going to church is about nurturing those relationships, so all you need is an open space, the roof is optional though handy for places like England where it rains a lot, and chairs are useful.

We were suitably impressed by York Minster, being colonials and all. And reminded again that there isn't much furniture in churches for a good reason. JMB

Please note: This blog does not in any way endorse theft from cathedrals, nor the pilfering of garden gnomes.

The Sign Upon The Stair

2007-11-02T12:49:00.000Z

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would go away.
Hugh Means

On the weekend just gone, we caught the train up to York and explored it for a couple of days. It’s part of our small program to Take Advantage Of A Situation We Never Imagined We’d Ever Have, (finding ourselves in Europe, or indeed, outside Australia at all). A program that will take on a new level of logistical sophistication, we suspect, once the Baddelim clan increases by 50% - hence a certain keenness to try and get one or two trips in between now and D Day.

York was amazing, as some later entries will try and impress upon you.

However.

Our arrival proved to be the equivalent of an extended hands-on tutorial concerning the English approach to street signs.

We arrived around 5:30pm. We had the address, located in Bootham Crescent. Remember that. It is going to be important.

We had a map, and had located Bootham on it - a nice large street not far from the city centre. It was about a thirty minute walk there, so we skipped the cab and went for the exercise option.

That was possibly a mistake.

We proceeded to walk through York and try and find the street. That took some time, because as Watching the English had warned us, street signs aren’t always clearly marked out in England. Having found the road we thought we needed, we looked for the number of our street. It wasn’t there. The numbers went up close to it, jumped passed it, and then reset back to one again.

That didn’t phase us. Watching the English had a whole section of the book just dedicated to the English approach to street signs, numbering systems on streets and the fact that English people generally don’t like having their number being all that visible (if present at all). It also didn’t phase us when Bootham became a different street. Watching the English had prepared us for that too. Apparently it’s quite the done thing in England to change the name of a street constantly. We just looked around and cast our net in wider and wider circles.

We were phased, however, when, in our attempts to find the elusive street number in Bootham, we discovered two more streets each called Bootham. One was Bootham Lane and the other was Bootham Terrace. That was when we realised that we were on Bootham Street. Our street, as I’m sure you will remember, was Bootham Crescent. No relation to Bootham Street at all, really.

Watching the English hadn’t warned us about this. I suppose it wasn’t really trying to give an exhaustive guide to English street naming protocols, so we can’t blame it. I do feel that someone should have warned us that the English will merrily have multiple streets all with the same name. Perhaps it’s just the social welfare mentality in me.

We discovered no less than six Bootham Pick-The-Synonym-For-Street/s either by stumbling over them or (in increasing desperation) finding them on our map. But no Bootham Crescent.

In the end I followed the clues from our trusty (albeit now demonstrably non-exhaustive) guide to surviving here and went to the one place where I was sure the rules on social interaction would permit me to ask where Bootham Crescent was. The local pub.

It turned out that we had (of course) passed Bootham Crescent early on in our journey, only ten minutes after we had discovered the existence of a plethora of Boothams. It had been the only street that we weren’t able to find a street sign for, and so passed on by.

At seven pm, one and half hours after arriving in York, we finally stumbled (quite literally) into our B & B in Bootham Crescent.

The next morning we discovered that there was a street sign indicating that this was Bootham Crescent.

It was attached to the side of the corner store. It faced Bootham Crescent (and so faced away from us as we walked towards it). It was six meters off the ground. (You may need to click on the image for an enlarged version).

The only way we could have seen this sign is if we had developed a sudden urge to crane our necks behind us and above us simultaneously as we passed the street. For anything like the purpose of a sign I would take for granted—like informing someone what the street was in time for them to take action—it was completely useless.

The other day, upon the corner store
We met the sign that wasn’t there.
It was there every day we were in York.
I wish it would go away.
And if it hadn’t been six meters off the ground, I probably would have burned it. MDB