An Open Letter to a Flat-Earth Denier.

First of all, I need to explain why I'm writing this. Harrison Cother, an ex-Jehovah's Witness turned atheist, had recently posted a video on his YouTube channel. It contains a very plausible set of explanations on why the Bible must be discredited as historic. His presentation is so powerful in making sense that anyone unwary is likely to be convinced that the Bible is ridiculously unscientific, and even accuses God, who inspired the Bible, of deliberate falsehood by telling the ancient Hebrews that the Earth is flat, thus presenting a small but significant social and spiritual danger. I feel that it's the right thing to stand up for Jesus Christ and the Faith delivered to His saints.

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Dear Harrison Cother,

May I, first of all, say that you're the sort of chap I would feel privileged to have as a friend, a man I can trust, someone I would respect, the person I'm quite happy to have a chat with at a Costa or Starbucks. And, in no way would I feel that whatever you say to me would pose any threat to my faith in Jesus Christ and my belief in the truthfulness of the Bible. Also, I'll be the first to say that your videos are well and professionally made. A skill which, unfortunately, I don't have. Therefore, I fully commend the skill required for your presentation.

However, on Twitter, you asked me how I accused you of mocking the Bible after reading the title of my last blog, How an Atheist Mocks the Bible. I was unable to answer your question on Twitter due to the website's restricted input. Therefore I thought it would be better to answer your question here on this page.

Why am I writing an open letter instead of a private one to you?

It seems fair to both of us that since you posted a video on YouTube to be viewed publicly, it's also appropriate to write an open letter in reply. But I have wondered whether I have used the word mock correctly in the title or not. If I rightly understand the English language, the meaning of the word is either to tease, to poke fun at, to scorn with sarcasm, or even to treat a serious matter as a joke. It could also mean to imitate. For example, a recently-built property could have its exterior facelifted to make it look as if it was built during Tudor times. Therefore, we refer to that house as mock Tudor.

Cother's Video from his channel, The Truth Hurts.

After I read your question on Twitter, I watched your video again to get a better idea of what you're trying to say. Afterwards, I realised that it might have been better had I titled my blog as How an Atheist mocks the Christian Creationist, or How an Atheist Mock Modern Christians. However, I still feel that the word mock was correctly used in this context, even if I should have been more accurate with the object of the title. As such, I apologise if you find my blog title disturbing.

Harrison, I'm aware that you have bad feelings against the Watchtower organisation. I wouldn't be surprised if you're harbouring a feeling of bitterness or even anger over your realisation that you grew up under a deception. And I'm also aware that your motives behind the making of your video were not poking fun. Rather, it was to expose a supposed fallacy of the Bible teaching or endorsing a flat-Earth cosmology. Therefore, I ask you to keep on reading what I'm writing here. With as much kindness and fraternal love I have for you, I would like to demonstrate that the Bible does not teach or imply a flat-Earth model. Indeed, it cannot.

In your video, you centre your argument on the belief that the ancient Hebrews thought that the Earth was a flat disc under a vaulted dome you call the Firmament, implying a hard inverted bowl which within, the sun, the moon and all the stars rotate. Here, I come straight to the point. No way does the Bible endorse your interpretation of its texts! And here is the reason why I used the word mock in my last blog title. I sincerely believe that you are more intelligent and have more common sense than what you allow me to see in your videos.

Here, I'll illustrate what I mean. You say that the ancient Hebrews believed that the Earth is flat, and furthermore, God inspires his prophets to endorse this cosmological model and then, years later, inspires Paul to write that all Scripture is "breathed" by God and therefore, He cannot lie.

Take another look at your flat Earth model, Harrison. You see that the sun, moon and stars are all inside the dome, and the sun and moon are moving on a level circular path some distance above the Earth disc. This results in multiple problems - the main error is that no ancient Hebrew would have backed your theory nor testify of any truth in it.

In your model, the North Pole is bang at the centre of the disc. There is no South Pole. Instead, Antarctica is presented as an ice ring marking the edge of the Earth, and it's on the edge where the mouth of the Firmament meets, thus resulting in a sealed vault enclosed by the dome. Since the sun is always above the surface of a flat Earth, there cannot be any sunrise nor sunset. 

Yet the Bible says,

The sun rises and the sun sets - and hurries back to where it rises - Ecclesiastes 1:5, also Psalm 19:1-6.

Ecclesiastes 1:5 is exactly how any ancient Hebrew would see the sun - it rises from the horizon towards the East and sets at the horizon towards the West. This is a poetic statement rather than a scientific one, also known as an idiom, but it always was, and is, and will be seen by every human.

But your flat-Earth cosmology does not allow for this phenomenon. Imagine yourself standing on the Shard lookout in London. At 309 metres high, the Shard is the tallest structure in London, if not in the whole of the UK. Then imagine a friend of yours in New Zealand, standing on the summit of one of the Southern Alps mountain peaks. Assuming it's a clear day and, to make things a little easier, it's March 21st, Spring and Autumn Equinox in the UK and New Zealand respectively.

