When Sparks Fly...

Earlier today, as I watched the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh on television with my wife, I felt a lump in my throat as we watched the Queen sitting all alone at her seat inside St. George's Chapel within the walls of Windsor Castle. I, too, was almost about to cry as we watched her sitting all alone, mourning for her beloved husband. Almost her entire face was obscured by the brim of her black hat and also the black face mask she was wearing. To me, for her to wear a mask while sitting alone, away from all her family members, seemed so unnecessary, especially when she is already fully vaccinated and the interior of the chapel happens to be very large and spacious. However, not far away sat her two married grandsons: Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge and his younger sibling, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex.

Sometimes I wish I was in Prince Harry's shoes. No, not because of his title of Duke, neither because of his wealth and not because of his fame and social standing either. But rather, had it been me who flew back to the UK from California to attend my Grandad's funeral, the first thing that would cross my mind would be to ask to be brought to my older brother, Prince William, who is second in line to the throne. 

The Duke of Edinburgh's Coffin.

If he consents, I would then run into his arms and allow my tears to wet the shirt covering his shoulder. I would plead for forgiveness and full reconciliation, as both of us had emerged from the one and the same womb. The ball would then be entirely in my brother's court. Would he accept my plea of repentance? Or would he push me away so hard that I actually stumble backwards across the room? 

I felt a sense of sombre while I watched on TV both brothers walking behind the coffin. But unlike at their mother's funeral back in 1997, this time, these two brothers weren't walking next to each other. Instead, their cousin, Peter Phillips, was walking between them, as if acting like a human barrier, just in case these two brothers were to suddenly pounce on each other. 

Come on! As if such an incident would have ever happened. Not at Prince Philip's funeral.

Here, I try to look inside the Duke of Sussex's head while he's under quarantine, a tongue-in-cheek attempt to analyse his train of thinking. 

                                                                   **********

"What rotten luck it was to have someone beat me to the throne even before I was born. From conception onwards, I will always play second fiddle to my older brother William. It's like having a carrot held in front of two moving donkeys, but no matter how fast I can run, I'll never get to eat the carrot. The other beast is head and neck ahead and the gap between its mouth and the carrot is getting narrower, albeit slowly.

"Being initially third in line to the throne still sounds pretty good. I have already jumped in front of my two uncles, Princes Andrew and Edward. But trust my brother to marry Catherine - or Waity Katy, as that Daily Mail columnist, Amanda Platell, used to call her. How Platell loved to show some contempt at the future Duchess' apparent idleness before she married William. Then later, as soon as a baby is born to them, it would take my place as third in line, pushing me back to fourth.  

"Then how could I forget 2003? That was the year I finished my studies at Eton. A real posh school. Fit for a prince. But that doesn't really solve anything. My older brother also attended Eton. Our Dad Charles should have sent him up north to Gordonstoun. Perhaps the school would have made more of a man out of him. After all, Dad attended, but he was so miserable there, so I was told. Maybe that was why both of us attended Eton instead. 

"Then my gap year and that awful trip Down Under! While there might have been other British tourists visiting real attractions such as the Great Barrier Reef, instead, I had to work as a cattle rancher. Or a cowboy as they called him. Cowboy? Nah! Here in the UK, a cowboy is a dodgy builder - or any swindler who charges an exorbitant price for delivering shoddy work or even no work at all. No! I'm not a cowboy, and I don't want anyone to call me that. I'm a prince, for heaven's sake, even if I have to spend the whole of my life under the shadow of my brother.

"Coming to think of it, this is the funeral of our Grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh. During his lifetime, there are legends that he had quite a tongue. Let's see. Asking the President of Nigeria, who greeted him whilst dressed in formal national garments, if he was ready for bed. Commending a black Brit who was born here that her English is surprisingly superb. Then that bit about calling the Japanese "slitty-eyed." Or was he referring to the Chinese? It doesn't matter, anyway. As the Media cried out throughout the last week, his death marks the end of an era. Yea, I know what that means. The British Empire and all the white supremacy which went with it. No wonder Philip took the p*ss out of anyone who might look a little different.

Prince Philip when young.

"Going back to that trip in 2003. Australia, a Commonwealth nation. A former colony in other words. How the British subjugated the indigenous Aboriginals who lived in that land for maybe thousands of years. So, if I'm a rep of the old Empire, how dare they assigned me as a rancher! Playing a role in maintaining the Reef, surely this would have been a lot better. None of that poo stench one would expect at a cattle ranch. Coming to think of it, I wonder if the Duke of Edinburgh would have loved the Reef? He was so much into the natural environment and the threat of climate change, even my father inherited the same set of traits, which is also parallel to the views of David Attenborough. 

"As a rancher and knowing that I must play second fiddle to my brother, had made me feel miserable Down Under. Then they began to accuse me as one of those whinging poms. Okay, perhaps I did feel like a Prisoner Of His Majesty's Service but had they treated me more like a Prince than a Pom, then there would have been nothing to whinge about. 

"But since Mum's death and her funeral, I made every effort to get on well with William. And so we both did. We were inseparable. The bond between us couldn't be broken, no matter what strain it was subjected to. But to live under his shadow, always playing second fiddle - why does anyone need to question the way I had behaved before I met and married Meghan? Why was it that through being an extrovert, I managed, quite successfully to woo the nation, making me the second most popular Royal after the Queen?

"And those parties I loved attending! On one occasion, I was caught topless by a passing photographer. What a scream! Especially when my pic made it into the national newspapers. And then having started the Invictus Games back in 2014. What a success they were. Not to mention the polo games I played, which I had inherited from both my father and grandfather. Oh, I loved it, really loved playing in the rain and ended up drenched and mud-splattered. Like that, I can shine my own light to cancel out William's shadow, at least for the time being.

"Then Meghan came along. Wow! What a raving beauty! And with African bloodline, this, to me, has enhanced her beauty. And this film star had recently divorced her husband. Yea, I know what the Bible says. That is, if a bloke marries a divorcee, he commits adultery. And my Grandma is the Defender of the Faith and head of the Anglican Church. And there was a time when our Church forbade divorcees from remarrying. But with the advance of Darwinism, much of that is discarded. A divorcee she may be, Meghan is the one for me.

"After the wedding and after the close of the honeymoon was when reality began to percolate into our lives. That was when a split between them and us began to show. It was Meghan who shone a light into my soul. How would I have ever known that by being a Royal myself that I too, had the imperialistic mentality festering in the subconscious? I wasn't even aware of it, and coming to think of it, none of my family members had ever been aware of it. Yet, here it sits in the subconscious mind - and has an influence on everything I think, feels, says and do. I guess it's his subconscious that made Grandad make such gaffs to his non-white hosts.

"And when I told her about that stag do which was held at Windsor Castle. I attended dressed in a Nazi suit. It was meant to be a lighthearted gaff, a fancy dress party. But it was Meghan, with her darker skin and therefore, more sensitive to these issues, who revealed to me my subconscious intuition. It was after all this was revealed to me that my imperialistic intuition got to me, and feeling rather ashamed of my Royal upbringing, I became more inward-looking and withdrawn. Meanwhile, the rift between Willian and me became wider, which also gave me another perception of the whole institution.

Prince Harry at a polo match.

"And just as Grandad became ill and was hospitalised, this interview with Oprah Winfrey came along. Really, it couldn't have been at the worst time. As Grandad was in a London hospital, recovering from an op, it had to be Meghan who accused our family of racism. What she was doing was revealing this intuition that dwells in their subconscious without any of them being aware of it. But I guess it can manifest itself in one way or another, such as in Grandad's gaffs, a sensitive question that was asked of Meghan, or even the way I dressed for a party. For her to accuse the Firm of racism was the final straw which broke the back of our relationship camel with William. No wonder he was furious!

