THE KINGDOM SEASON?

Back in the 1980s I remember Archbishop Robert Runcie being seriously embarrassed at General Synod by a seemingly innocuous question. The Synod, being modelled on Parliament, has a session of "questions to the Archbishop", at which Bob, who was a bit of a politician, used to enjoy showing off, but on this occasion he was wrong-footed. "Can the Archbishop tell us when the Christian Year begins?" he was asked, and his response came down to, "It depends which calendar you use." The universal tradition of the Church has been that the church year begins with the First Sunday of Advent, which in England we tend to call Advent Sunday, and which is the Sunday nearest to 30th November (unless you are in Milan, which has a six-week Advent). That's what we were all brought up with, nice and simple, but when the Church of England published its new service book in 1980, the Alternative Service Book, we found that there were now nine Sundays before Christmas, 

It was, of course, an attempt to resolve the age-old calendrical issue of resolving fixed dates with movable feasts; because Easter moves around (within a range of a month) there are variable numbers of Sundays in the ordinary times of the year, the spaces between Epiphany and Lent, and Whitsun and Advent. The Anglican revisers of the 1970s thought that counting back from Christmas was going to make the content of those Sundays somehow more coherent, but it didn't in fact help sorting out the fact that some Sundays hardly ever happened. The old Book of Common Prayer had the opposite problem, that there weren't enough Sundays provided "after Trinity", and so you had to use the unused ones after Epiphany to make up for them. In ASB you missed out Sundays, so that the tenth Sunday before Christmas became the Last Sunday after Pentecost, and then the new year started with the Ninth Sunday before Christmas. But, the liturgical colour (the colour of vestments, altar frontals and so on) remained green, because these were still essentially ordinary Sundays. It only turned purple in Advent.

The revisers of Common Worship had another go at this conundrum. A notion had grown up that you could find a common theme in the Sundays in November, and that these might constitute a new season, called "Sundays of the Kingdom". So, you keep the first Sunday in November as "All Saints' Sunday" because lots of parishes would already observe All Saints' Day on the nearest Sunday. Then the second Sunday in November is Remembrance Sunday in England, and virtually all Anglican churches pay some sort of attention to that. The fourth Sunday in November, meanwhile, is, in the Roman Catholic calendar, the Solemnity of Christ the King, an observance that had gained widespread observance in Anglo-Catholic parishes. This just left the rather dull third Sunday to be changed, and so it was that the "Kingdom Season" was born. Someone also had the bright idea of using red vestments then, which are, of course, often the nicest in any church, and get very little use. The trouble is that we try to teach the children what the colours mean, and red is already two things, red for the blood of Christ and the martyrs, and red for the flames of the Holy Spirit, and now you were adding in a third red, and why exactly? Why red for the Kingdom? Because the decor in Buckingham Palace is largely red and gold? Or why?

The main issue with the Kingdom Season, though, is simply that it sets the Church of England apart from the rest of Western Christendom. It is an Anglican separatist innovation, something which we have pledged ourselves on numerous ecumenical occasions not to do. Of course, many of the people who promoted it don't care about the mainstream of Western Christendom, and lots of them pay no attention to the calendar anyway, so messing about with what other people do was a harmless game for them.The insidious effect of this has been to create a badge by which you can identify people's churchmanship. So, Anglo-Catholic parishes that follow the Roman rite will simply be in green, with no question. Traditionalist Anglo-Catholic parishes will mostly be in green, because they resist unjustified innovation. Meanwhile, high-church parishes who want to be seen to do what the Church of England does, mainly use red. I remember practically the only row I ever had with one of my curates was over this; I said, "I don't know anyone who uses red." He retorted, "I don't know anyone who doesn't!" Of course we were both wrong, but one often exists in one's own bubble. It is, for me, a cause for regret that those who run the Church of England should have created an unnecessary source of division among us, for little actual gain, but then they have quite a record for that.      .               

AND SO WE CAME TO ROME

 

The Graves of the Saints

A week in Rome was spent mostly in pilgrimage, hunting down some of the less famous holy sites (as well as the usual artistic pilgrimage). In fact, it was interesting to see some of the more famous sites with very few tourists, so perhaps, in retrospect, we should have taken the opportunity to go to the Vatican again.

One of the happy discoveries was San Giorgio in Velabro, which we hadn’t planned to visit, but just found open. It’s in the valley between the Capitoline and Palatine Hills, with a lovely Romanesque campanile, and an early medieval Ionic portico, in a surprisingly quiet spot. Just in front is the rather clumsy “Arch of Janus” which is actually a sort of shelter for fourth century market traders; “a work of the decadence” says the Blue Guide. Attached to the side of the church is a much finer classical monument, the Arcus Argentariorum, which dates from 204, and is a pretty monument erected by Rome’s moneychangers to the emperor Septimius Severus and family (who perhaps was not such a persecutor as Eusebius thought since this little arch was allowed to remain). San Giorgio has a timeless atmosphere, a rather dusty basilica, with sixteen random classical columns, and a fine thirteenth century altar with its canopy above. Under the altar in the proper place (for a basilica) are the relics of St George, brought there from Cappadocia around 750 by Pope Zachary. But not only is this the resting-place of St George, it was the titular church served by St John Henry Newman, so he will have celebrated at that altar, as Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro. There is a memorial plaque on the south wall, but the Holy Cross fathers, who look after the church, do not seem to have cottoned on to the Newman connection, so nothing is made of it.

For the first time I was able to get into Santi Apostoli, next to the Colonna palace, and the parish church of the exiled Stuarts (the rather modest palazzo in which Bonnie Prince Charlie was born and died is yards away). It is surprisingly vast. There under the altar are the relics of the apostles St Philip and St James the Less (“Pip ‘n Jim” as they used to be known in Oxford), in a crypt decorated in the 1870s in the style of the catacombs, which is really atmospheric. Near the apostles’ tomb is the beautiful renaissance tomb of the father of Pope Julius (and brother of Sixtus IV). Also buried in the church are Bonnie Price Charlie’s mother and the great renaissance man Cardinal Bessarion, as well as the rather undistinguished Pope Clement XIV, who has a very distinguished monument by Canova. There were many other relics that we visited, but those will do for now.

 

The Rooms of the Saints

Another theme was rooms where saints lived or stayed. It was not possible to visit St Ignatius’s room beside the Gesu, but we managed three, and were thwarted with a fourth. Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (Rome’s only Gothic church, as one is always told, though it’s only partially true) is currently having works done, unspecified in nature, but which close the west end, so to gain admittance it is necessary to walk round the block (a surprisingly long way) to an entrance that brings you into the north transept. We did this as they readmitted visitors at 5pm one rainy day, but the friar opening up put very few lights on, so it was deeply gloomy and there was a very odd feel to the building, with the whole nave cordoned off and sunk in darkness. Still, the things you want to see are still accessible, most particularly the tomb of Blessed Fra Angelico, which is right beside you as you come in that funny entrance, and of course St Catherine of Siena’s effigy and tomb under the high altar. In the gloom most people didn’t even notice that there are coin-operated lights for some of the chapels, and so I performed a public service by illuminating the chapel with the beautiful Filippino Lippi frescoes of St Thomas Aquinas (though these are very expensive lights, 1 Euro per minute). Beside that chapel is the rather nice Cosmati tomb of Bishop William Durandus of Mende, a place of pilgrimage for liturgiologists (like me), because Durandus was the great medieval theorist of the liturgy, finding mystical meanings for everything that is done (or worn, or used) in church, not to mention church buildings themselves. What made this visit particularly special, though, was that we were able to see the room in which St Catherine died, which is at the far end of the Sacristy. In truth, it’s not terribly emotionally-charged, since it is clad up to the dado with very 1950s panelling, but at least you suppose that the two little windows are authentic, and its very smallness gives you a sense of the austerity of that remarkable woman’s life.