It's 12.00 noon in the UK. As you face directly North, the sun would be just behind you, positioned directly towards the South. However, your friend in New Zealand can also see the sun above the horizon, far in front of him whilst facing North. Across a flat Earth, the sun never rises or sets. Instead, the sun would always be in the visible sky. The sun, being so far away, would be seen by your friend as a very bright star, but considerably smaller than the sun you can see from your angle. Neither would it be totally dark over New Zealand. Rather, the twilight from a faraway sun would still be strong enough to obliterate all but the very brightest stars. If both of you remain standing where you are for the next twelve hours, then the whole scene would be reversed. You will see the faraway sun as a bright star while your friend will have it just in front of him, positioned directly towards the North.

That contradicts Ecclesiastes 1:5. Apparently, Harrison, the Bible does not teach a flat Earth.

Back in 1994, I was a volunteer at a Christian Conference Centre near Haifa in Northern Israel. It was late June and the sun blazed down as I worked around midday. I looked down at my own shadow. It appeared directly below me. Actually, the Centre was located in a small village of Isfiya, which is 32.43 degrees north of the Equator, or approximately nine degrees north of the Tropic of Cancer. A vertical pole fixed to the ground where I was standing would have thrown a short shadow pointing northward, with its tip forming an angle of nine degrees from vertical. If I was to return to the same spot six months later in late December, assuming it was also sunny, the shadow cast by the pole at midday would be considerably longer, with its tip approximately 55 degrees from vertical, as the sun would be directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, 23 degrees south of the Equator.

And it was precisely that which inspired the ancient Greek astronomer Eratosthenes. In 240 BC, he used the angle of the shadow at two locations to work out the circumference of the Earth. Therefore, it must be assumed that the Greeks at that time had already known that the Earth was spherical. If ancient Greeks, Babylonians and Egyptians going as far back as Abraham's day and beyond, knowing that the earth was spherical by their accumulated knowledge of astronomy and astrology, then there is no reason why any Hebrew throughout history would believe that the Earth is flat.

Erastothenes' demonstration.

Eratosthenes had most likely believed that the known Universe was geocentric. He, along with all other ancients before Galileo, thought that the spherical Earth was at the centre of what we now call the Celestial Sphere, and the rotation of this imaginary sphere is why the sun rises and sets. Astronomers of the present use this model as a means of studying the stars, and the famous London Planetarium is also based on geocentric cosmology.

Harrison, you should also note that the flat-Earth theory arose around 1880, and that was to counter Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories. The original idea of the Hebrews believed that the Earth is flat was concocted by Darwin's followers to specifically ridicule the Bible and deny its historicity, thus enforcing Darwin's theories as truth. But before Galileo, the Church always taught that our planet was spherical. This was taken from Aristotle (born 384 BC) who taught that the Earth was spherical, and he might have influenced Eratosthenes more than two hundred years later. Until Galileo, the Church believed that the Earth was round and geocentric.

When Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter through a telescope for the first time in 1609 AD, he thought up the idea that, rather than the Earth being geocentric, instead, the then-known Universe may be heliocentric. This brought him into conflict with the Church, who believed that the Bible taught a geocentric Earth which was backed by the pagan Greek philosophers of ancient times. Actually, the Bible doesn't teach either a flat Earth or a geocentric Earth.

The Celestial Sphere is used as a model by today's astronomers.

As for the Firmament, you mention a great deal about this in your video. The first chapter of Genesis correctly refers to it as expanse, rather than firmament, as in a hard or solid dome. Also, God calls the firmament heaven. Yet, Paul refers to "a third heaven" that one of his associates had experienced and lived to tell his story (2 Corinthians 12:2-4.) This says a lot! If there are "three heavens" - then one can conclude that:

The first heaven is our atmosphere. Within this zone, all the "birds of the air" fly. Above the atmosphere is "the abode of the sun, moon and the stars" - that is, outer space, but included as within the "expanse" -as, from ground level, the first and second heaven is indistinguishable, especially at night. Then the "third heaven" - this is the spiritual realm and therefore not physical to our five senses - is where the throne of God is. If this is all true, then to make the language fully understandable to the ancient Hebrew and at the same time also scientifically verifiable, the "waters above the firmament" refers to a layer of water vapour in the primaeval atmosphere that was separated from "the waters below" when God created the Earth's atmosphere on the second day of Creation. 

The collapse or a partial collapse of the water vapour above the atmosphere was most likely the source of the waters "from the windows of heaven" - from above the firmament. If the waters were "restrained" rather than fully emptied when the windows were closed, that could mean that not all of the vapour had dispersed, as you insist.

