Povey Prattle

So I spent some time at my Church, (St. Boniface, Siesta Key, Sarasota, FL) for their “Christian Rock” blast this afternoon. See http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=415026344/ for the line up. I was there long enough to hear “Traphik” and “Horizons Fall”. Traphik was squeakily clean. The band members were lovely, gentle, earnest, beautifully dressed - and not very good. I liked them, and treated then to hot dogs and hamburgers after their gig. Horizons Fall was more like the real thing. Their music was sensual and passionate. The band members performed with their voices and instruments, but also with their bodies. Isn’t that what rock is all about? Isn’t that what Christian faith is all about? “Voices, instruments and bodies”. That is my kind of Christian worship! After Horizons Fall, this old fart had had enough. He is far more comfortable with opera, ballet and symphony! He (I) was sorry that the audience was “sparse” to say the le...

Winston Churchill referred to his “Black Dog”, i.e. the depression which was his lifelong companion. He spoke of not wanting to be close to the tracks/lines when an Express train raced through a Railway Station, or to close to the edge of a ship on which he was sailing - just in case. Although I’ve not had these particular concerns (i,e, I have never been suicidal), I have experienced depression as a lifelong visitor. It usually comes at this time of the year – January through March, just when the days are getting longer and spring is on the cusp. So it is not the depression which comes from winter’s light deprivation. But at this time of the year, my own black dog visits. He/she wants me to isolate, and to ignore friends an colleagues. She/he assures me that all my life has been in vain, and that none of my friends are true. My black dog has a companion of mild paranoia. I write this - not for your sympathy or concern. I will be alright come April But I wri...

No blog today. I am tired and I wanna go to bed!

The old U.K Tory Party would end its annual conferences by singing this: Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still, and wider, shall thy bounds be set; God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet! The music to which the words of "Land of hope and glory, &c” are set is the Trio theme from Edward Elgar 's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 . Americans usually call this music “Pomp and Circumstance” : they know it well as it is traditionally played at High School and College graduation ceremonies. Smart-assed British people, such as I, know that the music is but one of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance Marches”. Perhaps we’ll all agree that the words are pompous, arrogant and jingoistic. Such was the world of the U.K.’s first 20th Century Monarch, Edward VII (son of Queen Victoria). And such is still the world of modern day U.K. Tories. ================================================== Meanwhile, the Labour Party...

In 1945, just three weeks after V.E. (Victory in Europe) Day, the Labour Party left the war time coalition government, this necessitating a General Election. The swing to Labour was unprecedented, and the party then held a majority of 146 seats in the House of Commons. Winston Churchill was rejected by the electorate. He was seen as a great War time leader, but as a man who was ill-fitted to lead a post war nation. (Working people had not forgotten that before the War, Churchill had always opposed their best interests. They saw also through his foolish statement that if Labour were elected it would need a “Gestapo” to enforce democratic socialism.) Clement Atlee (deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government) became Prime Minister. (Many historians suggest that he was shocked and surprised to find himself in this role). The Labour Government enacted a great programme of reform which became the norm in British political and national life until the election of 1979 when Margaret T...

After Keir Hardie, the Labour Party lost its way. By 1910, (about the time that my Dad was born), Labour held 42 seats in the British Parliament. And in the 1924 General Election they won 191 seats. Although this was not enough to provide a Parliamentary majority, Labour, under their new Leader, Ramsay McDonald formed a Government with the support of the (by now dying) Liberal Party. Thus, Ramsay McDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister. His Government lasted all of nine months (Jan - Sep 1924), but then lost a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, and was forced to resign. By 1929 Labour was able to elect 287 M.P’s. Again, with support of the Liberals, Ramsay McDonald was able to form a Government, and for the second time he became Prime Minister. Ramsay McDonald was seduced by power. Thus he opposed the General Strike of 1926, even though this strike should have been a Labour cause-celebre. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_General_Strike_1926 He was also unsupp...

By the mid 1850’s Britain had been transformed from a feudal society, through a mercantile society, into an industrial society. The old feudal ideas did not die so easily. The bosses (owners and managers) treated the workers as though they were serfs. It was into this society that James Keir Hardie was born in 1856. Born out of wedlock to Mary Keir (a servant girl), who later married a carpenter named David Hardie, he would henceforth be known as Keir Hardie. He started work (for a baker) at aged 8, and by the age of 11 he was a coal miner. He never attended school, but by the age of 17, with the help of his mother he had learned to read and write. Keir Hardie understood the intolerable conditions of working people, and he became a union organiser. His fame spread. By 1891 he had been elected as a member of parliament for the West Ham (London) constituency. He was a fervent advocate for women’s rights; for free schooling; for pensions for working people; and for Indian self-rul...