For austerity, though, St Gregory the Great’s stone slab on which he meditated (and perhaps slept) takes the prize. This is in the church that bears his name on the Caelian Hill, in a tiny room that was his cell, quite out of alignment with the baroque church. This was his monastery of St Andrew, from which he sent St Augustine to become the first archbishop of Canterbury, so it’s tantalising to have traces of the ancient buildings under the skin of the rather lovely later church. When modern archbishops of Canterbury come calling, the Pope generally takes them to Vespers at San Gregorio Magno, an action which is weighed down with significance.

On the site of St Gregory’s ancient monastery the outstanding saint of the twentieth century, Mother Teresa (St Teresa of Calcutta) set up her Rome headquarters, so you go through a garden gate beside the church, and there, at the end of a path, is the enclosure of the Missionaries of Charity. At specified times you can ring the bell and a sister will show you the cell in which Mother used to stay when she was in Rome. It’s small and very simple, and very evocative of the saint. In truth, it’s very like the cell she had in Mother House in Calcutta; in fact the whole enclosure looks terrifically Indian, which is a bit disconcerting. It seems really appropriate that this modern reformer of religious life (though she never thought of herself like that) should have acquired the use of that ancient monastic site.

The one saintly room we were thwarted in seeing was the room of St Dominic, where he lived for several years, and met St Francis, in the Dominican house adjoining Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill. Sadly that’s only accessible on a guided tour, and they have been suspended. Santa Sabina, though, is terrific. I can see why it was Comper’s favourite. Interestingly, they keep it clear of chairs, as he liked his churches to be. It is a very beautiful authentic fifth century basilica, restored in the ninth and thirteenth centuries, but not much messed about. Terrific schola cantorum and ambones, and apse with marble and porphyry revetment. There is fifth century opus sectile inlay in the spandrels of the arches and round the apse, which appears to have a chalice and host design, but the only panel of mosaic left is on the west wall, with a huge inscription. Beneath that is the amazing fifth century door, with carved panels of astonishing vigour, including what is probably the oldest surviving image of the crucifixion in public art. That was really something to see.

 

Working Title

On our last morning we slipped into San Lorenzo in Lucina, which is on a quiet piazza just off the Corso, the smart shopping street. It’s another church that preserves its twelfth century façade, with an ionic portico and Romanesque campanile, though the interior has less charm. I was keen to see the tomb of Poussin, the great seventeenth century French classical painter, and also the relic of St Lawrence’s gridiron. As it happened, we couldn’t wander around, because Mass was being said, with a congregation of five. It was the feast of St Ignatius of Antioch. The celebrant, it slowly dawned on me, was a cardinal (for he was wearing his red zucchetto) so it must be the titular of the church. A swift google search subsequently revealed that this was correct, and that we had been present at the Mass of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, and former secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship. He was using the Roman Canon, but otherwise it was a very Vatican 2 sort of celebration, not really his style. Our seats at the back enabled us to view the tomb of Poussin, and the relic of the gridiron, so we got value for our brief stay.

 

Test and Trace

Back last winter it seemed a good idea to return to our honeymoon hotel to celebrate our first anniversary, and so that was what I arranged, for June. Obviously that was impossible, when the Foreign Office was advising against travel to Italy, and there were actually no flights anyway. The hotel very kindly asked if I wanted to rearrange (which they didn’t have to do) and so I picked a week in October which seemed feasible, and for which BA was offering flights. As Italy seemed to be coping better with the second wave, it didn’t seem such a bad idea, though BA told me five weeks ago that they had cancelled my flights and were rebooking me on earlier ones, so clearly they were consolidating flights because not so many people were travelling. As the date approached we became anxious that the “travel corridor” to Italy might be closed and that we might have to quarantine on return, but that didn’t happen. I was concerned to discover from an Italian website that their authorities would require us either to have had a COVID test within 72 hours prior to arrival, (how exactly do you do that without symptoms?) or to take a test on arrival, but that seemed a gamble worth taking. Then I was confused by the forms handed out on the (half empty) plane which implied that this was not necessary. It was; BA was wrong.

So, at Fiumicino, we found the COVID testing facility, queued up, and had a swab test. Then after waiting twenty minutes we were handed official certificates saying that at 6.30pm on Saturday 10^th October, we had tested negative. Most efficient. That all seemed very easy, I have to say, though it would be a struggle if large numbers of people were actually travelling, which they aren’t.

No such testing available on the way home, though, on what turned out to be the last BA flight before arrivals from Rome became subject to fourteen days’ quarantine, a flight that was pretty full of rather nervous people. It turns out we were right to be nervous, as we have now had the message from NHS Test & Trace telling us that we have to self-isolate for fourteen days because we were in potential contact with someone who has tested positive (on that flight). What a bore! 

 

OCCASIONAL OFFICES

One of the perhaps unexpected privileges of parish ministry is taking funerals for people whom you would have liked to have known. As Anglican clergy we are available to take the funerals of anyone who lived in our parish, whether or not they came to church. This can be a challenge. In some churches where the geographical parish is very small the funerals tend to be merely for churchgoers, in which case the job is easy (though sometimes not, because there is such a thing as knowing too much about someone), but for most of us there are a fair number for people we don't know at all. Now, I regularly hear about regrettable occasions where clergy have clearly failed to do their homework for some reason, but generally I think we all try to do a decent job.You just have to find out about the person, and use what you find out to preach the gospel of the resurrection and make what you say appropriate and personal. Connecting with people's emotional state, and holding out the prospect of the life to come seems fairly basic. Sometimes, though, in doing one's research, one realises that one would really have liked to have known the deceased.

Recently I did a funeral for an old gentleman who had been a doctor, according to the undertaker. Well, when I talked to his son it turned out that the old gent was a very distinguished epidemiologist. He had also served in the Royal Navy, and been surgeon to the fleet at the time of one of the Icelandic Cod Wars. Then in later life he worked for the EEC in Luxembourg, in the nuclear power inspectorate, which is where he was at the time of the Chernobyl disaster. He clearly also enjoyed his retirement in southern Spain. His son remarked that he had studied epidemics all his life but never really saw a big one, and just when his knowledge might have been useful, he couldn't contribute. His funeral was marked by a bizarre choice of music, "We gotta get out of this place" by the Animals, which he had apparently sung in his care home (though his son never realised he knew it). Otherwise the music was very normal and dignified, but we did smile.

More recently still, I took the funeral of an old lady who had been in the nursing home just round the corner, which (in normal times) I visit every week. She had been an occasional attender at my services there when she first moved in, but I'd never really got to know her. It turns out that this was a real missed opportunity, since she had been Margaret Thatcher's personal secretary throughout the Downing Street years. Prior to working for Mrs Thatcher she had done the same job for Airey Neave, until he was murdered by the IRA. Apparently she was there in the Downing Street flat when Mrs Thatcher fell (incidentally, isn't it interesting that the US President has "the Residence" while our PM has a flat) and went everywhere with her. No-one at the nursing home had the slightest idea of any of this, as far as I could see, presumably because the old lady's rather modest family didn't make a song and dance about it, in a rather British understated way. It made me at once proud and regretful, as that old lady should have had a bigger funeral than she did, though of course no-one can have a big funeral at the moment, thanks to the virus.  

We always try to help out our brethren with bigger parishes, and so do funerals from across parish boundaries when asked, but sometimes the funeral directors take the mickey and just phone up seemingly at random. The very first funeral I did in London was like that, on my first week in the parish, when I didn't yet know the geography; an undertaker phoned up and asked whether I would take this funeral, of a lady from such-and-such flats. I, eager to please, and knowing I had lots of flats in the parish, said yes and wrote down the unfamiliar address. It turned out to be just off Portobello Road, not that far away, but not my parish, not even my deanery, not even, in fact, my archdeaconry or episcopal area. In secular terms, not even the same borough. I never did get to the bottom of why that had come my way.

I was, though, pretty green in my first week in London, because I was also a victim of what was known as "the funeral scam". A person rang the doorbell, claiming to be related to one of my church officers (whose name they had in fact just read off a notice in the church porch) but unable to get in touch with them for some reason. They had just heard, they said, of the death of their mother, and needed to get back to somewhere in the north to arrange the funeral. I wrote all this down, and was, of course, hugely sympathetic and gave them some money to get them back there. My church officer would pay me back, they said. Of course, they were not related, and I never saw my money again. An email the next week revealed that this scam was being used regularly on London clergy. I at least consoled myself that I was the innocent country boy, learning the ways of the big black smoke; others had less excuse.