"If it wasn't for royal protocol, I think William would have punched me hard in the mouth! I bet he was itching to do just that. Whew! Talk about flying sparks! Therefore, had I had the chance, I might have called William over and had a talk in the hope of cutting a trail towards reconciliation of some sort. However, with the pandemic, I had to quarantine as soon as I entered the UK. I couldn't see anybody for a week, let alone William. But to be honest, do I really want to make it up to William? After all, both he and his wife had upset Meghan before now. It's no surprise that I too feel agitated over this whole issue, and withdrew from royal duties last year.

"Why, oh why, wasn't Meghan better accepted by the rest of the Royal household? The British Empire was all about national white supremacy. It was out of this fruit of Empire where this human maggot grew within and crawled out. Charles Darwin had certainly left this dark brown stain of Evolution within the apple, making it inedible. I have already been reading the funeral schedule during isolation. It involves staying separate from my brother.

"But Psalm 104 will also be read out during the service. It's all about God's Creation. Something the Duke of Edinburgh believed in. Oh, the nation will bow its head momentary whilst it's read out aloud. But after that, it will be universally discarded with Darwinism fully embraced.

"It's all about pageantry. Nothing more than that."

The Day I'll Talk to the Queen...

A strange atmosphere is at present shrouding the whole of the United Kingdom. It began about midday yesterday, Friday, April 9th, 2021. Thank goodness such an announcement wasn't released eight days earlier. It could have gone down as the cruellest April Fool's joke anyone would have thought up.

Suddenly, everything in the Media had changed. Before yesterday, the centre of all attention was focused on the British-made AstraZeneca vaccine and whether there is a link between it and the few deaths which occurred following a blood clot in the brain. And so, arguments for and against this theory kept on swinging back and forth, baffling the experts. And that is despite in a recent poll, 69% of the British population say that far too much fuss was made about the vaccine-clot link, while only a mere 16% disagree, while a further 15% weren't sure.

The AstraZeneca was invented at Oxford University.

Having received my first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, I'm eagerly waiting for my turn to receive the second dose, and in no way would I allow such a controversy to get in between! Especially if the stats show just one to four blood clot-related deaths in 1,000,000 recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine.  

However, through means of the daily feed, we are told that at the time of writing, there were a total of Covid-related deaths equalling 127,040 here in the UK. Not a single victim named. No faces, no familiarity. Instead, it's all about numbers. Just numbers. And not a single name appearing on the remotest corner of any newspaper page. And so, the Grim Reaper never takes a day off. Rather like Santa Clause on Christmas Eve, he goes roaming around the globe, but instead of giving out presents, he takes one human life after another at a shockingly high rate. And he's not even polite enough to first knock on the door!

Then the news comes in that HRH Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh had just passed away. One news anchorwoman changes out of her brown outfit to don a black one. And male correspondents, journalists, reporters, and all others involved in the Media, including those behind the scenes, all strip off their current ties to make way for their black ties. Others who feel more comfortable wearing an open-neck shirt suddenly produce a black strip of cloth like a rabbit out of the magician's hat. It was as if everyone was expecting the Grim Reaper, sooner or later, to invade one of Windsor's apartments without an invitation.

And as death will come upon all of us without exception, most will see death as just a natural part of the evolutionary process. And it goes to show how cold and pitiless Evolution really is, as it pushes on with its survival of the fittest. This process of Natural Selection - could this be why a tourist who visits a Safari Reserve can only do so in a protective jeep or similar vehicle? Any lion, tiger, or other carnivores would have no special respect for a tourist. Rather, the satisfying of her hungry stomach and the welfare of her cubs would always be its priority.

And the same applies if our Queen and Prince Philip had ever visited the park. They too would have had to ride in the jeep. The big cats would never favour this royal couple above everybody else and spare them. The same applies to a visit to the local zoo. London Zoological Gardens has a VIP entrance which is separate from the public entrance. But once in the park, none of the animals born in captivity would give this couple any more attention than everyone else. Rather, the keeper will order the Royals to stay out of the tiger's pen, just as he would have ordered anyone else to stay out. Likewise, with our supposed closest relative, the primates, none of them would bow to the Queen any more than they would to any casual hipster.

Therefore, for the whole nation, along with its former colonies, to go into mourning over the death of just one person - whilst over 127,000 die of a viral disease without a single bat of the eyelid. According to the Daily Mail newspaper of Saturday, April 10th, 2021, the first 35 pages are fully devoted to Prince Philip and the whole of the century of his life. Then on page 36, Specsavers Opticians placed a full-page advert pic of a delicious vanilla ice cream cone, complete with a Flake bar, before the paper begins to cover other, less important news, including a set of national statistics on the AstraZeneca vaccine. 

Is ice cream good for eyesight? Food for thought, perhaps.

But here, I would like to set the record straight. I have never had any issues with the Monarch or her kin. I believe that over the decades she has done a wonderful job as Sovereign. Likewise, the Duke of Edinburgh had always been her backbone, supporting her throughout her entire reign, especially during difficult times when Charles and Diana divorced and afterwards she was killed in a car accident. He stood by her, and quite likely, had played a vital role in preventing the institution from disintegrating.

But what I find so incredible is how just one man's death brings the whole nation mourning - while many died within a month of a positive test result for Coronavirus - and each victim of the virus looked upon merely as a statistic without a name. And yet the Media goes into overdrive when just one man dies. Nothing new here, this sort of monarch-worship is not confined to Britain. Rather, this had been ongoing for thousands of years elsewhere.

The Royal Couple, taken in 2019.

But like the virus, death does not discriminate one person from another. It will get us all eventually, that is if each one of us is a descendant of our first parents, Adam and Eve. It's that awful reality, so out-of-sorts, so unnatural, and so invasive. It has caused families to grieve throughout history, it can cause a whole nation to mourn, yet when a wicked or cruel man dies, there is often a sigh of relief - as the environment is at last free from his grip, power or influence. I wonder how many felt relief when news of Adolf Hitler's death made the headlines?

As death doesn't discriminate on who it will hit next, yet there is one man who had defeated death and is alive now, Jesus Christ, who is of Jewish descent. And one day, after every believer alive throughout the ages is resurrected, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Great Equaliser.

The Revelation of John the Divine is the very last book of the Bible. It's also known as the Apocalypse by the Catholic church. The book consists of letters written to seven churches located in what is now western Turkey. These letters are then followed by a series of prophecies of the future, with the establishment of God's eternal Kingdom. The whole book is centred on Jesus Christ himself. Its author, the apostle John, experienced a series of divine visions while he was exiled alone on the Greek island of Patmos. 

In chapters 21 and 22, John describes a glorious city, the New Jerusalem, "coming down out of heaven." It's a city of tremendous size, which indicates a very large population. The city will be surrounded by a wall with twelve gates which will never be shut. This may indicate access to the rest of the world, glorious in beauty with an abundance of lush vegetation, along with mountains, valleys and streams of pure, drinkable water, as the whole Earth is restored to an Edenic paradise. Somewhere in the city, the throne of God is established, and with Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God enthroned, there will be easy access to the throne where anyone can approach, without hindrance or any form of special preparation, and talk to God face-to-face, like a man talking to his friend.

Apparently, 24 more thrones look to be established, twelve on each side of God's throne. One set of twelve will be seated by all twelve tribal heads of Israel - each of the twelve sons of Jacob. The other twelve will be occupied by the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Each will be easily approachable, with no need for special preparations beforehand.

I believe that next to the throne of God, there could be a crucifix. If so, then this will be placed there to remind everybody that they are in his presence because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ which had defeated sin and death altogether. 

Not a single "good deed" done by any of its inhabitants have ever earned a place in this city. Instead, by atoning for every sin by dying on the cross, every inhabitant has God's own righteousness imputed into his soul whilst still in his old life, and this imputation comes by faith in the risen Christ. In other words, God had saved every single believing individual now alive in the new world.