Also, you should consider, Harrison, that most of the Bible references you have quoted in your video were poetic idioms. The Bible is not a science book. It was never intended to be. Therefore, God had to communicate to His people in a way they can understand. One example is the Hebrew word raqiya, meaning to beat into shape like gold being beaten into sheets. Since the expanse is not solid, God used a Hebrew word as an idiom to represent that once created, no other agency can change the properties of what he had made. The same applies to the "pillars" of the Earth, set on a firm foundation and thus immovable. The ancient Hebrew understands the word "pillar" far better than if he would understand the words "mantle" and "core" of the Earth.

Yours in Christ,

Frank.

How an Atheist Mocks the Bible

How fortunate I was to enjoy a warm, sunny day for my birthday earlier in the week. Smack in the middle of September and just a few days before the Autumn Equinox. Officially, it's still Summer. Yet so far, September has proven to be more summerlike than August here in the UK, the latter with its daily overcast sky and almost cool enough to turn on the central heating. 

And so, a trip to London to visit a very unusual shop located right in the heart of the city, a privately-owned business, London Fossils Ltd, just behind the British Museum. Here, I bought two rather outstanding fossils to add to our four smaller specimens already at our home display.

Our Home Fossil Display, taken Sept 2021.

Perhaps, the best one of the six on display is the superb preservation of a petrified Trilobite. The specimen is exactly 7 cm long and 2.7 cm across the widest part of its head. I would say that its overall length is roughly half of a fully-grown fossil Trilobite I have seen on display at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. I try to imagine it when alive. Quite likely, it was fully submerged in the mud of the shallow ocean floor, and with a higher likelihood to escape the attention of predators and - had it survived to this day - also escape the attention of scuba divers.

According to the Palaeontologist, the Evolutionist, and the Historical Geologist, the Trilobite is classed as an Index Fossil, and it thrived throughout the entire Paleozoic Era, a duration of 300,000,000 years between 500,000,000 and 200,000,000 years ago. The Trilobite marks the beginning of the Cambrian Period, and it survived through the Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, and the Pennsylvanian periods - only to die off during the Permian Period.* Bad luck for the Trilobite, as it did not survive long enough to appreciate the rise of the wonderful coral reefs which started to form during the Permian Period of the Geological Age! To be fair, 300,000,000 years is a long time for the species to thrive, and even over such a long span, if you place the youngest fossil next to the earliest specimen, both would look exactly the same. Indeed, the Trilobite seems to have shown hardly any signs of "evolution in action."

Along with the two Trilobite fossils, I also have one complete fully petrified remain of an Ammonite Dactylioceras, along with what looks to be a petrified mud bed with many broken Ammonite coils piled on it. It's a shame that all the shells are broken. Had they remained intact, the fossil would have looked beautiful - almost artificial.

When I was a teenager, I had an interest in fossils. I was also an atheist and a very keen evolutionist. Even then, I instinctively knew that I couldn't reconcile my love of Science with Religion. It was during my adolescence was when I hated anything to do with the church. As a Roman Catholic, I found God to be quite distant and unapproachable! How could I believe that God loves me if all he does is keep a record of my sins - unless I go to confess to a priest, take Holy Communion every Sunday and on every holy day, and do penance whenever I'm called to carry it out. Or else it would be an eternity of unbearable suffering in Hell if I were to die with even just one mortal sin in my spirit. I realised that I could be a devoted Catholic all my life - and still end up in Hell! When the priest once tried to reassure me that God loves me despite my sins, I was unable to believe it. I just couldn't see myself going to church every week for the rest of my life.

Therefore, in a way, I subconsciously perceived God as an uncaring father-figure and Science as an all-embracing mother - a comforting female deity from whom I can expand my knowledge and the pride that comes with it, to give me something to live for, and to build enthusiasm for, a reason for living. For me to look around at the natural world and marvel at how everything, including us, had gotten here by chance, the amoeba-to-man progress spanning billions of years, and wondering how our distant descendants may look like and behave. As such, fossils played a role here, and during school breaks, I used to examine each of the many pebbles placed around the perimeter of the playground to drain away rainwater. Very rarely, an imprint of a scallop shell appeared on a stone picked up at random, which I took home and added to my measly collection. 

I had never kept the original collection for long. Maybe, with tiny, insignificant-looking fossils, I eventually scattered the stones across our back garden flowerbeds (discreetly!) Perhaps, it was just as well that, back in the sixties and early seventies, the Internet hadn't yet existed. Had it, chances were I would never have become a Christian towards the end of 1972. I can now click on a video made by a former Jehovah's Witness turned Atheist. Had he been around more than half a century earlier, I would have continued to laugh with scorn at religion by following his lead that the Bible teaches a flat, disk-like Earth, supported by enormous pillars and covered with a solid dome. 

Taught in the Bible?

After just six days after publishing his video on YouTube, ex-JW Harrison Cother had collected 17,000 views on that video alone, out of the 1,748,000 total views on all his mere eleven videos he began posting on YouTube since the end of January 2021. In his latest video, he insists that the Bible teaches a flat Earth.