OPENING UP

We have finally resumed worship at St Peter's. Some of the church council were very apprehensive about it, but others were quite insistent that St Peter's people were not coming to joint services at St Mary Mags for good reasons, like the distance they had to walk, and missing the particular atmosphere of St Peter's. I think the anxiety was mostly from those who sit near the door and are charged with keeping order, which can sometimes be a challenge, given the odd selection of damaged and troubled people who turn up from time to time (and never actually on time). In the end, there is nothing we can do about that, because it's important that people find this place a sanctuary, and so we went forward in faith and trust.

As it happens, there has not been much of that sort of random and disruptive attendance since we came back. I think many people have got accustomed to there being a lot more rules, and doing what they're told. Certainly our food bank has to operate with strict conditions, that mean that the usual denizens of Harrow Road cannot just wander in and out as they are accustomed to do. The clients do not seem to mind very much. I suppose some of them know that they are vulnerable to the virus one way or another, and so see the point, but it's also the case that they are mostly people who are used to being told what to do, because they don't actually feel they have much agency in their lives.

The resumption of worship has been a challenge, since we can only seat twenty-eight people (a few more if families come together and sit on benches) because St Peter's is just a small space, with a rather low ceiling. I've certainly found that it feels quite different from how it does at St Mary Mags, a vast, cavernous, well-ventilated (some might say draughty) place; at St Peter's you are conscious of unavoidable proximity to other people, and so I don't think people really want to sing, whereas at St Mary Mags I know some people are struggling to restrain themselves. This last Sunday we had a baptism, which I could see presented a challenge for regular parishioners, who were clearly jumpy about the dozen strangers who weren't exactly keeping their distance from each other (but we didn't know who lived with whom, did we). It certainly meant that the church was close to full, which increased anxiety, and I'm quite sure that some people were jsut anxious about being in a confined space with a bunch of people they didn't know. Normally church is quite reassuring because although you may not be intimate, you are pretty familiar with the faces that surround you, although you may come from very diverse backgrounds you are at ease with each other because of familiarity. That was all upset by the influx of strangers on Sunday. Not that they were all strangers, as the mother of the babies, and her mother, are fairly frequent attenders (and were very regular fifteen years ago) but it was their guests who changed the usual dynamic. It was interesting to observe, and raises a whole lot of questions about how we react to strangers, which are important for our mission, because, you know, we do actually want strangers to come in!

Still no news about the murderers of the Somali boy. Two Sundays ago a woman's body was found on Westbourne Green, causing some inconvenience to some of the congregation of St Mary Mags. Everybody thought the worst, and I suppose people were relieved when it emerged that the police were treating it as probable suicide. It doesn't make it any better for the family left behind, but the community feel a bit less unsafe.

   

ON THE STREETS

We've seen no progress over finding the murderers of the local boy. He was from a Somali family, and had been at Paddington Academy, where he had just finished. Sadly, it appears to be, as they say, "gang-related".  

One of the striking features of the lockdown was how the beggars disappeared, but now they have returned to all their normal positions. The man who comes and sits outside Royal Oak Station was one of the first to resume (he commutes regularly to his pitch), but now there is a person back by the cash machine at the Chippenham as well. The purveyors of hard-luck stories (and habitual visitors) have returned to my doorstep as well. One of the hard-luck stories actually lives in Archway, so I really don't know what he's doing here. I used to have a regular hard-luck story who was also known to a fellow priest in Winchmore Hill, so I get the impression that some people have a fairly wide radius in which they ask for help and seem to spend much of their time travelling around doing so.

It's worth pointing out that most of the street beggars are not homeless. Westminster City Council did a fine job of getting homeless people into temporary accommodation when the lockdown began, and no doubt that suited the hotels in which they were placed, but I admit to some anxiety about what is going to happen next. I wouldn't fancy being the council official who has to tell the homeless that it's time for them to get back out onto the street, nor indeed being the local politician who has to announce the policy. Perhaps it won't happen? But, then, where will they put the homeless? 

Soon after the lockdown eased some drug users started using my church porch. I opened the door and surprised them one day, but they claimed only to be rolling cigarettes. Not true of course. Tiny little plastic packets and paper torn into little squares, as well as bits of foil were the detritus left behind. It became evident to them that I did not welcome their presence, and I scowled at them each time I saw them, which was fairly often since that porch is opposite my front door. The upshot was that they moved round to the north porch, which we have opened up as part of our conservation and development works. That porch had been bricked up in the 1950s when Clarendon Crescent, which it opened onto, was gradually falling derelict. Unfortunately, the configuration of the porch was such that it was very hard to close it up, and a space had been left that they tried to close with netting. Over time the netting failed, and the porch became a great place for pigeons to roost. When I came, we had a portaloo out there, but it stood on at least six inches of pigeon guano and was covered in filth; it was one of the nastiest spaces in London. So, we cleared it, and restored the door, and cleaned up the steps.

It has always been our intention to construct a glass pavilion over the north porch, but this proved to be the most controversial bit of the whole plan for the new building, and so we took it out, having spent eighteen months discussing it, and so the new building received its permissions. We then made the case for the glass pavilion separately, and were duly granted permission, though too late to get it built as part of the main contract. Had the contract been finished on time (or indeed anything like on time, or even properly) we should have had the pavilion by now. The work was going to be instructed this spring, but of course did not happen.The reason the porch was bricked up sixty years ago was the same reason we insisted we needed the pavilion now, the likelihood of anti-social behaviour; and so it has proved. The drug users not only consume their drugs nicely concealed at the bottom of the steps, but feel able to defecate there as w ell. Clearing away human excrement does not put one in the best frame of mind for the Sunday Mass.  

The man at Church House Bookshop asked me wistfully how it was in Paddington, because there was absolutely nobody about in central Westminster. I had to tell him that things were almost back to normal here. The quietness of central London is not something we are enjoying here. The Council have even removed all their paraphernalia for wider pavements, though we still have some bike lanes left. Sadly, though, my favourite restaurant has not re-opened. We would like to help them out!

ARCHBISHOPS AND PR

PAVEMENTS AND BIKE LANES

During the lockdown, the city council have  been painting bike lanes on the Harrow Road (and some other roads), which would be very good if they then made some effort to stop cars parking in them. It really is no help to be offered a lane which is then full of parked cars. They have also widened the pavements in various places, by fencing off stretches of road, so as to offer more social distance. This is good in places, but they have done it along long stretches where few people walk and there is no crowding, while they cannot do it at bus stops, which are the greatest pinch-points. In fact, during the lockdown the Vale Café has built an enclosure in front of its café for its clients to enjoy shisha pipes, which is exactly behind a bus shelter, and so has created a brand new bottleneck. I imagine they were entirely within their rights; it was just a thoughtless, anti-social thing to do. 

OH NO, HE WASN'T

I have written before about how strange it feels when your contemporaries attain high public office; now the new Archbishop of York, my old group leader from college, has actually started work in his new job. He was interviewed on Radio 4 and managed to say very little in a genial sort of way, which I suppose is one reason he was appointed, because he’s quite good at PR; he comes across as a friendly man-of-the-people, and doesn’t say anything too controversial. In this he is rather unlike his predecessor, because Archbishop Sentamu has always been combative and has sometimes seemed rather hectoring in his public pronouncements. Archbishop Stephen will have a different tone.

However, he has also given an interview to the Sunday Times Magazine, which, if not exactly a car-crash on the Prince Andrew scale, leaves him looking a bit foolish. I do appreciate that it’s very easy to be stitched up by journalists, but I’m not sure the clever PR instinct is on display. The first thing is the photo, full page, half length, staring into the middle distance with narrowed eyes, one hand on his pectoral cross, the other holding his pastoral staff, dressed in full gear, cope and mitre. If the photographer had asked him to look pompous it would have been very successful, but I bet he didn’t. 