And this includes the Queen and Prince Philip. Not because of their former status but because of Christ redemption on the cross. It also includes every Christian I have known personally, and it includes my beloved wife and me.

Alex will be a ravishing beauty, her face shining. Likewise, both the Queen and Philip will look as if they're in their early thirties, and each one of us will be approachable. There will be no security guards surrounding them and no need for escorts.

And thus the Queen is walking arm-in-arm with her husband. Alex and I approach and all four of us can engage in a conversation, with then relating to us on what the life of a monarch was really like, while I relate to Alex's past illnesses and how she's so wonderfully delivered. Since there's no shortage of time and nobody is in any hurry, the happy chat between us can last for quite a while. We would never get bored with each other, nor suffer any form of impatience, and there will be no "we must move on" attitude.

I can imagine a table placed near the banks of the river which will flow from God's throne. At this table, the four of us can sit, and enjoy eating the fruit that grows continually on the riverside trees. Then, great men of the Bible are often seen and there are times when we can talk to them and allow them to relate about their former lives. The prophet Daniel, for one, can tell us what it was like spending the night in a den of lions. David can tell us how he felt when he killed Goliath. Gideon tells us how he doubted God's faithfulness and how he tested him twice using a fleece. Samson tells of the day he had a haircut. Noah then relates to what it was like taking care of both his family and all the animals on board the ark for a year. Finally, Abraham comes along and points to the cross standing next to God's throne. And to God we all bow.

How the Cross of Christ levels everything and everyone! Maybe that was meant by a prophecy that in him, valleys shall be filled in, every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked ways made straight and the rough ways smooth. The gross inequality between the death of Prince Philip and the victim of Covid will be levelled off and made equal. All it takes is to believe in the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and salvation will come to us all in all equality. 

Easter: Read Between the Lines -

An atheist was cycling along in a built-up area when a car suddenly emerged from a narrow, one-way street without stopping to give way. However, the rider had a quick reflex and he swung his handlebars to the left just short of ploughing into the side of the car. The manoeuvre caused him to fly off his mount as the front wheel ploughed over the kerb. How he hated those wretched T-junctions, especially in an urban area when buildings on each side of the turning concealed any traffic approaching from the left.

He lay for a moment on the sidewalk, the bicycle next to him with the rear wheel still spinning while the front wheel suffered a buckle, rendering the whole machine unrideable. But worse than that, he was suffering pain where his impact with the unyielding concrete had grazed his skin at one knee joint, another graze at his left wrist and an ache at his hip indicating the formation of a bruise. At least his face and head were okay. A blow to the cranium could have been fatal. Perhaps, in future, the purchase of a cyclist's crash hat is a worthwhile investment.

He locked up his damaged bike onto a post, followed by a need to wait for the rest of the traffic to clear, then he crossed the road to make his way to a nearby Costa Coffee. As for the "idiot driver" - either he didn't see the cyclist approaching, or if he did, he must have put his foot down pretty sharpish, as the car was nowhere to be seen. How about the driver pausing to give an apology and to ensure that his victim was all right? Come off it! What planet do these fantasists live on?

Unfortunately, not the heavenly planet where God is supposed to be enthroned. And as he sat with a cappuccino and a croissant in front of him, he began to ask questions in his mind about this imaginary guy in the sky:-

You who sit on your cosy throne, surrounded by angels all pampering to your comforts, if you're there and suppose to love us so much, then why all this suffering? And why did that bloody idiot had gotten away without any hint of punishment?

I bet you had never felt any pain, not to suffer wounds where I could easily pick up a bug that causes sepsis and other stinking infections. No, of course not, not whilst sitting on your cosy throne. I bet you have never known what's it like to feel hungry or thirsty or to feel tired, exhausted, or covered in sweat, or even to feel cold.

And consider the evils of slavery. I bet that in your perfect world, you have never been humiliated, to be put in your place by your owners, to be made a mockery of. Huh! You don't have to be a slave to suffer that. Just take a look into the playground or in the gym locker room of my old school. And poor, spectacled Joe, with his paunchy belly and buck teeth. I bet you have never been pushed into a corner and kicked, along with all the revilings, teasing and laughter those bullies constantly throw at him. He sits crouched in the corner, his face buried in his arms, weeping silently, and already thinking about taking his own life. Hence the sheer worthlessness he feels, simply because he doesn't fit in with the crowd. Then the master arrives and barks at him, ordering him to change into his kit and join the rest of his class for the basketball lesson, knowing full well that no team captain would choose him.

And you know, God, about those born into slavery - just by forgetting to call his miserly master "Sir" -  he gets flogged with a leather whip across his naked back. Lash after lash pulverising his skin while he screams, begging for mercy while his master revels in his own evil satisfaction. While you continue to sit enthroned with all your angels playing on their harps, entertaining you.

You say that you created us. You say that you have people you call your own. Heavens! If there is such a lousy Designer, it has to be you, if you really exist up there in the sky.

At this point, the atheist pauses in his thinking. He takes a sip of his cappuccino, but the emotion he was suffering caused his throat to convulse slightly as he swallowed, sending the liquid down the wrong way. He started to cough raucously, attracting attention from the other customers, who looked on with sudden alarm as if he was a virus superspreader. One or two who were gazing at him in the queue turned and walked out of the coffee bar before their turn came to be served.

Feeling angry at their reaction, which is intensified by the constant ache he felt in his knee and wrist, he felt the need to defend himself. So he called out:

My cough isn't caused by the virus! I gulped and it went down the wrong way! There's nothing to worry about!

At a nearby table, a female toddler began to cry for no apparent reason. A small piece of cake can be seen quivering on her tongue as she wailed. The atheist, who is unmarried and having no children of his own, wondered what's it's like being a parent. It didn't cross his mind that the child was alarmed by the man's loud reassurance. As her mother tries to comfort her daughter by embracing her and sitting her on her own lap, the young man, still gazing towards the young girl as her crying ceased and swallowing her food, remained on the thought line of parenting, and he began to think about a very disturbing set of incidents that had brought unconsolable distress to one elderly father.

Poor little girl! I wonder whether I might have scared her. But those who walked out of the cafe - they make me sick! Geesh! Just as well this is not the Greater Manchester area. Those drug dealers living in this decrepit terraced house in a slum area. By heck! We might have colonised half the world during the days of Empire, but heaven help us, we are the masters of slum-ugliness when it comes to home-building. And all this makes me wonder what is there to be proud about.

Poor Toby! He set up his patch within the same turf as Larry and his lads. Larry then made very careful plans including giving away his mobile phone to one of his gang members so he couldn't be traced. He then invited Toby to come to his home to set up a drug deal. When Toby arrived, he was shot five times, all point-blank. Later, at the mortuary, the dead man's father was called in to identify him.

"Oh, bloody hell," he cried. "Yes, he's my son!" Wow, never would I have thought that such pity over his father's loss, combined with such a statement would send shivers down my spine. Supposing this hell is real. That's why I hate this Christian faith. There is this invisible man in the sky, sitting comfortably on his throne, and you must love him unconditionally or end up in hell. At least that was what Mum's church taught, anyway. As for Larry, well, right now he's serving more than thirty years in prison.

What a way to live! I guess a lack of proper education and thus, remaining unemployed has really screwed those lads up big time. And rather than claim benefits, they turn to drug dealing. Not merely to survive but to make big profits. And woe if you step on another's turf! Unless you're desperate to buy the field...

This invisible guy in the sky. If Mum's church is anything to go by, then those who call themselves God's people are a world away from all those I had described. Well-to-do, educated, holding down professional careers. There are even many undergrads who also meet there. Really, I don't understand at all.