Using Scripture verses such as 1 Samuel 2:8; Job 9:6, Job 26:7-10; Job 37:18; Psalm 75:3; Psalm 93:1; Psalm 104:5; Psalm 148:3-6; Isaiah 40:22 - this YouTuber sets out to prove that the Bible teaches the Earth as a flat disk covered by a solid dome, or the firmament, on which the "waters above" still fully submerging the outside of the dome, according to Psalm 148:4. Although by checking out all the other verses and seeing that they're all poetic, with Psalm 148:4, he relates this to Genesis 1:6-8 - the initial Creation of the firmament dividing the waters above from the waters below, as factual history, and this water above the firmament is still there, according to the Psalmist, and therefore, never collapsed during the Flood, believed by many Christians and theologians as the source of "the windows of heaven opened" - of Genesis 7:11.

Also, that the Earth is firm and immovable, according to the YouTuber's interpretation of the Bible. By using Psalm 104:5 as a proof text, Harrison Cother then insists that 1 Samuel 2:8 (KJV) and Job 9:6 teaches that the flat Earth rests on pillars as its foundations. Also, he mocks at the Christian's attempt to read the flat, disk-like circle as a sphere in Isaiah 40:22. A thought crossed my mind. Indeed, if he's referring to looking directly at the disk at a 90-degree angle perpendicular to it, would he be actually looking at a hemisphere - if the flat Earth has a dome over it? Surely, to the uninformed observer, he'll be looking at a sphere and not at a flat disk. Yet, as a child, I thought that both the sun - seen through the thin cloud - and the moon were flat disks. How would I know they were spheres unless I was taught that they were?

Anyone watching this video would be thoroughly convinced that the Bible is so unscientific, that it's laughed at to the level of derision if used as a science guidebook. For example, how can the Earth be "firm on its foundations and immovable" when it actually whizzes around the sun at 107,208 km/hour, or 66,616 mph, and rotates at 1,670 km/hour, or 1,037 mph at the Equator? Little wonder that it takes just one atheist to mock the Bible, and the rest of the unbelieving world laughs with him.

As for the fossils, they could either testify for my faith or against it. For example, the rock strata at the Grand Canyon. They're all water-laid deposits that hardened into rock. Geologists say that each layer was gradually formed in a shallow sea, lake or river. Any thoughts about a widespread or a universal Flood is looked upon with contempt. It is as if the scientific world is hostile towards God and His Biblical testimony.

This hostility towards God by secular scientists, I think, has placed many Christian graduates in a very awkward position. I, for one, refuse to feel embarrassed and I will confess my allegiance to Biblical truth. The most likely outcome to this is to be ignored, to be brushed aside. However, throughout the seventies and eighties, I met and associated with many Christian graduates who solved the problem by embracing Theistic Evolution. It's their attempt to compromise and to look acceptable in a scientific world and not face ridicule.

But I have nothing to worry about. Nor do I need to fear the mocker. I don't have to defend the Bible either. Rather, the Bible defends itself. Anyone who reads the above verses - and many others found in Scripture - can see that much of it is poetry. It seems as if the writers had deliberately put it that way so the reader, who did not possess the scientific knowledge in the same way we do, yet can still understand that the natural world he lived in was created by God for Man to inhabit. And man was originally created for intimacy with God. God had inspired the writing of the Bible as a revelation on how a sinful man can be reconciled to a holy God and enjoy eternity with Him.

One example is the criticism made by Sam Harris in his book, Letter to a Christian Nation, concerning the measurement of a circular bath installed by King Solomon near the newly-built Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 7:23.) According to Harris, this ratio of Pi is the worst and the most inappropriate approximation even in ancient times. The Babylonians can do a far better job in calculating Pi than the Israelites did, and thus proves his point in the way the Bible deals with maths.

But such criticism isn't necessary. The Bible is not a science book. It was never meant to be a book on science. Rather, it's a revelation on who God is and why we are separate from Him through sin, and through faith, we can be reconciled to God in Jesus Christ, who was crucified, buried, and three days later rose physically from the dead. And He gives eternal life to everyone who believes.

And the origin of fossils? Even the Bible gives a scientific explanation for that.

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*John C. Whitcombe Jr. and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, 1961, nineteenth printing, 1975. Baker Books. Page 133. The figures detailed here are American numerics.

Hail Emma...Blessed Among Women?

Every weekday morning, we at Ascot Life Church have a twenty-minute Zoom prayer meeting, starting at 8.30. This makes prayer life so much easier. Before the pandemic, I always avoided weekday morning gatherings. Such meetings would have included a five-mile slog on a bicycle to get there and then cover the same distance to return home. All that, just for a twenty-minute prayer meeting. Zoom is a positive spinoff from the lockdown brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic. Now, at last, and in addition to the morning prayer meetings on Zoom, we can meet in person each week for our main Sunday service, after sixteen months of virtual "worship" in front of a laptop. 