I don’t want to go into the semiotics of it, but this picture conveys a lot of meanings that Stephen probably didn’t intend. We’ll leave aside the facial expression, but why have you dressed up at all? Cope and mitre? It’s fancy dress as far as the readers are concerned. And don’t say it’s not grand because it’s a modern design of cope, in a simple dupion fabric with a manufactured orphrey, because it has still cost hundreds of pounds, and is designed to attract attention. Underneath the cope, of course, he is wearing a rochet, the odd linen garment that is particular to bishops, and which in the Anglican tradition has very full sleeves, gathered at the cuff. In the eighteenth century these “lawn sleeves” became very exaggerated and can be admired in many episcopal portraits, but they have shrunk in modern times. The gathered cuffs remain, though, and are prominent in Stephen’s picture, generous pie-frills, somehow reminding you of how the young Lady Diana used to dress, a piece of strange historical affectation, looking soft and feminine, but embodying an assertion of historic privilege. 

You also get a mixed message from the pastoral staff, which is very noticeable in the picture. It is, naturally, a “simple” shepherd’s crook, but it’s also a symbol of episcopal authority and jurisdiction, prominently displayed. The simplicity of the design is as weighted an ideological statement as the gothic silver of a medieval example (check out William of Wykeham’s one at New College, Oxford).

Enough, then of his photo. What did Stephen actually say? The interviewer says that Stephen is in no doubt that Jesus would have joined in with Black Lives Matter protests. Really? Have you thought about that? I think we can agree that Jesus would sympathize with the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement, (though not some of their demands) but join a protest? Really? The actual Jesus was quite determinedly apolitical; I find it hard to imagine him on a protest. But then, Stephen is directly quoted: “Jesus was a black man, and he was born into a persecuted group in an occupied country.” No. He. Wasn’t.

I was expecting some sophisticated theological argument to the effect that Jesus embodies all our humanity, and so he is (not was) black as well as white, yellow, brown or whatever. Or perhaps an argument that he is particularly in solidarity with the oppressed of the earth, and so, in that sense he’s black. But, no, it’s a simple statement, which is just demonstrably untrue. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew, that much is certain about him, so he was not a black man. Probably of a darker complexion than he is sometimes portrayed, olive-skinned like many Mediterranean people, and presumably a bit tanned since he spent a lot of time out and about, but none of that makes him black, I’m afraid. And no, he wasn’t born into a persecuted group, either. Yes, Palestine was occupied, but the indigenous population was not persecuted by the Romans. The Romans were not persecuting Jews in Jesus’s lifetime. Palestine was a client state run for them by the privileged Jewish elites. In fact, Jesus was born into a position of racial privilege, because the Jews of his time were rigorous in excluding outsiders, and he was of priestly descent when the priestly class were the dominant power in Jewish society. He could have been part of the class governing the country as Rome’s clients had he so chosen. One of the remarkable things about Jesus is actually the way in which he sides with those who are persecuted or marginalized, the foreigners, the Samaritans, the lepers, the mad, the ritually unclean. He is an insider who chooses to opt for the outsider. I am surprised that the Archbishop seems to have forgotten that.

He has also forgotten when “Jesus of Nazareth” appeared on the television, and is comically distressed when the interviewer points out his mis-remembering. I remember the series (starring Robert Powell) too, and I can date it because I remember discussing it with my first girlfriend, so it was 1977. Stephen seems to have convinced himself he was in his early teens when he saw it, but since he is two years older than me, he was at least eighteen at the time. Why has he never checked on Wikipedia? This is the sort of question archbishops are asked all the time, so I’d have thought it was good to get the details right, for the sake of PR if nothing else.

EVIL STRIKES THE PARISH

Nauseatingly, a teenage boy has been stabbed to death in the parish. At present we don’t know much about it, but it is what we have been dreading for months. The evil of a violent subculture where carrying knives is routine has taken root here. So sad for everyone involved.

ON THE BLOCK

Let us make it clear; there was no "block party" on Harrow Road last week. Fair enough, it was quite close to the Harrow Road, but it was actually in West Kilburn. The photos that circulated were of the Mozart Estate. So there was no "riot in Maida Vale" as has been reported. It must have been really horrible to be near it, though my colleague who lives there heard nothing except the helicopter. Still, Harrow Road was a more accurate location than you often hear from the media, as things happening in W10 are usually said to be in Ladbroke Grove or North Kensington, I have to say that when it was very hot you did have the feeling that people were becoming fairly oblivious to the consequences of their actions, particularly after having been confined to their homes for the best part of three months.

Our ability to sleep on the hot nights last week was not improved by the seemingly constant presence of the police helicopter. One night Colville Gardens, the next night Mozart, and then events you never heard about. I can't help wondering how much that costs, and whether drones might not be more efficient. Perhaps you can't fly drones after dark, but the summer evenings are long, and I have been told that helicopters are fantastically expensive to run. It does sometimes seem that the Met use the helicopter, like police horses, as a means of intimidation, but I'm afraid I don't think it works, as it seems to encourage kids to imagine that they're in a video game.

Our joy is unconfined at the news that we are to be allowed to worship more or less normally again. We shall be humming rather than singing, and the peace will be a nod rather than a handshake, but it will be so good to have the congregation back in church. Now I am busily writing protocols and thinking up ways round hazards, while one of my people bravely produces a risk assessment for every fantastically unlikely eventuality.

I have booked a haircut. Ludicrously expensive, but they will earn their money! 

WHERE DID EASTERTIDE GO?

INADVERTENT POLYCHROMY

St Mary Magdalene’s is a famous example of “structural polychromy”, the art of making buildings colourful by the materials you use, in our case red brick and creamy Bath stone. Yesterday on a walk I discovered a striking example of inadvertent structural polychromy, at Holy Trinity, Brompton Road. This famous church is not a particularly distinguished building, a Commissioners’ church of 1826-9, built in Suffolk brick, which was originally off-white in colour. It was extended to the east by Blomfield in 1879-82, and had a south-west porch added in 1913, and a north-west porch and chapel in 1920-24, and finally a new northern entrance in the last twenty years. When each of these extensions were built, the original building will have been blackened by pollution, and I imagine that the successive architects will have assumed that their additions would tone in, to form part of a coherent whole, but the church has recently been ruthlessly cleaned, and now presents a very odd appearance indeed, because it is a patchwork of different bricks. The nave is the original Suffolk bricks, pale grey after cleaning, but Blomfield’s chancel is pink, and then the two western extensions are bright yellow, while the modern porch is dark brown, which no doubt seemed like a good idea when the rest of the church was dirty, but looks foolish now. I suppose it’s nice for the architectural historian to be able to see the various stages of building laid out like this, but it is hardly aesthetic.

LOCKDOWN

We introverts have rather enjoyed lockdown; it was very strange, but once one established a routine, it wasn’t too bad. I said my prayers and said Mass every day, and read and wrote, and prepared services and sent stuff out to the parishioners, material to help them with prayer and their spiritual lives. There have been funerals to prepare and take, but not the feared  avalanche. It all seemed as though one was actually being liberated to concentrate on the most important parts of one’s ministry. I was terrified by the idea of live-streaming at first, but it became enjoyable. I even filmed myself reading “The Dream of the Rood” as a special Passiontide treat. And, astonishingly, people actually enjoyed it. The challenge now will be to find a way of continuing to live-stream after we resume normal worship. The best period of lockdown was when everyone was paralysed, and there were no meetings going on, but that didn’t last. I was amused to find that I was more familiar with Zoom, thanks to clergy colleagues, than some of my secular co-workers. The thing that has been difficult to understand is why we all feel so tired, when it seems that we are doing less. Perhaps we aren’t in fact doing less, just fewer peripheral things. I also made time during lockdown for getting out on the bike regularly, and I decided that in the absence of real sport I would relive the last two years, so I have been reading the bike race reports from the appropriate day. We’re still in the latter stages of last year’s Giro d’Italia, but Froomey has already won the 2018 edition.  It doesn’t help me forget that I was meant to have spent a few days in Rimini a couple of weeks ago watching this year’s Giro, but reminds me why I love the sport.