Does God really associate himself with these guys? What with a life of comparative ease, maybe identifying themselves with this cushy number sitting on his heavenly throne. They say that one day they will be like him, for they shall see him as he is. One day in the future? Huh! They are just like him right now. All have a similar thing in common. A nice, cosy, middle-class family.

Again, the atheist pauses in his thoughts as he watches the mother at the nearby table rise and taking her daughter, lowered her into her pushchair. Although at that moment, many kids of her age would start crying over the loss of freedom to move around, this one didn't make too much of a fuss, only a couple of whimpers. Then the mother walks away, pushing her daughter's chair towards the door, leaving the table piled with an empty coffee mug, a cup half-full with orange juice, a plate with screwed up wrapping paper next to a piece of uneaten muffin, along with enough crumbs scattered across the small round table which will provide some work for the staff member responsible for clearing up.

As more people pour into the coffee bar, the atheist saw how a messy table was very successful in deterring everyone looking around for an unoccupied table to settle down at. As a vegan, the atheist also knew that he couldn't touch a muffin, as its ingredients include milk and eggs. Fortunately, it was possible to make a cappuccino with almond milk, an ingredient from a vegetable source. And to him, such a way of life is entirely justifiable, as he is free from the conscience that he is contributing to the intense suffering and slaughter of so many animals, including the forced separation of the calf from its mother, just to suit the tastebuds. A far cry from the Judeo/Christian culture of meat and dairy consumption.

Eventually, he rose from his table and made his way to the exit. He makes his way to the locked bicycle and unlocks it to wheel it to a bicycle shop a couple of blocks down the street. He has already decided that a new front wheel, identical to the old one, would suit both his bike and his pocket.

As he approached a narrow alley, he pauses, and still holding on to his bicycle, he looks up towards the sky, and cries out, oblivious to anyone within earshot:-

Oh God, I don't believe you exist - but if you do exist, I bet you have absolutely no idea what it's like to live as a human down here.

I bet that you have no idea what it's like to feel tired and hungry or to feel thirsty in hot, dry weather.

I bet that you have absolutely no idea what it's like to suffer rejection, to feel lonely, to feel what it's like to have all your friends desert you. I bet you have never experienced any form of bullying, just like poor Joe. I bet you never felt a pariah in society, to be mocked, teased, hated, made fun of. I bet you have no idea when you thought a best friend you thought you had, turned and betrayed you for the sole reason of making money and getting rich. 

And I bet that since you sit in comfort, enthroned in heaven, you have absolutely no idea what it's like to suffer pain. Unlike those poor, wretched slaves, I bet you had never felt the lash of a whip across your back. Unlike them, I bet that whilst sitting on that throne, you can't even imagine what it would be like to suffer flagellation - to have a whip with bits in to pulverise your skin to the point when you're almost about to lose consciousness, then leaving you lying on the ground whilst they laugh and mock at you. Yet history is full of such cruelty.

I bet you don't know what it's like to be put to death as a common criminal. And history does testify of those who were victims of a miscarriage of justice - they died while actually innocent. I bet you never went through any of that, O God. Just think of it. Some of these death sentences involve cruelty beyond which human imagination can ever devise. But you, O God, of course, would know nothing of the experience.

If you exist, you are just an invisible entity in the sky.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We wish you all a happy Easter. God bless.

Am I Becoming A Brexiteer?

On a typical weekday evening when all scheduled programmes were taken off air simply because the powers-that-be decides to hold the Six Nations Rugby Final on a Friday evening instead of a Saturday afternoon, we made our own decision to switch to the BBC iplayer. Not that I was totally uninterested in rugby - I prefer to watch rugby rather than Association Football. That is Soccer to all American readers. The Final was between France and Scotland. I guess that anyone with a trace of common sense would conclude that either France or Scotland would lift the trophy. Not so. If Scotland wins this game, then the trophy would be lifted by Wales, who didn't make it into the finals.

Six-Nations Trophy - won by Wales, 2021.

Confusing? Maybe I should be, but again, for a game which is played among posh boys attending fee-paying private and public schools, we plebs wouldn't understand, would we? Indeed, Scotland did defeat France by a narrow margin, and so all the Welsh celebrate with jubilation.

And so, what did we watch on the BBC iplayer? A movie based on a true story. The movie was called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which tells the story of a young Malawian teenager, William Kamkwamba (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) who saves his family from poverty due to the deforestation of the land for industrialisation. And the son's dream was against the wishes of his father, Trywell Kamkwamba, who was hostile to his son's ideas and even gave him a beating.

When the boy was escorted by his proud father into his bedroom, my heart fell, as he saw, for the first time in his life, his school uniform arranged neatly across his bed. It was identical to the uniform worn by any English schoolboy. Not surprising, as Malawi was a protectorate of the UK for 73 years between 1891 and 1964. Therefore, his new set of clothes would include a tie - to be worn at school even within a tropical region. But his wearing of the uniform was short-lived. His family was unable to keep up with the school fees, and he was eventually expelled.

But during his short spell at school, he saw a dynamo fixed to a bicycle belonging to one of the teachers. And from there, he crept into the school library (after he was expelled) to find a book on how electric power was generated. Eventually, he developed within his active mind a way to salvage his family's welfare and fortunes during a time of drought.

His solution was a windmill, which he designed and built with the help of his friends. Once fully erected, and as the sails rotated by wind power, this turned the wheel of a bicycle on which the dynamo was attached. This charged the batteries which powered an electric pump, itself found at a local dumpsite. This pump drew water from a well and irrigated the field on which the family would grow their own crops - even during a drought.

The beatings the boy had received from a sceptical parent turned into a tight hug from a believing and very grateful father. Even the school staff came to visit to inspect the windmill. Both Alex and I were taken aback - feeling rather aghast, really. This was a true story. It actually happened - an intelligent young black teenager and his incredible active, optimistic and reassuring mind, who can shame the so-called "civilised" minds of some English public school students. 

As the family was sliding into poverty and hunger, yet it took a bright teenager with an imaginative mind to turn around his family fortunes. Despite having formerly been expelled from school, he did end up at university - Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. What a contrast all this is to a report I read in today's Daily Mail.

The report, from two journalists, Paul Bracchi and Clara Gaspar, centres on two schoolgirls, Izzy Myatt, a former pupil of the James Allen School for Girls, and Georgina Edwards from the same school, who were both sexually harassed by the boys of the neighbouring Dulwich College, a prestigious public school. According to their testimonies, the frequency of such misogyny has normalised into a culture of its own which was kept under cover - that is - until the recent rape and murder of Sarah Everard after being abducted from Clapham Common by a Metropolitan police officer, Wayne Couzens. This had motivated many of the girls to bring into the light this kind of misogyny to the public's attention. The kind of harassment that had taken place among public schoolboys was not only at Dulwich College, but also at Latymer Upper School, St Pauls, Eton, and Westminster, among others.*

It is this type of misogynic culture which had made me look upon this glorious country with an element of embarrassment. Then to add the 1993 killing of Stephen Lawrence by a gang of white racist youths, along with the institutional racism among the Metropolitan Police dating as far back as the post-war Windrush generation entering the UK on June 22, 1948. With such imperialistic history associated with the UK which many an Englishman holds with pride, I find the concept of European Union membership an excellent idea, in a sense being one in a kind of international family.

The real William Kamkwamba

The same nation that dipped its hand into black profits during the slave years, denouncing the Negro to that of a mere animal, and then having the audacity to show African children how to dress smartly for school - wow! That beats me! Hence my sense of disappointment when William Kamkwamba, a son of a family of farmers, was shown the uniform for the first time. I know this is just me, and most likely alone in such thinking, I'll admit that.  But when considering that the tie was worn by the criminal fraternity. Ron and Reg Kray, for a start, of the notorious East London gangsters, wore suits and ties during their active career of crime. The killers of Stephen Lawrence wore ties as they walked from Court as acquitted men, due to a lack of evidence from the racial-motivated Met Police, who also wore ties. Then not to mention the Mafia and other corrupt business tycoons who normally wear ties.