However, even when we meet each Sunday for our main weekly service, it would be much easier to find an oasis in the Sahara Desert than it would be to see somebody wearing a suit and tie. 

Stock image.

It had never used to be like this. Back in the 1990s, during my earlier years at what was then Ascot Baptist Church, there were always several men wearing ties at our Sunday services. And not merely confined to the older ones. There was at least one young man, quite likely on the Autistic Spectrum, who never showed up without wearing a tie. He disappeared around the year 2000, and he had never been seen since. I have wondered what happened to him and what had motivated him to leave.

Therefore, it took just one man, one of our elders, to appear on Zoom on Thursday morning, looking smartly dressed, when there was something akin to a gasp of surprise among the rest of us on screen. After the prayer meeting ended, a discussion arose on why this particular person appeared on Zoom wearing a jacket and tie. I was surprised that such a discussion arose, but I chipped in by suggesting, tongue-in-cheek, that the tie is a status symbol, representing snobbery and Englishness. Their response was a quiet giggle which was quickly followed by one frame vanishing off the screen, followed by another before I clicked off my screen as the meeting ended.

It's this gasp of surprise, the need for a discussion, the out-of-place appearance of smartness among a group of casually dressed adults that has reminded me of an incident one morning at the YHA Backpacker's Hostel, located in the heart of Sydney, in 1977. There was only one assistant serving at the reception desk. Whilst the other two or three seats behind the counter were unoccupied, this staff member was busy serving a customer. I stood behind him in an orderly queue until it was my turn to be served.

Just after the fellow in front had left, I was about to approach when a smartly dressed man pushed in front of me. Immediately, I felt enraged as I saw the assistant turn to him as if in reverential respect. With no light words, I told him to get behind me and wait his turn. He too became angry and protested his case on why he was in a hurry. However, realising that I was in the right, the clerk turned to me, and I proceeded to ensure my bed reservation, as I was to spend the following night at a hostel in Katoomba, the base town for the Blue Mountains National Park.

Despite my anger against this man, his smart dress consisting of a business suit, shirt and tie, made him look well out of place in a hostel full of casually dressed backpackers and visitors. But worse than his dress mode was his rudeness, his wanting of special privileges, his right to be treated with priority over and above the rest of us. This has added credit to what a colleague said to me some twelve years earlier -  there is a change in the person's character as soon as he ties the fabric around his collar. And the change is not always for the better.

All of this does make me wonder: It wasn't that long ago when wearing a tie whilst outdoors was the proper norm for the male gender. I recall from my school years, watching the Beatles rising to fame and parading themselves to a mostly female screaming public. The Fab Four each showed off in their business suits and ties. Nothing odd back then! 

Could this connection between smart dress and snootiness be the reason for the decline of neckwear? For instance, news reporters no longer wear their ties except when reporting from the studio, scientists and researchers working in the laboratory haven't worn ties for years, so it seems, neither do many medical doctors. Neither do many office staff either. All I had to do was sit inside the large shopfront window at Costa Coffee and watch the world go by on a typical weekday. Seeing a man walking by, wearing a suit and tie, has become such a rarety, he would stick out like a sore thumb in the crowd, just as that smartly dressed fellow did at the backpacker's hostel. Fortunately for them, the coffee house is directly opposite an estate agency. Outside its doors, up to half a dozen suited men swarm like bees around a beehive during their lunch break.

I have grown up with the question of why a business suit generates greater respect from society. I remember a conversation with my father many years ago. He once said that if I was, for example, enquiring about renting an apartment whilst dressed in casuals, their response could quite well be, Sorry sir, but they're all taken. But walk in smartly dressed, even with just a tie, then their response would more likely be, Yes, how can we help you? 

Even I subconsciously feel a greater sense of confidence in doing business with a suited man than a casually dressed individual. As for visiting a GP, I need to be honest with myself here. Would I be able to trust someone with shoulder-length hair and dressed in a tee-shirt under an unbuttoned denim jacket? Or would I feel far more at ease sitting in front of a smartly dressed individual whose job is to correctly diagnose my ailment and then prescribe the appropriate medicine?

Both might have gone through vigorous training. Both might have flown successfully through their final, all-important exams. Both might be fully qualified as GPs. But one looks to be serious in his profession, while the other, as far as I know, might be on illegal drugs and whose home might be a tent in the midst of a group of hippies. How can I, therefore, trust his judgement if I were to present my ailment for proper diagnosis and treatment? Yet, he could still do a good job. But I still don't have the same level of trust or confidence as I would with the smartly dressed doctor.

A visit to the GP's surgery. Stock Image

However, there seem to be many younger doctors who have shed their ties. Yet I feel no less confident than I would if they had remained formal. Rather, by him not wearing a tie, I actually feel more relaxed in what otherwise would have been a more tense environment. Even if the GP is wearing an open-neck shirt without a tie, nowadays, I still have full confidence in getting my diagnosis correct and prescribed the right medicine. My experiences with doctors in smart-casual clothing and more of their relaxed state of mind have allowed me to ponder whether there's a connection between the necktie and the British stiff upper lip. Indeed, I would prefer to be consulted by someone warmly, without any compromise of his expertise, than to be with someone formal but cold and unfeeling.