LEADERSHIP

Of course, the most striking feature of lockdown for us in the trade has been the Church of England’s failure of leadership. It is quite clear that Cardinal Vincent Nicholls is now the spokesman for English Christianity. The government task force on reopening places of worship came about after the Cardinal’s pressure, and this weekend the Cardinal has publicised his frustration at its work being thwarted by government or civil service. From the Church of England bishops we have heard nothing. In fact, neither the Church of England centrally, not the Diocese of London, chose to inform the clergy that the task force even existed. The bishops caused us great pain by banning us from streaming from our churches for no coherent reason, and personally I can testify to how worthless that made me feel when I had imagined that I had been doing something that was worthwhile in the service of the Gospel. In Holy Week that was a significant psychological burden to have to carry, and it was not how we might have expected our bishops to treat us. The bishops have chosen to act as autocrats and order their clergy to act in particular ways, which is in fact unlawful, but what is really bizarre is the silence that has prevailed over resuming worship. It appears that our bishops do not actually regard worship as important, or the spiritual health of the nation as any concern of theirs. It will be difficult for trust to be regained.  

AFTER THE TRIDUUM

Triduum

As it turned out, the Triduum went pretty well in my dining room. We didn't do anything that involved movement, other than carrying the paschal candle from one side of the altar to the other, and bringing forward the crucifix, which really could not be avoided. On Maundy Thursday there was obviously no footwashing (it's optional anyway) but nor did we receive the newly consecrated oils, because we had no newly-consecrated oils, as bishops hadn't consecrated them. Nor did we have a procession of the Sacrament at the end, as we do not have an aumbry in the dining room (or permission from the Bishop to reserve the Sacrament in the vicarage). Nor did we strip the altar (which is deprecated in the modern rite, anyway) as the effect would be very limited at that camera angle. On Good Friday I did not prostrate myself before the altar; the effect would have been very comical, but there wasn't enough room anyway.  Obviously only I venerated the cross (though since Fiona is the congregation I cannot think that any new cross-contamination would have occurred that hasn't occurred already, but such are the rules). We did not receive Communion, as we could not reserve the Sacrament there overnight. Instead I preached, which I would not normally do. Then on Holy Saturday we did the Vigil in the traditional way, but simply kindling the new fire, not making a bonfire, and not actually going anywhere. I at least got to sit down for the readings, which was a mercy. Poor Fiona had to listen to me singing the Exsultet, which was a final penitential observance for her before the Easter joy. In fact I sang quite a bit on Saturday night, most of it not quite as badly as that. Lesley had picked some dwarf daffodils from her garden which we used to decorate the altar, having picked them up from her doorstep (I was passing, it wasn't a special journey).

The dark red walls of the dining room worked quite well for Passiontide, but I had to make some sort of  change for Easter, so we brought back from the sacristy the painting of Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Lord outside the tomb. This fits neatly into the space between the bookcases in the dining room, and is a good size for visibility. My friend John painted this as a gift for the church a few years ago, after we had let him have an exhibition of his pictures in the Undercroft, and it is a re-imagining of Rembrandt's painting of the subject (which is in the royal collection) but rather in the style of Van Gogh, who John much admires. In the background, the view of the skyline of Jerusalem includes the profile of St Mary Magdalene's, which is nice.


Blessed are the Cheesemakers

We seem to get lots of fancy cheese in the Felix Project deliveries at the moment, so I have just turned cheesemonger, and cut up a six-pound semi-hard cheese into family-size portions. This was a Witheridge cheese, very fine. Soft cheeses are more difficult to parcel out, and you have to look for big families, or people who just like cheese a lot. The cheese packed for supermarkets usually comes to us at the end of its life, but sometimes the whole cheeses for catering have more life in them, which is a real joy for some of our people. We had a couple of officials from Kensington and Chelsea Council visit us today, as we are feeding people from their territory, so Jacqui was negotiating to get the use of a building in Ladbroke Grove, so that we can distribute food from there as well, to prevent their people coming over here, because at the moment we seem almost to be attracting custom, which is not the idea at all.


On the Road

I was shouted at on my bike the other day, as I didn't stop at a zebra crossing, but what had happened was that I had made eye contact with the person who was actually going to cross, and so we understood what we were doing and both proceeded perfectly safely.  The observer at the roadside just saw me failing to stop and so shouted self-righteously. Never mind. I was hooted by a van when I was passing a group of cyclists (a family, I have to assume) presumably because he thought I was part of a big group, or possibly just because I had to go quite wide to get round them. No problem. Why exactly was he on the road? I was getting my exercise.

The Harrow Road is not a lot less busy than normal, with long queues outside Co-Op and Iceland, not terribly well distanced, and making the pavement rather congested. Most of the shops seem to be open. Some of the usual drunks are still around. People are parked just as randomly as ever.

The drugs industry seems to be continuing to operate, as the couriers on their mopeds continue to come and go. One had taken to parking his moped on my forecourt, so I have started to close the gates; We are content to allow parking for Grand Junction, and occasionally let other residents park, but I'm not inclined to support this particular enterprise.    

One of the more curious parked vehicles is outside Lord's Cricket Ground, on a loading bay. This is a medium-sized dark green horsebox, which has been there for three weeks or so. I observed a couple of parking wardens on St John's Wood Road today, so perhaps they may have booked it.


St George's Day

Happy St George's Day, especially to all Syrians and Palestinians, whose patron he is too. We use a prayer calendar provided by USPG (Anglican mission agency) and find that it marks extraordinarily obscure secular observances. We had Earth Day, and a day for people with autism, and any number of observances to do with slavery, but we find that St George's Day is not marked. Curious. Anyway, we commemorated him at Mass today, and I shall be ringing the bell this evening and will think of the soldier-martyr as I do.

PASCHAL FULL MOON

We'll Meet Again

As Her Majesty said on Sunday, we will meet again. Her generation display remarkable stoicism, as witness my hundred-year-old aunt. We received our first delivery of mail for a fortnight yesterday, and on top of the pile was an Easter card from Aunt June. I suspect that this may be the only one we shall receive, from the only centenarian I know. Extraordinary that she is sufficiently organised to have bought Easter cards and sent them to her dozy nephews. She included a note apologising for not having had us over for lunch, but she had had a couple of problems, "AND NOW THIS!" So, hats off to Aunt June, and her generation.


Chapeau

And hats off as well to the caterers ("chapeau" is what bike racers say). I had worried that our efforts to feed people would be starved of supplies, but I was wrong. Last week the Felix Project asked if we could take more than usual, and when the delivery arrived it was full  of useful stuff, like ready meals and roasting chickens. Much of this came from the restaurant empire of Richard Caring, so our clients were eating The Ivy's famous shepherd's pie (complete with beautifully-piped potato on top), and chili from Sexy Fish (in Berkeley Square) and pea and watercress soup from Bill's. The chickens, and kale and asparagus, were not branded, but I suspect they had come from Caring's suppliers, as they seemed very good quality. There was also a mountain of little chocolate things from "Deliciously Ella". I see that Richard Caring has a charitable foundation, and clearly he is keeping some of his catering staff busy with producing these excellent ready meals for charitable purposes in this crisis, which seems to me to be a brilliant example for people to follow. I notice that Urban Caprice, the outside catering arm of Le Caprice, are working in their kitchen (just round the corner) again, so I imagine they are part of the effort, because they too are part of his empire. So, credit where it's due. It is very pleasing to think of some of our vulnerable, troubled, and damaged denizens of the Harrow Road dining on The Ivy shepherd's pie.