Then you wonder why I thought that this Malawian teenager wearing an English-style school uniform would corrupt his innocent mind, hence my disappointment. Thank God it didn't!

Back in the early 1970s, I voted for the UK to enter what was then the European Common Market. The EU, which grew out of this, was meant for all nations - all 28 of them, to allow all trades to flourish easily between them, along with the ability to settle in any country within the EU. On top of this, the issuing of the EHIC medical card, allowing for free healthcare across Europe, had mitigated much anxiety over the possibility of falling ill while on holiday or business. Furthermore, the Schengen Agreement allowed a traveller to enter different countries without border checks. Thus, when we crossed into Belgium from France on the Eurostar in 2019, the train didn't even slow down. What a contrast to 1973-1975 when the train stopped for a long while at the French town of Modane for individual passport checks before crossing the border into Italy. Schengen has done away with such delays, but how unfortunate that the UK was never part of it.

And thus, with a closer tie to my ancestral Italian home, I have always been an ardent Remainer. And I get annoyed whenever I read the words, Remoaner, Remidiot, or Remainiac (although only the first word was commonly used.) And should I be surprised as such words were coined up by the smug Brexiteer whose gloat over the other side's loss would have been shamed by the likes of young Kamkwamba?

My crushing disappointment after the 2016 referendum was never allayed. Even at present, there's that lingering wish that we had stayed in the EU and carried on enjoying the benefits such membership would have offered. But it's more recently, with the present vaccine fiasco, that I'm wondering whether we had done the right thing to leave the European Union. Whether we would now benefit economically or not, or whether trade tariffs would get in the way at our ports, this is not the point. The Concept of EU membership, to me, is magnificent. Just as the idea of internal combustion is the best way to get a vehicle moving without involving horses or bulls. But if the car breaks down, you don't question the concept of the internal combustion system. Instead, you fix or replace the engine.

Three principal leaders have brought the whole of the EU into bad repute. Ursula von der Leyen, who is President of the EU since December 2019, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron, has each hesitated to allow the rollout to go full power while, at the same time, threatening the exportation of the vaccines into Britain, hence heightening the risk of a rise in infections over here while our own rollout slows down as a result.

I won't hesitate to admit that the UK had done extremely well with the vaccine rollout compared with the bloc. I think the main contribution to this was instead of hesitating, as the EU leaders did, we signed contracts with various companies for the import of vaccines as soon as the pandemic began, long before any vaccine was developed.

I'll be clear:

Due to a crisis in the vaccine rollout, voting to leave the EU in 2016 was the right thing to do.

But that doesn't make me a Brexiteer. It doesn't make me a patriot. It does not make me a Royalist or even a supporter of the Monarchy. It does not make me believe that the English are superior in nationality, race, moral, religious or civil ethics. It won't change my bloodline from Italian to English. Neither would I ever embrace the delusion that England is God's country (this claim is for Israel only.) Rather, I'm pointing the finger at the bad leadership under which the EU is suffering.

As I'm aware of the incorrigibility of the human heart, the presence of sin and the need for atonement, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Therefore, it's no surprise that such behaviour arises from these leaders - the feeling of jealousy, and envy towards Britain for first voting to leave the EU and then setting contracts in place while across the Channel, the leaders over there baulk over the safety of the vaccine and hesitate.

The dynamo used by Kamkwambo

However, instead of sitting smugly on our sofas and with arrogance, gloating over Europe's misfortune, perhaps we need to follow the example of William Kamkwamba and make efforts to assist Europe in the manufacture and distribution of the vaccines - and that done in compassion and gritty determination - even when faced with opposition. Together, we need to fight this virus and make efforts to save the lives of these Europeans, as they are too made in God's image, just as William Kamkwamba is made in God's image, as we are.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Daily Mail Newspaper, Saturday, March 27, pages 10-11.  

Thankfulness Arrives - After 63 Years!

Every weekday morning up to September 12th, 2015, or at least nearly every weekday morning throughout our then sixteen years of marriage, just before rising, I ask my sleeping wife in bed next to me: 

Would you like breakfast, dear? Or more realistically: Breakfast?

When she normally answers in the affirmative, often with a sleepy hum which tone I can interpret, I then utter a groan:

Doh! Another day to face! - As if such was another day on the battlefront, in prison, or attempting to teach, without much success, a class of rowdy and verbally abusive pupils while at the same time forbidden by law to keep a cane in my desk drawer, as many staff members did half a century earlier.  

No, it was none of these. Rather, as one self-employed and depending on my own initiative, and without a boss to tell me what to do, or to cover for me if anything goes pear-shaped, to set out to the street I'm currently working in to ensure that I return home that evening with enough cash in my bag to keep our stomachs full, to keep our bodies clothed, to keep a roof over us, and to satisfy all creditors.

A bowl of Malted Wheat for breakfast is ideal for both of us.

And so, a typical morning in the life of a window cleaner. Hoping for a smooth sail - or ride - whichever way you interpret, sometimes it won't be as I hoped. The bright sky allowing sunlight to stream through our bedroom window looks so inviting, thus, doubting the day's forecast. But soon, clouds gather and eventually, the heavens tip a heavy shower over our locality. Then the customer comes to the door with the announcement that she does not have her windows done during wet weather.

No payment coming from that house, then.

At another property, the front of the house had received a facelift with a sloping roof built beneath the two front bedroom windows. One way to reach them was to stand on the recently-wetted roof tiles and risk a slip and a fall to the ground - very much like the accident that occurred in September 1997, which was exactly what happened, fracturing my right shoulder and ribs, and also causing a small wound on the scalp which dyed the whole of my hair blood-red and puddled the concrete step where I landed. After five days in hospital, I had to take a further two months off work with my arm resting in a sling.

With further wrestling with the weather, it was business as usual. Whether we had rain, snow, fog, wind, or warm sunshine soaking my shirt with sweat, by the grace of God, I managed all 35 years of it. And this includes the unexpected - a client messing around whilst deliberately delaying payment or even giving me a bag full of pennies, losing customers due to the sale of their property, or being made redundant, a death of an elderly pensioner, or disputes - usually about payments - that can so unexpectedly arise. There was even one occasion when this thirty-year-old asked me to take a tight screw out of the wall of his property after struggling unsuccessfully with it. I climbed up his ladder and turned it without too much difficulty. But was he pleased? Rather, I became scum, a target for his expletives! Oh well, busting egos wasn't meant to be part of the job.

Then you wonder why I said back then, I have another day to face.

However, retirement wasn't all a sense of relief as I first anticipated. Rather, I was suddenly aware that I had just turned a page in my life book. More than that, a chapter ended and a new one begins. A chapter that is titled, 

A Pensioner.

A pensioner. Whenever I imagine a pensioner, I tend to visualise an elderly gentleman and grandfather with wrinkly skin and thinning white hair, stooping forward as he relies on the support of his walking stick, trembling as he slowly makes his way on his three legs. And now, I'm one - a pensioner. Yet this isn't a definition of a mere elderly gentleman. Rather, he is defined by his income - the money he receives to live on. The same money as a wage, salary, or even benefit, but this one with another name, the one which defines old age.

A pensioner I might be, simply because the income I receive is called a pension. But, thanks be to God, I bear no resemblance to the elderly gentleman I had described above. Instead, I could pass myself off as in my forties or fifties. I need to be. My current job is to love and look after my partially-disabled wife. Thus my need for regular exercise and sensible eating. I suppose there is no such thing as retirement in a true sense of the word, at least for the Christian. Rather, I merely changed jobs.