I have to admit, my attitude towards the tie had never been positive. Not only does it seem to enhance snobbery, but my negative attitude was further enhanced after looking at newspaper and TV pictures of the racist gang who murdered Stephen Lawrence in 1993. They were smartly dressed and sneering at the cameras as they walked out of Court after their acquittal due to a lack of police evidence. Then, more recently, a group of professional footballers were snapped on camera as they urinated over a balcony for a laugh, and their picture of them was published in national newspapers. All of them wore suits and ties. 

Also, the Mafia, and many other criminal gangsters, went about their business in a suit and tie. Most noteworthy were the Kray twins, who terrorised East London during the sixties. In the street, they were always smartly dressed. And not to mention the long line of defendants appearing in court in a suit and tie over the years, in their hope to have their sentences reduced or minimised, or even to receive a Not Guilty verdict. Maybe it came as no surprise that I once read that Hollywood filmmakers love to star their villains in a British-style business suit.

Yet, this culture of regarding a smartly dressed man above one in casuals remains ongoing. But even this distinction is dwarfed by the adoration of the nation towards celebrities. As someone once said, the religion of the UK is not Christianity but celebrity worship. One eighteen-year-old female shot into prominence within the last few days, the British tennis player Emma Raducanu.

According to the Media, Raducanu is the first-ever British tennis player to have won all the matches in straight sets to succeed in reaching the final in New York, still to be played at the time of writing. However, the moment I read her surname for the first time, immediately I became aware of her non-English background. A quick check revealed that her father is Romanian, her mother is Chinese, she was born in Canada, and was brought into the UK with her parents while she was only two years old. Therefore, not a drop of English blood in her. Yet our Media screams with pride for Britain having such a talented player to represent the country.

I am wondering just how the general public feels about her. Unlike all those excited England supporters we came across while we were passing through Central London on the eve of the European Cup Final, everyone around just got on with their business. There were no group gatherings on her behalf, no English or Union Jack flags waving about, no singing, no mass chanting, as there were as we passed through the crowd of cheering football fans. Rather, just this morning, I was standing in the queue waiting to collect my wife's prescription from the in-store pharmacy. Everyone else in the queue just stood and waited, perhaps looking a little morose and giving every indication that our star tennis player was far from their minds. As I stood by the shelves, I saw a notice which read: Taking items from this shelf without paying makes you a thief.

Oh, what a revelation! Of all the years I have lived, how could I have not known that the taking of items that aren't mine and walking out without the intention of paying for them is stealing? Well, I never!

But if an average Sainsbury's superstore thinks that we're all absolutely thick, then what a fascinating contrast I am when compared with the likes of Emma Raducanu. On yesterday's morning news bulletin, she was the headline, and her educational background was mentioned, if not emphasised. We now know that she attended Newstead Grammar School in Orpington, Kent, and attained an A* in maths and an A in economics. And so the nation glorifies her, or at least, the media does.

And so, this young woman shoots to fame because of her talents and her sporting supremacy, along with her academic achievements. This also makes me wonder: What if the player was male, did badly at school and was from a working-class family? And he too won all the matches in straight sets which brought him to the throes of the grand slam final victory? Would the nation cheer more loudly? Or would he be deafened by the silence of apathy?

Ex-Grammar schoolboy Fred Perry was one example. His father was a cotton spinner turned Labour politician, so I read, and as such, as working-class one can be. After winning the men's singles final in 1936, it's said that the officials refused to present him with the trophy. Instead, he had to lift it himself. After this, he switched to representing America after feeling ostracised by the All England Lawn Tennis Club after he turned professional.

Scotsman Andy Murray fared better, himself coming from a middle-class background. But even after winning the grand slam at Wimbledon in 2013, and again in 2016, although he was hailed by the media, I couldn't help but feel a sense of silent apathy here in England. None of the street chanting that had hailed England in the 1966 World Cup victory against Germany. Could it be because he has Scottish blood?

As for Emma Raducanu, indeed, our media will glorify her, especially if she wins the Grand Final. She may even be deified. By the media, that is. Not by the public in general. In a way, the Press may regard her as a source of salvation for the nation, the raising of hope after confusions with Brexit, the pandemic, the political turmoil...the one to turn to for hope, for something wonderfully positive, uplifting, even a form of salvation.

Emma Raducanu

However, I very much doubt that this tennis player would ever be exalted to the Virgin Mary of Catholicism. The one to whom faithful Catholics pray:

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord be with you. Blessed art thou among women and blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

No, Raducanu will never reach such status for adoration. Neither would she intercede on our behalf. But one thing will be certain. If she wins the Women's Grand Final tonight in New York, then Joe Public will ignore the smartly dressed man in a suit and give all their praise and glory to the young tennis player.