No More Rebellion

I have bowed the knee. We have been specifically instructed by the Bishop of London not to stream from church, as apparently some people have interpreted that as encouraging people to want to be in church, and to travel in spite of regulations. It is said that some people are using the streaming of services as an argument that churches should be reopened. We are accused of cynically ignoring the archbishops' guidelines or of pushing their boundaries, which doesn't seem entirely fair. I don't think anyone is acting cynically in this, but I do think the leadership of the Church of England have a very inflated idea of how much notice everybody else pays to what we do. So, I am currently trying to make my dining room look as churchy as possible (which does involve moving a lot of bottles). Ironically, while the conservation works were going on in church, and the whole building was technically a building site, most of the more fragile contents of the building migrated to my house, and most of them were in the dining room, but it didn't look like a church, more like an antique shop. So yesterday's Mass came from the Vicarage, and I am now working out how to do the Triduum Sacrum without moving from one spot so as to remain in camera shot.


Resurrection

When we came across from church with arms full of the necessities for the service yesterday teatime we were astonished to find a parakeet lying on its back in our drive. The more astonished since we had only been in church for about three minutes, and it hadn't been there when we set out. It looked dead, but we noticed its little chest was heaving, so we assumed it was mortally injured. "Poor thing," we both said, and left it. It made no reaction to our presence. I did another journey back and forth, with vestments, and though it was still alive, I thought its chest was moving more weakly, and its eyes were shut. About ten minutes later, Fiona came with me to get a last load of stuff, and as she came out of the front door the parakeet suddenly rolled over and flew away.

This was immensely cheering, because it was horrible to see a beautiful creature apparently dying outside your own front door, but it was also utterly mystifying. I think it had probably flown into our bathroom window, fooled by reflections, and been stunned, though how it came to fall where it did, in the middle of the drive, rather than on the flat roof under the window, I can't fathom. The added strangeness is that we hardly ever see parakeets on the Green, despite their being very common in the Park and elsewhere locally. If it had remained (apparently unconscious) on the drive much longer it would surely have been found either by the crows who have taken up residence on the Green, or by Bad Cat (Casimir's enemy) and I wouldn't have fancied its chances, but perhaps our comings and goings kept other things away, so it had time to recover, which it emphatically did. After that it seemed right to go out and admire the Paschal full moon later on.    

INTO THE STRANGE LAND

Pigeons

Last time, I reported the escalation in the pigeon war, but not the detail. My notice asking people not to feed the pigeons had been annotated, "Would you feel the same if this said, 'Please do not feed the homeless'?" and "One love", "Please feed everyone". Perhaps the author was not aware that we do feed the homeless? Or perhaps he was, and genuinely feels that there is no moral difference between pigeons and people? Certainly, it would be disgusting if language about vermin were applied to human beings, the homeless for instance, because all human beings are of intrinsic moral worth, but it is simply nonsense to pretend that there is a moral equivalence between pigeons and people. One love? What does that mean? I know it was a song, years ago (Bob Marley?) but what's it supposed to mean in this context? There was also a long disquisition on a laminated sheet, which referred to pinning and stapling things to trees as evidence of my contempt for nature, so that was attached to the tree by a large strap, which also secured a stuffed Minion to the treetrunk, a cruel and unusual punishment, in my view. I'm glad to say that someone else removed all that, and we seem to have reached a truce. After all, going out to feed the pigeons would be an unnecessary journey.

Meanwhile, Morgan Sindall continue to occupy parking spaces, but lots of people seem to think that parking regulations have become advisory for the duration. I don't think the Council has that view.


A Strange Land

I hope we didn't all catch the virus in those first few days when the supermarkets were packed with people buying loo paper. I was baffled by the sudden emptiness of the fresh vegetable shelves; how can you stockpile broccoli? The trouble was that it was all a bit wild west, and it was impossible to keep your distance, and the supermarkets seemed to have no mechanism for imposing order. Now it's all a bit better, but it can still be confusing; I encountered a queue outside Tesco at the weekend that appeared longer than it was because of a woman waiting for her husband to come out of the shop, and a beggar, both hanging around the line. Interestingly, most of the beggars have vanished, though there is often still one in front of the cash machine at the Chippenham.

Having a wife who used to be a ballet dancer has its moments. Fiona has discovered that Tamara Rojo, the director of English National Ballet, has started to live-stream company class (that's the session that all the dancers in the company do before they go off to their various rehearsals). This started with a number of dancers in a proper ballet studio, but now we are down to Tamara on her own in her kitchen. The first morning, I remarked that it did have the look of a kitchen where all the clutter had just been hidden away, not one that was naturally clinical. Fiona wondered whether Tamara had deliberately had the worktops fitted precisely at barre height, as ours are not quite the right height. Still, she found that you can hang onto the edge of the sink quite effectively, but it's a good thing we haven't got one of those trendy island units, as you could never do class then. 

At St Peter's, we continue to try to feed people. No more sit-down meals, though the first time we tried to do that some of the regulars got in via the side door. The problem is that our clientele are not always easily impressed by rational argument, and the desire of some of them to be helpful can be overwhelming. So, we have had to be strict. Food banks are encouraged to continue, and that's what we have become. We are still getting deliveries from the Felix Project, and are parcelling food up and giving it out. If people have to line up they have to do so outside, two arms' lengths apart, and we're delivering some meals to people. At first I feared that Felix would have nothing, since they distribute stuff that the supermarkets can't sell, and as panic-buying was emptying the supermarkets I was afraid that would mean we would get nothing, but deliveries have continued, if a little eccentrically. Quail, anyone?

So now I have a You Tube channel (do subscribe). With the very considerable assistance of a Lunch Club volunteer I discovered how easy it is to live-stream. I was fussed about getting a decent webcam and so hurtled over to John Lewis (when you still could) only to discover that they had sold out, including online. Enquiries revealed that there seemed to be none to be had anywhere in the south of England. A very kind friend then retrieved her webcam from her mother and sent it to me by post (which was being delivered then) but by the time it arrived I had already done it once using the camera and microphone built into my laptop, and found the results acceptable. After all, who wants to see me in HD? Having got it to work once means that my fear of the technology is a strong disincentive from changing anything now, though I'm sure it can be improved. We shall see. Someone else asked me how to do it, and I had to admit that I couldn't explain because it was really very easy and I didn't remember what I clicked and when. That doesn't stop me doing things wrong, and yesterday we lost transmission halfway through Mass, which wasn't my fault (as far as I know). But, technical glitches aside, we are successfully broadcasting a Sunday Mass, and other services as well, and the feedback is tremendous. I am moved and heartened by the messages that I am receiving back, and I have to say that this is the most positive feedback I've ever received in more than thirty years of ministry. Being able to use the beauty and resources of St Mary Magdalene's is a great benefit in this. It's not the same as normal Sunday worship, because we have no music, and I can't move about, and it's only me with Fiona answering, but we can offer spiritual resources, and an experience of worship that people can share. We even managed to do Stations of the Cross, with me carrying an iPad around the church, which was jolly hard work, and a bit wobbly, but worked. The only cloud on the horizon is that the Archbishops think that this is a bad thing, and that we should only be streaming from our homes. My own inner turmoil when receiving that pronouncement was acute, as I am not a natural rebel, but I am quite clear that my going into church to do this can do no harm, while the good that the services are doing is immense (and much greater than if they came from my dining room). So, yesterday (like many others) I rebelled, for the sake of my people's spiritual lives.

SIGNS OF SPRING

Before the Beak

Regular readers will remember Angry Woman with Dog, who appears from time to time, despite no longer living particularly close; at the moment she is Angry Woman without Dog. The dog was seized by the police last July, when there was an incident with a neighbour, and she has been distraught ever since. Finally, in January, she received a letter charging her with having a dangerous dog out of control and causing injury, and with owning a fighting dog (namely a pit bull) and calling her to court at the start of February. She brought this letter round, not understanding it fully, and her GP and I swung into action. He wrote a letter stating that she was unfit to appear, which I emailed to the court, having had a helpful conversation with someone at the courts service, who told me what we could do. There was no prospect of getting a solicitor in time for that appearance, and so I asked for an adjournment. As the person at the courts service had warned, we heard nothing about the result of that until she received a letter summoning her to the magistrates' court in March, but at least that gave us a chance to get her a solicitor. So, a few weeks ago I walked her to the solicitors' offices, where thanks to her claustrophobia we had to conduct business in a foyer (where the Bishop of Kensington walked past, among others). Blessedly, legal aid was obtained, and so she has representation.