But this changing of jobs has brought a whole new dimension in my perception of life, and that is, to be thankful for each day God gives me. It's to be thankful for the appreciation of the finer things in life - the benefit to serve Christ in a way by giving to those in need, whether time, money or even both. And to appreciate God's mercy. And I'm talking here about the rollout of the vaccines for inoculating against the virus. 

Since I see the vaccine rollout as a wonderful act of God's mercy, I grieve when I hear about or read of some of the stuff put out by anti-vaxxers. I am aware of at least four people, all of them Christians, three of the four are women, one of them giving an almost convincing argument that this worldwide vaccination programme is the forerunner of the coming Antichrist, and therefore paving a way to receive the Mark of the Beast described in Revelation 13 - even though each jab has no resemblance to what is written in the Bible.

This kind of false news which anyone can write on Facebook can be frightfully convincing to anyone not fully acquainted with Holy Scripture. But the vision to get a vaccine out to combat Covid-19 as soon as possible was shared among middle-aged, professional women, rather than by men in suits.

Soon after the outbreak of the pandemic early in 2020, a 45-year old Cambridge graduate, Maddy McTernan, spent a night at her desk negotiating for contracts with firms such as Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer and AstraZeneca for millions of doses to be made and delivered to the UK before even one vial was produced. Sarah Gilbert, Teresa Lamb, Annette England, and Kate Bingham were the pioneers for the development of these vaccines which would, I hope, eventually free us from the grip of the pandemic.

And so, God's mercy works through these people and all the teams of scientists involved in developing such inoculations against the various strains of the pathogen. But instead of giving thanks and glory to God for such mercy shown, many, and Brexiteers in particular, began to act with aloofness against the EU, when a lack of proper coordination and fearmongering among its leaders has set the EU into a disadvantage when it comes to the vaccine rollout across the Continent.

As this arrogance begins to make itself felt, with Brexiteers going as far as laughing at Europe's misfortune, such statements appearing especially on Facebook, what I have found as a comforting rebuke, also on Facebook, is taken from Proverbs 24:17-18:

Do not gloat when the enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.

The trouble is, English Brexiteers has acted arrogantly against Europe and gloated over its failures. And such evil attitudes are also found among Christians, who should know better. This can make it difficult to fellowship with them. It takes a greater effort of the Holy Spirit at work within to stay friends with them, to do them good and to show hospitality. But as long as this gloating is kept up, sooner or later the tables will be turned. Although God is God, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and his ways than our ways, it still may not be too difficult to fathom out what might happen in the future.

And that, the EU vaccine rollout will eventually accelerate until the disease is brought under control, alongside a growing economy among member nations following the end of the pandemic. In turn, although Britain might, by then, have brought the virus under control, its economy might suffer as a result of the new trade tariffs affecting imports and exports of goods, along with the dispute affecting the borders with Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and perhaps a further collapse of its interior economy in one way or another. And who can guarantee that The Troubles will never restart? Or be free from the threat of international terrorism? Indeed, with such fears, everything has always looked to be so fragile. 

And such fragility of emotions had reared its head again only this week when two presenters of BBC Breakfast, Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt, made a gag against Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick on the morning of Thursday, March 18th, 2021, regarding a British flag and a portrait of the Queen, both on display in his studio. I never watch these chat shows at all, as they tend to be a drag and boring, but I couldn't help take notice of the fuss surrounding this incident, right in the wake of the Meghan/Winfred scandal. Then, in today's edition of the Daily Mail, I read of Amanda Platell's tirade against the BBC as a whole for allowing these two to "lambaste" Jenrick.

The word "lambaste" is a pretty strong word to use for what was meant to be a lighthearted joke. But all this shows a fragile, eggshell culture of national insecurity. Platell goes on to say that there is no other country where its citizens poke fun or criticise the presence of its own flag.

Perhaps I can see what she means. Having visited both the USA and Australia, I saw that both take great pride in their flag. In the States, its Stars and Stripes flies from the flagstaff of every administrative building, while in Australia, the image of the Southern Cross Constellation with the British Union Jack at one corner reveals the pride the Aussies have in being one in the Commonwealth. I recall one morning when I stayed at a hostel at the Queensland resort of Hervey Bay, which is also the launching pad for ferries to nearby Frazer Island, the world's largest sandbank. It was here where I asked to cash a US$ Traveller's Cheque. I was almost to the point of being told off for daring to request for such transactions on the Queen's Birthday, which, Down Under, is a public holiday. Fortunately, I had my credit card at the time, which bailed me out from a sticky situation. Then my friends wonder why I'm sympathetic towards Republicanism!

It's so unfortunate that the English St George's Cross had been taken over by far-right extremists, who tend to fill football stadiums with their racist chanting against non-white players. Relegating black players to the level of monkeys is an insult as a direct result of Darwinism, itself having grown out of England's fertile soil.

Naga Munchetty

Being in such a state of mind on a national scale seems to have made any joke or comment against patriotism something of a threat to the nation's wellbeing, as did Meghan Markle's accusation of racism in the Royal Family. Just as Piers Morgan's loss of temper over that incident, so Munchetty's crack at Robert Jenrick's flag had rocked Amanda Platell's boat.

Perhaps 2 Chronicles 7:14 may provide a worthwhile piece of instruction for this sorrowful state of our nation: 

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

"My people" refers to the people of Israel who were under the reign of King Solomon. But this verse can be applied at present to the Church, itself a nation of born-again believers who are meant to be devoted to Jesus Christ. To my mind, the behaviour of some of these Christians, especially those who voted Leave, was and still is, appalling.  

Reading the Old Testament book of the prophet Daniel, chapter 9 and verses 4-19, provides an excellent template on what intercessory prayer for our nation should consist of. It is worth patterning our prayers to this template and with thanksgiving for God's goodness and mercy, bring our intercessory prayers to God with a sincere heart. 

A Real Earthquake or Imagined?

Spread out in front of me is the six-page Crisis at Palace special report, compiled by two Daily Mail journalists: Richard Kay and Guy Adams. Following these six pages are two more full pages taken up by a further two authors: Dominic Sandbrook, and the newspaper's editor, Geordie Greig. Of all four writers, Sandbrook's reassurance that the Firm will keep the UK flag flying despite the recent crisis brought on by Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, will be an encouraging read for many.

Generally speaking, the Special Report feature is a direct rebuke to Harry and Meghan, literally debunking every point brought up in their interview with Oprah Winfrey at their Californian home on Sunday of this week. But even before the broadcast went out across the UK on the evening of the next day, the media was awash with what was said during the interview, with a very high percentage of the UK population saying they will refuse, or can't be bothered, to watch it on television.

Harry and Meghan interviewed by Oprah Winfrey.

Even I had to admit that at first, I couldn't be bothered to watch an interview frequently broken by commercial breaks. Moreover, the Press kept on insisting that the programme will be up to two hours long, implying that the interview itself was of that duration. By Monday evening, after so much banter from the Media, I have decided to watch it, commercial breaks regardless. It lasted for less than two hours. Instead, the whole programme took between 105-110 minutes, but allowing for the series of commercial breaks and snippets of their past lives combined, my estimation was that the actual talk itself didn't take much more than an hour, maybe 75-80 minutes if a coffee break between the three was thrown in.

The next day, Tuesday, March 9th, something of a brawl developed between Piers Morgan, one of the presenters of ITV's Good Morning Britain, and fellow host, the weatherman Alex Beresford, who himself has mixed-race blood. And here is the crunch of the matter. Morgan bluntly called Meghan Markle a liar for her testimony over a conversation having taken place between her and an anonymous member of the Royal Family, concerning the colour of the unborn's skin whilst pregnant with Archie. This accusation of racism within the Royal Family had raised Morgan's temper while Beresford, in a rebuke, told him not to be so insulting. At that, Piers Morgan replied, I'm done here, and stormed out of the studio.