Touchdown Sunday, Work On Monday

An eight-hour delay at London Heathrow Airport must have been a torturous wait at the departure lounge for those destined to fly to San Francisco on October 4th, 1995. To others, also waiting for the same flight, they just took the delay in their stride, accepting their prolonged airport confinement as part of life. Why make a fuss?

Meanwhile, I was enjoying the last full day of my holiday cycling around the Californian city, built on the southern peninsula of the Golden Gate Strait. Early the next morning, I vacated the backpacker's hostel for a pre-booked airport shuttle minibus ride to the airport. After I checked in, I was told that my mid-morning flight will be delayed by as much as eight hours. The plane I was due to board had not long taken off from London Heathrow.

It's rather maddening, coming to think of it. I could have spent another day enjoying the city sights, especially around the Fisherman's Wharf area, including Pier 39, which boasted restaurants, shops, various entertainments, and even a carousel. From the pier, I could relax whilst leaning on the parapet, watching the sea lions sunbathing on the floating platforms specifically built for them. Instead, I'm now confined in the airport departure lounge for the whole day as our plane soared across the Atlantic Ocean towards us. 

Sea lions were seen from Pier 39.

Onboard, I found that I was sitting next to a gentleman who was, I believe, in his late twenties or early thirties. We started talking. He too was flying home from his Californian holiday, and he felt rather upset by the delay. He wanted to go straight to his office after landing at Heathrow. But, due to his late arrival, he now feels better to return home after landing on that Thursday mid-afternoon.

Airport delays are nothing new. In 1977, I was delayed by six hours at Toronto Airport while I was waiting for a flight back to London Gatwick. This was due to a strike among the crew. Then, in 1993, I was held up for six hours at London Gatwick due to an oil leak from the hydraulics of the aeroplane bound for Tel Aviv. As we were all waiting for a new duct to be brought into Gatwick from Heathrow to replace the faulty one, I was surprised by the calmness shown among a group of Orthodox Jews relaxing in the departure lounge, some of them even sleeping through the ordeal.

However, it's the chap sitting next to me on the return flight to London from San Francisco, I would like to momentary flash a spotlight on. Had the plane taken off on schedule, he would have made his way to the workplace straight from the airport, so he tells me. Taking in both the duration of the flight and the different time zones, that would have meant turning up between 8.00 to 9.00 in the morning of the next day, Thursday. Instead, we touched down later that afternoon - by then, it was too late for him to turn up at his office.

It was my original plan to arrive back home by Thursday morning instead of Sunday. The whole of the long weekend was what I needed to readjust to the normal weekday routine. And for me, this was necessary. I wasn't yet ready to simply leave my apartment to resume day-to-day normal living.

In 1997, I took a ten-week backpacking Round-the-World trip to Singapore, the east coast of Australia, and southern California. I took off from London Heathrow on a Wednesday, and I landed back at Heathrow on a Wednesday. After a bus ride from the airport to my home, I entered through the front door and, aside from the mountain of mail just behind the door, I was hit by the silence that had hung within my apartment for the last ten weeks.

Throughout the trip, I was never alone. Right at the start, on the train heading into London, I sat opposite one of my customers as he was heading into town to do business. There were people around me as I prepared supper at the YHA Earls Court hostel on the eve of the flight. There were people around me at the airport departure lounge. There were very few people around me as I sat alone on a nearly empty British Airways flight to Singapore, but the constant purring of the engines, along with the occasional visit of the stewardess, reassured me that I was still in good company. 

Every day, every night, at the backpacker's hostel, there were always people around me - even the occasional snore from a hosteler in the next bed to mine. Each morning, before I made myself breakfast, I showered and shaved with other men around me, all doing the same. In the evening, I cooked a meal in the member's kitchen. And when you're in such an environment, you are never by yourself. Instead, pick the right time of the day to cook a meal and the chance of making new friends is almost always guaranteed.

That is why the silence in my own apartment after alighting from the bus hit me. And the silence hit me hard. I began to feel lethargic as a deep feeling of depression took hold as I began to miss all the noise, the liveliness of people talking, laughing and bustling around as each got on in what they were doing or where they were going. I must have laid on the bed inert for quite a long time. Oh, I knew what all this was. Post-Holiday Blues.

I have read at least on one occasion that post-holiday blues is a form of mental illness. I felt it after returning home from the month-long trip to the USA in 1995 and it actually stayed with me, on and off, for months. That was why, firstly, that I touched down on home turf on a Thursday and not on a Sunday. I needed the weekend to help recover. And secondly, it also explains why I was rather shocked at my companion's original intent to turn up at his office straight from the airport. Apparently, he wasn't at all affected by the syndrome.

Green Island Coral Cay, Aus. Visited in June 1997.