So, the week before last, I took her to court, in the car. Why did I do this? Well, I really couldn't avoid it. I am involved, I am concerned that she gets a fair trial, and she is quite unable to help herself. To do the journey by public transport would be really complicated, and for someone who reads as poorly as she does, that would be a real challenge. One of my most basic observations about all this is how opaque the criminal justice system is, so unless you are familiar with it you may well find it very hard to work out what is going on, and even to follow instructions. It must be a complete nightmare if you are not eligible for legal aid, and frankly finding a legal aid solicitor is not easy. If you don't read well, the paperwork is pretty daunting, and just really unhelpful. No indication of where the court actually was, for instance. So, had I not taken her, she wouldn't have got there at all. We arrived early, to give us time to talk to the solicitor, who was then delayed, so we had plenty of time to inspect the waiting areas. Not encouraging. All very grubby, and despite the building not being very old, the decor looked very tired. It was not a nice place to spend several hours. I was struck by the fact that Angry Woman seemed to be the only native English speaker among the various defendants, which again raises questions about the access to justice.

After a long delay, we were ushered down to a different courtroom from the one we were scheduled for, with space. I found myself sitting behind a large window, the frame of which was much decorated with chewing gum. I presume the magistrates could see me, and my presence perhaps registered with them. Angry Woman's claustrophobia meant she didn't want to go into the dock (which is of course enclosed), but they were quite tolerant about that. We are due in court again in June. Meanwhile the dog is still in kennels somewhere. I suppose it is possible that the dog might be learning better behaviour, but I somehow doubt it. I can see this will run and run.


Decorative Surfaces

The day after going to court I spent with the Institute of Conservation's gilding and decorative surfaces group, at a symposium on the conservation of devotional objects. In the breaks I was able to write a sermon, so my time was used efficiently, and they were very kind about my talk. I tried to be honest about some of the pitfalls we had encountered with our big conservation project, which, to be fair, was not really involving devotional objects, but I made some observations about devotional objects anyway. The room full of conservators and professionals seemed to regard a client as quite a curiosity to have among them, so that was quite fun. They were talking about the ethical issues involved with devotional objects in collections, and seeking to inform or consult the original users, but I pointed out that this was full of difficulties, because there may be plenty of people who claim ownership or use of an object who are not at all the same people as created it (see Stonehenge for an example). I dare say that some Roman Catholics might take the view that they know better than us how some of our devotional objects should be used, whereas I would say that our practice has its own integrity (and has been going on for a hundred and fifty years in this building). There are some interesting discussions to be had.


A Group Visit

Amid all the panic, we had a visit from a local branch of Open Age this morning. I had supposed they would be down on numbers, but not at all. They had a successful visit to the church, and then we did them a deal in the cafe, who were pleased to have the custom. There was one gentleman present who had relations who had grown up in the old slums, so I was glad I hadn't emphasised their criminality. He tested me by asking which world boxing champion grew up here, and I think I impressed him by knowing it was Terry Downes, who was baptised at St Mary Mags. They were a cheerful and responsive group.


Bird Life

On the canal, one of the Egyptian geese had vanished, and the remaining one was wandering around disconsolately, but now a second one has appeared, so happiness is restored. They were mating enthusiastically a couple of weeks ago, so who knows, we might get some goslings.

Meanwhile, at St Peter's, my discouragement of people feeding the pigeons has provoked a reaction. First my notice asking people not to do it was taken down, and then when I replaced it, someone spread breadcrumbs in front of our steps. I confess that I have taken to kicking the larger bread rolls into the road, which gives a trivial satisfaction, but isn't far enough away to achieve anything (since they won't actually get run over). Now someone has attached a large notice to the tree berating me for not valuing nature. Oh dear. . . .  .

HAMILTON AND FREUD

Contractors

Regular readers will remember that I was struck, a month or so ago, by the rash of Morgan Sindall vans that were parked around St Peter's; the reason soon became clear. There was an estate agent's office in Goldney Road (about fifty yards away) which was vacated not so long ago, and this has now become an office for Morgan Sindall Property Services. They have a nice yard, where you can park half a dozen vehicles, but that is clearly not enough, and there are always vans parked on the single yellow lines at all hours of the day, together with others in residents' bays or on the double yellow from time to time. Now they each have a permit in the windscreen from Westminster Housing, but it is not clear what this actually permits. I would suppose it would enable them to park on the estate roads of Hallfield or Churchill Gardens, where parking is usually forbidden, and where Westminster Housing is the landowner, but does it give them a privileged status on the public highway? In the end, it is the City Council that administers street parking, and so it is perfectly able to permit its contractors to park in contravention of all normal regulations, but has it really decided to do that? And if it has, might it not be a good idea to think of the consequences, and perhaps ask for the views of the residents whose spaces are being occupied, not to mention the pedestrians and cyclists who are put at risk by dangerous parking?


Amid the Storm

We hosted a fundraiser for The Avenues Youth Project last Sunday at St Mary Mags, in the middle of the storm. Incidentally, was I the only person to be baffled and then irritated by the fact that what they were calling "Storm Kiera" was spelled "Storm Ciara"?  That's not a name, in the first place, and in whose language is it pronounced that way? Not English, certainly! Anyway, the storm wrought chaos, by preventing some of the promised artists from appearing, as they could not reach us. One side effect of that was that the musical director whose train was cancelled was bringing the music with him that he was meant to play, accompanying a singer, so a student pianist (from Guildhall) was asked to accompany, and the music was sent electronically to me, and I then downloaded it and printed it out at home, on my cheap printer where I never bother to correct the alignment after I've changed the ink. I was anxious about that, but the pianist then had to sight-read this Stevie Wonder number and familiarise herself enough with it in about twenty minutes to accompany a West End star. I discovered that the tall, polite young man in a hat who forwarded me the music was Jamael Westman, who was the original West End "Hamilton". He sang nicely, and his two colleagues from the show performed really impressively. It was a great thing for the young people from The Avenues to be rubbing shoulders with these genuinely top-drawer performers, who were also quite charming and unaffected. We also had three young performers from Guildhall, who played and sang really well. Their rendition of "La ci darem la mano" was absolutely charming, and the meaning was perfectly clear without anyone needing a second language or surtitles.

The trouble with being the custodian of an ancient building is that you do have extra worries during extreme weather events. I sat there being entertained, but listening out for any sounds of damage. I noted that the dormer shutters were clattering, which they don't normally do, but didn't hear anything much else. We used the glass sliding doors in the extension rather than the Victorian church door because the gale kept on catching the old door and was making it unmanageable, so that was a useful experiment. I think the logic is that we shall do that as a matter of course, though when the glass porch over the north entrance is built then that will probably become our main door (though not for me).


Strange Lives

Yesterday we had an event I had long been anticipating. Years ago, when Will Stephens was our artist-in-residence (studio in the old sacristy) he introduced me to William Feaver, who had been art critic for the Observer, and was a tutor at the Royal Drawing School (where Will studied). Last year when Bill published the first volume of his monumental biography of Lucian Freud I saw a possibility for a Grand Junction event, and got Will to put us in touch, which he did. So Bill very generously came last night to talk to an audience of over a hundred about Lucian Freud in Paddington, because from 1944 to 1977 Freud had studios in, successively,  Delamere Terrace, Clarendon Crescent, and Gloucester Terrace, and was evidently full of stories of the old  Paddington.

The mere question of Bill's biographical method is interesting in itself, because Lucian Freud simply liked talking to him, and would constantly phone him up, quite apart from letting himself be interviewed. So, Bill soon started taking notes, and recorded lots of their conversations, which Freud was fine with, as he conceived the idea of Bill writing "the first funny art book", Then he read the first two chapters (which Bill had spent considerable time writing) and took fright, forbidding the enterprise in his lifetime, though clearly accepting that it would eventually appear. The volume of material was obviously vast, and Bill Feaver has compounded matters by being a most assiduous researcher, following up the most obscure and tangential figures in the story, which makes it a very big book, but fantastically interesting, and thoroughly gossipy. It is also genuinely funny, as the extraordinary life of Lucian Freud takes shape.