If there were any examples of sheer irony, then they surround the resignation of Piers Morgan from the Good Morning Britain chat show - and that was mainly from the readers of The Daily Mail newspaper. On the Online version of the article, there is a long forum of comments actually praising Morgan's accusation of Meghan's lying tactic. Here, he is seen as a national hero, a bulwark defending the institution of the Monarchy. But in the past, Piers Morgan was usually a constant target of ridicule, and whenever he posted an article in the newspaper, the forum column which followed it always contained expletives and harsh criticism.

And now, here is this eight-page spread defending the Firm and thoroughly debunking Markle's accusations, especially the one about racism within the institution. Throughout the week, not a single day had passed without the Media giving it a rest. I'm wondering why - why such an outcry? Did the interview really pose a threat of accusation against the Family? Personally speaking, I doubt it very much. It isn't a real earthquake, only an imaginary one.

Did Harry and Meghan lie? To be honest, I don't know. But if she did lie, then why would she do such a thing? What would they gain from denouncing the Firm and bringing it into disrepute? But again, if she was telling the truth and an accusation of racism was aimed at her and her offspring, what benefit would she had gained in such a public interview? National sympathy? Instead, all had backfired on her, with more than 50% of the population doubting her testimonies. According to a poll, the majority of those who supported Markle were in their twenties age group, whilst the majority of those who doubted her were from the older age group. Similarly, those who favour Republicanism, up to 30% of the UK population, were mostly from those under 30 years of age.

Although such reporting looks to every reader to be an honest refutation of all of Meghan's remarks made in the interview, I can also point out that there were times when the Daily Mail had not been thoroughly honest, especially when reporting about Brexit. I'm referring to an article written by one of their columnists, Stephen Glover, on April 13th, 2017. It was an attempt to refute novelist Julian Barnes' report and publication of the murder of Labour MP and Remainer, Joe Cox, by a right-wing maniac and Brexiteer, Thomas Lair. The killing itself took place on June 16th, 2016. The conviction of Thomas Lair took place at the Old Bailey on November 23rd, 2016, more than five months after the murder. Julian Barnes recorded the events very accurately. But the Vote-Leave Daily Mail columnist tampered with his words, thus making out that Remainer Julian Barnes' source to be inaccurate and misleading.*

Writer and novelist Julian Barnes.

But I shouldn't have been surprised at this. Back in April 2017, the editor of the Daily Mail newspaper was Paul Dacre, a devout Brexiteer, and one who had a big influence towards the swaying of the national vote for Brexit. Yet another irony - the newspaper itself is owned by Lord Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere who, I believe, voted to remain in the EU. The present editor, Geordie Greig, who took over Dacre's post in September 2018, is also reputed to be a Remainer.

This outcry against Meghan Markle's accusation against racism in the Royal Family, I find astonishing! But it shouldn't come as a surprise. Especially that we have a female monarch, one whose been on the throne since 1952, and loved and adored by the majority. What I find interesting is that had the monarch been male - a king rather than queen, would the national outcry and media reporting be just as intense?

This reminds me of an incident that took place on April 9th, 1989. In the House of Parliament, the opposition leader, Neil Kinnock, took a swipe at then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by calling out "Immaculate Misconception" and "The Assumption of the Blessed Margaret." The Catholic Church was in an uproar! Bishop Alan Clark of East Anglia wrote to the opposition leader describing how offensive the remark was to Catholics in regards to Mary, and that letter was backed up by one written by Cardinal Hume as a sharp rebuke to Neil Kinnock, emphasising the seriousness of the insult in regards to their Mediatrix.**

The way I see it, the emotional reaction between the Catholic Church to Mary, when compared with Piers Morgan's storming off from the studio, looks to be remarkably similar. Mary is the mediatrix, or an intercessor, between the Catholic and Jesus Christ. Our present Queen's status as Head of the Church of England was handed down from King Henry VIII, who proclaimed himself as Head of the Anglican Church after his request to Pope Clement VII to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon was refused.

Thus, it could be implied that our Queen holds the same status as the Pope - to intercede on behalf of the nation and its Church, to God. I'm even wondering whether our female monarch has, in a way, replaced the Virgin Mary as an intercessor - even if only in the subconscious - and therefore perceive her as a kind of saviour-god, and therefore resulting in greater emotional intensity when challenged than if our monarch had been a king.

This drawing towards a female deity to intercede on our behalf has always been perfectly natural. The want of motherly comfort when faced with discipline from a strict and unaffectionate father - it's no surprise that the Catholic Church has far more shrines dedicated to Mary than to Jesus, and more prayers are offered to Mary than to Jesus Christ. The following is one typical Catholic prayer offered up:

Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose love for us is so ill-requited, I offer and consecrate myself to you forever to make some return, as far as in me lies, for your maternal tenderness and to make up for the wrongs inflicted on you by so many ungrateful children. Deign to accept this humble but sincere offering. My soul, my body, my life are yours, and since I belong entirely to you, defend me and protect me as one who is all your own.***

This expression to Mary as a maternal deity is not new. The Muslims honours Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed. Back in Roman times, Artemis and her son Horus was deified. The Greeks worshipped their goddess Diana. Ancient Persia had Ahurani. In turn, the Babylonians had Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, the Assyrians worshipped Astarte and the ancient Egyptians had their goddess, Isis. History seems to indicate that a mother-goddess is a suitable, more intimate intercessor between the worshipper and heaven than a stricter male entity obsessed with discipline and punishment.

Nevertheless, ancient kings such as the Egyptian Pharaohs and Roman emperors were deified, which called for the building of Egyptian pyramids for their tombs. When the ancient Egyptians realised that their kings were not gods after all but mere mortals, the pyramids were exchanged for mere holes in the ground. There were many such insignificant graves in the Valley of the Kings. In turn, the imperial obligation to honour Caesar as God has put many early Christians in deep trouble for insisting that their Saviour Jesus Christ as Lord above the Emperor.

Egyptian Pyramids - Pharaohs seen as gods.

Personally, I have no issue with the Queen, her sons or her grandchildren. Rather, as I see her, with the majority of Englishmen, she stands for long-term religious, political, economic and sovereign security and stability. Even though I, or anyone else, may actually not see her as directly interceding to God, in a sense she is. Not for nothing that our National Anthem begins with God Save our Gracious Queen, at least in a way that she provides a sense of intercessional security, nationwide salvation. At least that's what I think. And under this sense of national stability, the true Gospel can spread.

It's my opinion that there is no need to panic over the interview between Harry, Meghan and Oprah in any accusation made against Royalty. The Palace will ensure that all members of the royal household will come out of this crisis in good form, and everything will then be fine.

If this interview is seen as an earthquake shaking the Royal Family from the roots, it isn't. Instead, it's only an imaginary earthquake. It will pass...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 *For my blog from the archives, which covers this issue in greater detail, click here.

**Michael de Semlyen, All Roads Lead to Rome? 1991 Dorchester House Publishers, page 55. 

***Rev Robert Nisbet, But the Bible Does Not Say So, 1958, 1966, Church Book Room Press.

The Allegory of the Two Canteens.

It was one of those days when I had mixed feelings after returning to work after a month-long holiday. There I stood by my machine, a large precision metal-grinding lathe. As the front axle for a yet-to-be-built aeroplane was rotating on its spindle, my job was to transform the dull chrome coating of the exterior to a beautifully-polished mirror-like finish, yet keeping with the precise measurements specified in the drawing printed on the sheet dangling over the tool locker located next to the powerful machine.