Seeing the town centre as I changed buses had brought back such familiarity. This includes the bank. No longer the tall, imposing building, worthy of a snapshot, dominating the Australian or American city skyline, but a more humble edifice in which I have to deposit my weekly income into my account to pay the bills. And right at that moment, my account was depleted of any funds. All the surroundings are so familiar - the same streets, the traffic, office blocks, shops, houses, trees, with none of the tropical vegetation that was so inspiring overseas. Nothing had changed since I boarded the train at the start of the trip. At home, everything was exactly as I left them ten weeks earlier as I closed the front door behind me to head for the train station.

The ensuing silence began to get to me. And I'm certainly not alone. I would go as far as to say that the longer the duration of the trip, the more intense the blues will be. I have also read about the same London travel agent where I originally booked the flights and purchased the tickets, Trailfinders Kensington High Street. If I recall, back then, they had opened a counselling room specifically for post-trip backpackers caught in a severe bout of post-holiday blues to receive counselling. And so, as I read, the counselling room was constantly busy.

At last, I phoned one of my friends, my accountant, to tell him that I had just arrived home. However, it was his wife who answered the phone and she invited me to come round. Immediately, I made my way to their home in their leafy district of Martins Heron. The talk we had throughout the evening was very therapeutic. Their hospitality was a much-needed boost to help me along in readjusting to normal living. By the following Monday, five days after landing, I was ready to resume work as a self-employed window cleaner.

It's these sorts of experiences that had helped me decide never to adopt the Touchdown-Sunday-Back-To-Work-Monday ethic. In keeping to my own promises, on our honeymoon, we flew out on a Saturday, and two weeks later, we landed back at London Gatwick on a Sunday morning. Therefore, we planned to take Monday as a day off, and we boarded a train to Reading to buy new furniture to suit our newly-married life. My very first day back at work as a married man was on a Tuesday.

With my PhD friend Andrew having spent a week in Cornwall with another friend has admitted, he too felt a level of post-holiday blues, although I had gotten the impression that he was nothing as intense as mine, especially after the 1997 Round-the-World trip. And that despite his love of his job as an accountant. It seems that no matter how highly educated one can be - Andrew is a doctor - this horrible malady seems to have no respect on whom it will rear its ugly head. Therefore, I can imagine the lonely office girl on her commute back to work on the first Monday morning, after a fantastic holiday with her close friends. It's raining outside, the road traffic is moving slowly, and then she drives at a crawling pace past the airport from where she took off just over two weeks earlier. And she knows that her serious-minded boss will not be in a welcoming mood if she arrives late.

One of the important life lessons was never to go on a long-haul holiday with a credit card! Indeed, it seems so easy to swipe the card over and over again whilst away. Collecting items as if they were free. Then you return home and immediately, you're hit with the post-holiday blues. Eventually, you sift through the mountain of mail that had dropped through the letterbox. Although 75% is junk mail - coloured sheets of adverts ready for the bin, among the rest of the mail are a couple of credit card statements. You know that it's time to make payment. And you also know that this could be difficult until the next paycheck comes in!

That is why that I have advised a couple of my younger friends who were about to get married - including a church elder - to destroy their credit cards once they settle down. There was a time when I was burdened with debt whilst holding a credit card. At first, I thought it was fun - walking into a shop and leaving with an item without having paid for it. But the reality soon comes home to roost!

Creditors usually allow part payment if the whole debt can't be paid off at once. Although this spreads the cost, actually, interest accumulates. I have ended up burdened under a debt of several hundred pounds. That was the state I was in during the early days of our marriage. In truth, I ended up paying far more for any specific item than had I bought and paid for it at the shop.

It was when my beloved wife was pregnant with our first daughter that I came to my senses. I could not bear the thought of raising my offspring in a house under the burden of debt. Therefore, I gathered all that I had and paid off the entire debt in one go. Once cleared, I cut the card in two and phoned the creditors, asking them to close my account. At first, they weren't willing, but I insisted on it. Since then, I had never allowed a credit card in our house. 

I believe that cutting up my credit card and closing my account was the will of God for us. Jesus didn't use credit when he purchased salvation for the world. Rather, it cost Him His life. And here is a good lesson I had to learn. If Jesus chose the hard way, the way of the Cross, then isn't it more sensible not to attempt to buy anything until you have adequate funds? This includes holidays. Since I married, we always went abroad for a holiday without a credit card.

I have discovered that I can manage post-holiday blues a lot better as a married man than I was single. This has led me to believe that the bottom cause of the blues was the sudden end of companionship that I had experienced during the trip. The sudden, still silence had brought the depression, along with the presence of credit card statements waiting for me.

With Autumn just around the corner, the kids are back at school, the swimsuit exchanged for the business suit and tie, holidays recede into both memories and photo albums, another year comes and goes. Yet God, who will never leave us, remains close to us, and we can look forward to Him to sustain us as we trust in His beloved Son.