I was asked whether I thought it entirely appropriate for a priest to be discussing such a reprehensible life (in church) and I pondered that one. I think it's fair to respond that I certainly wasn't endorsing Freud's lifestyle, but neither was Bill, but that it's not necessary to be judgemental. Freud's behaviour was contrary to almost anyone's standards of morality, let alone Christian ones, and you can just let it stand for itself, and leave the observer to make their own judgements. Reading the biography, one is constantly struck by the remarkable lack of ill-will shown by most of the women whom Freud had wronged, and actually a sense of the artist's vulnerability. When we saw the show of his self-portraits at the RA recently that is not something that was evident at all; rather we felt the overbearing presence of the domineering artist, but one is just reminded that art and life are not the same. Of course, it's the Wagner question, whether the behaviour (or views) of the artist devalues the art, and Bill and I discussed that a little last night, but there's more that can be said, of course.

It was an excellent evening, at least I enjoyed myself in the role of interlocutor, which was initially very daunting, but then great fun. So all those evenings watching Graham Norton haven't been wasted! It was certainly more Graham Norton than Andrew Neill, which I hope is what people had come for. Stupidly I didn't suggest to Bill that he should bring a crate of books, because he'd certainly have sold some.     

My only regret was that we didn't spend long enough on the odd, criminal world of Delamere Terrace and Clarendon Crescent in the 1940s and 50s, which comes out very strongly from the book. Kenneth Clark commented, "Strange lives" in reference to the people among whom Lucian Freud was living, and while they must have seemed strange to someone as cultivated (and buttoned-up) as Clark then, they sound like lives from another planet to us today. There's more to learn.

GONE ON PILGRIMAGE

I confess to a certain perverse pride when I was able to put "I am on pilgrimage" on my out-of-office reply. It certainly made an impression on some of my secular colleagues.

Of course, it was only what they call a "clergy familiarisation tour" where the pilgrimage operator (in this case McCabes) take clerics at a reduced rate in the hope that they will then lead their own pilgrimage, inspired by the experience. In fact, I would love to do so, but don't see much prospect of getting up a party from this neighbourhood. We are a small church community, and I don't think we'd ever get the numbers required. People might be interested, but £2000 is beyond most of my folk here. McCabes encourage you to announce it long in advance, so that people can save up for it, and pay in instalments, but that argues a degree of organisation which is not often found on the Harrow Road. Because we were being familiarised, the itinerary was one that took in all the big sites, and quite a few others, crammed into eight days, whereas I can see that you might want to tailor your own tour, and probably go for ten days rather than eight to have a bit more space to think and pray.

When we arrived in Jerusalem it was colder than London, grey and rainy. I remarked that since the city was grey and rainy and had trams it reminded me of Manchester. Early January was probably a good time to go from the point of view of crowds, but it did mean that you had to take lots of clothes. I travelled with a much heavier bag than usual, but the only thing I bought to bring back was a kilo of Palestinian dates.

We stayed in East Jerusalem, in a Christian-owned hotel, overlooking the walls of the Old City, which was an excellent position. From the hotel roof you could see the "Garden Tomb", and in fact the hotel was said to be the place that General Gordon was staying when he got the idea that the quarry wall behind the "Garden Tomb" looked like a skull. Our guide to the Garden Tomb, a jovial Ulsterman, told us that you would be able  to appreciate it better if the bus station were removed from in front of it, as that has raised the level somewhat. I thought the Garden Tomb interesting, but didn't feel anything.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the other hand, I felt much more moving than I expected. To be in there at dawn (on the Sunday) was a very special privilege. I didn't particularly notice the notoriously bad relations between the denominations, though the Copts were a bit brusque in defending their space. It was hugely moving to be at Golgotha, and see the rock, and to enter the sepulchre.

The biggest impression, though, was of the huge contrast between Galilee and Judaea. Why was that nice, gentle, fertile land ruled by that city in those harsh hills? The sense that God was somehow present in Jerusalem, that God had somehow marked the place out, was increased by the incongruity of the fit between the two parts. Of course Galilee enables you to see views that appear unchanged since the time of Jesus, and it is calm and lovely in a way that is never true of Jerusalem, but I won't say I liked it more, because I love those buildings with their layers of history and accumulated faith.

Of the contemporary state of the Land of the Holy One, not much to say. We drove up to the Separation Wall in Bethlehem, which separates Rachel's Tomb from the town, and saw all the Banksy-type paintings and graffiti on it. You could not help feel the crudeness and the brutality of it. We visited a rehabilitation centre in Bethlehem which has had to equip itself as a full-scale hospital, because their local hospital was in Jerusalem, and now Palestinians cannot easily go there (certainly not in an emergency). The settlements creeping over the hills are hideous, and an affront to international law, but you can understand the state of Israel's desire to survive. Someone said to  me afterwards, "So what is the solution, then?" to which I pointed out that better minds than mine have been working on this for years, but I can't feel optimistic, not while so many Palestinians seem determined to nurse a sense of grievance, and while Israelis insist that they are a special case.     

ON CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY

Contractors

Some of us remember when local authorities and other public bodies employed their own workforce to do repairs and maintenance, and indeed work in general. Nowadays all that is contracted out, and private contractors do the work. I remember the justification for the change was that private contractors would be more efficient, having to compete for contracts. In practice, local authorities tend to award contracts for several years at a time, and so contractors often get complacent. They know they are unlikely to have any trouble from the council while they are doing its work, and that their level of performance won't actually matter until their contract comes up for renewal.

This explains why F.M.Conway, Westminster's roads contractor, have a compound occupying road space on Bourne Terrace that has been there for months while no work actually takes place. The compound, which is clearly storing materials, is placed on double yellow lines a few yards in from the junction with the Harrow Road, which makes turning into Bourne Terrace much more difficult than necessary, a situation which is exacerbated by some drivers' fondness for turning off the Harrow Road and stopping there. Complaints from borough councillors seem to have made no difference.

The complacency of contractors is demonstrated by the alacrity with which they get their vans repainted to proclaim that they are working for the council. They wouldn't do it if they were afraid of losing their contact. As I write this I am looking at a Morgan Sindall van, which is also branded City of Westminster, and is parked on a yellow line in Chippenham Road in the middle of the day, a place where it has been parked continuously for more than a week. One day last week I counted four Morgan Sindall vehicles illegally parked at various spots within yards of the crossroads of Elgin Avenue and Chippenham Road. Of course contractors sometimes need to park in abnormal places when doing emergency works, but that is not what is happening here; the drivers know that Westminster's traffic wardens will not bother them, and so they are completely contemptuous of parking regulations, parking where it is convenient to them.


Shameless

I have to say that I have been surprised by public exhibitions of shamelessness recently. A few days ago, walking home from St Peter's, I was passing a set of big black bins, as an employee emerged from business premises carrying large bags of rubbish. He could see me, but was entirely blatant about heaving these bags of rubbish into the household rubbish bin. He was wearing uniform, so I could hardly mistake which business he had come from even if I had not seen him come out of the door, and it was obviously commercial rubbish.

Meanwhile, a couple of hundred yards away, on Shirland Road, I was walking along one teatime when a man emerged from some flats. he was an upright gent in his seventies, with a tweed cap and a stick, and he proceeded to throw a plastic bag of rubbish at the base of a tree. He did this with no subterfuge or embarrassment; in fact the bag flew past me across the pavement, but he didn't turn a hair. I suppose I was the more shocked because he looked like the sort of person who might be vociferous in complaining about such anti-social behaviour, but instead was completely shameless.

This is the more vexing because at St Peter's we are constantly accused of being responsible for bags of rubbish against the trunks of trees. There are quite often bags left along the pavements near the corner, and people (particularly from the flats next door) assume that our hall users are the ones who do it, when in fact they are not. Our regular users know the rules and know that they are to take their rubbish away. In fact they produce little rubbish anyway. So now I am laminating signs to put up on trees asking people not to dump rubbish, which I expect will have as little effect as the ones I put up urging people not to feed the pigeons.