The machine I worked on looked similar to this

It felt strange being back in such familiar surroundings once again. I looked up towards the ceiling, just to straighten my back a little. The roar of a crane passing overhead, running on railway lines fixed close to the inside of the roof, all the way from one end of the huge building to the other. The driver in the crane's cab stops his vehicle directly above a neighbouring machine and lowers the hook to be attached to a huge section of an aircraft to be lifted away from the milling machine, that particular stage of its construction completed.

Presently, two other workers, young men about my age, were passing through the workshop to go somewhere. One of them paused to take a good look at me as if thoroughly examining who I was. Then both approached, and asked,

Did you walk the streets of New Orleans French Quarter a few weeks ago?

I was stunned by their question and answered in the affirmative.

The two then explained that they too had taken a trip to the States at the same time as I did, and they too had travelled across the North American continent on the Greyhound bus in the same way as I did, using the same Go-As-You-Please Ameripass ticket, which was in those days in the form of a book of vouchers, each one valid for each stage of the journey. 

With some astonishment, the same one asked if I went all the way there on my own, which I answered that yes, I went on my own which was, for me, the normal manner of travel, whether near or far.

By heck, you're brave!

Brave? A rather unusual compliment, no doubt, but I felt exhilarated by their praise, nevertheless. But having already backpacked Italy, Israel, and lately, North America a year earlier in 1977, this second transatlantic trip completed in 1978 shouldn't, in my view, be classed as brave. Rather, I was just being myself.

Then again, perhaps to some, there may be a degree of bravery needed whilst stopping at New Orleans. After alighting from the Greyhound Bus at the end of a journey from San Antonio in Texas, I found a room at the YMCA in the new town area, a short walk from the French Quarter. At the communal showers, whilst freshening up after a long journey, an older man sat at a nearby bench, gazing lecherously at my groin. This sort of thing can be quite frequent during my 1970s travels, nevertheless, I still wouldn't classify such an experience as bravery, even if I felt uncomfortable in his presence.

But going back to the job at hand. There is something so satisfying in my role on the lathe. Especially on a part of an aeroplane, in this case, the front wheel axle. Such was a way to earn a living at British Aircraft Corporation, later changed to British Aerospace, due to its coupling up with the missile division of the same company, located in other areas of the UK. This was not long before I had to move on.

There was something about the shop-floor environment in which the unusual could happen. Like the time when a fellow worker, Martin by name, was transferred from the Apprentice Department, where small parts such as door handles and toilet seat hinges were made, to the adjoining milling department where much larger parts were worked on. He had a dislike for me, thinking that I might be gay. And he didn't keep quiet about that either. Therefore, a rumour about me was well known across the shop floor.

One afternoon, Martin had a huge, solid steel girder set up on his machine. Suddenly, the girder swung, flying off his machine and pinning him to the floor. The accompanying noise caught my attention. As I turned, I saw him gazing helplessly at me as he went down under the weight of the girder.

Others who watched the incident all burst out laughing. Nobody came to his assistance. Instead, they all kept on laughing at this lad's misfortune, perhaps seeing this as an entertaining distraction from the monotony of the day. But immediately, I went over and lifted one end of the long girder, allowing him to crawl out from underneath. Together, standing at each end, we lifted it back into place while he instructed me to hold it in place while he secured it. The laughter stopped. Martin restarted his rotary milling cutting blade while I returned to my own machine.

Whether it was the look of shock I had when I saw him go down or not, however, a new friendship was created. It was Martin who invited me into the firm's clubhouse and there he bought me a drink - in front of all his mates who held a bad reputation against me. They were all quiet, gazing at me as if feeling ashamed. This Biblical exhortation to "pour hot coals on the enemy's head" seems to have taken effect.

I saw Martin again sometime later. After several months, I could see the result of his prolonged unfulfillment in his life. His once-superb physique had ballooned out to a beer belly at still a young age.

New Orleans French Quarter. Visited 1978.

British Aerospace Works, at the Surrey town of Weybridge, was extensive during its heyday, with several buildings on the one site, which was a former motor racing track. That means, there were many office staff among us, housed in on-site office buildings. We all, in our department, had a locker assigned to each one of us, each containing a blue protective overall we had to wear during the working hours, hence the term, blue-collar workers. By contrast, the office staff came in dressed in a suit, shirt, and many (but not all) wearing a tie. As I have seen in the past, it was not difficult to tell those who excelled at school from those who didn't. 

What I had observed was that those at their desks were generally slimmer, more fitter and of athletic build than those who wore the blue overall. One office staff member, Trevor Thomas, was a Tug O' War champion whose image appeared in the 1979 edition of The Guinness Book of Records for winning three medals for England in the European Open Championships. When Thomas and I sat at the same dinner table one lunch hour, he asked me whether I recognised him from the famous book. When I answered that I didn't, his face dropped. Then, after pulling himself together, he explained to me the ins and outs of Tug O' War, and he also invited me to partake in the family tug to be held nearby, a few weeks later.

I didn't take part in the tug. By then, I already knew that from our chat at the dinner table, Thomas wanted the satisfaction to defeat me. A little unfair to say the least! A champion versus a first-time novice? However, on the day, his White-C team did win against our Blue-C team. Quite easily. From that day on, he seemed to have had a huff against me for not participating. 

By contrast, Martin was the symbolic representation of many who earned their keep on the shop floor. Here, there were several fatties around, especially from middle-age upwards. Moreover, Mr Thomas was ten years my senior. In turn, Martin was four or five years my junior. But the level of fitness between the two couldn't be more contrasting.

During its earlier days, there were two canteens, each exclusive from the other. One of them housed a series of vending machines and tables for the blue-collar to bring their own packed lunches. The other was for the office staff. It had a fully-equipped kitchen from where its staff dished out hot meals. There was a time when no blue-collar was allowed to enter white-collar territory!

Thanks to the trade unions, that had already changed shortly before my arrival. The result of this casual mixing was that I made friends with a few of the office staff members, with some easily intrigued by my sharing of the Gospel. I also picked up a hint that one or two of them became jealous of my venture across the Atlantic - and even showed hostility.

It was this class division - so symbolised by two separate canteens in one building - that I made every effort to cross and then bridge the social chasm. But then, if I rightly remember, I was the only employee of the entire company who had made an effort to bridge the two classes. None of my work colleagues did, and neither any from the other side made any conscious efforts either.

My strong conviction that the Bible is true stems from verses such a Galatians 3:28:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are one in Christ Jesus.

It's in this same letter where Paul writes about the sharp rebuke he had delivered to Peter, recorded in Galatians 2:11-14. Here, Peter - from a Jewish background - along with Barnabas, was eating with some Greek believers. Soon a group of Jewish Christians arrived. When Peter saw them coming, he and Barnabas immediately withdrew from the Greek company. It was then when Paul rebuked him in front of them all.

How much this reality is still needed in churches to this day! According to one newspaper article,* those without an adequate level of education tend to suffer greater distress and from greater uncertainty of the future. Alongside this, such favouritism given to those with higher education and higher social status, according to the article, not only makes those who failed at school feel inferior and maybe useless as well, leading to higher anxiety levels and subject to greater illnesses - but also does not demonstrate the power of God.

How I looked in 1978.

Most of my church life, all of 47 years of it, consist of middle-class culture. Unlike Peter, no Christian I have ever known had deliberately separated from me whenever I walked in. Rather, it's liable to occur in the subconscious - that classic lack of a greeting whenever I walk in, but with no hostility. And now, with the latest technology, there are some middle-class Christians of my generation who refuse to connect with me on Facebook. Also, on that same social website, if one grad posts a photo of himself or with his wife and family, he could collect as many as a hundred "Likes." But if I, a not-so-good-looking or insignificant person were to post a similar photo, we'll be lucky to reach into a double-figure number.

I guess here in the UK, the blue-collar and the white-collar canteens may both reside in the same building, but the wall separating them will never have a door in it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*The Guardian Online, 05/03/2021.