Life is like a skating rink

"Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking towards me without hurrying." 

- Jean Cocteau

And so to the cinema. I have been to see "Le Tout Nouveau Testament", a surreal and inventive riff on the question of why, if there is a God, there are so many bad things in the world. In this film it's because the almighty is a misanthropic bully who lives in Brussels and spends his days inventing universal rules that make the life of mankind less than optimal. The one that struck the biggest chord with me was number 1522, but they were all recognisable to the audience. His daughter, with a bit of assistance from her brother (you know the chap - it's his birthday soon), rebels and tells everyone the date of their death. Hilarity ensues. No actually it does; the film is very funny.

It's a constantly creative delight featuring Catherine Deneuve, a gorilla, Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a murmuration of starlings and a whole lot of washing machines amongst many other oddities. One character, upon discovering exactly how long he has left alive, decides to spend it making a model of the Titanic out of matchsticks; an idea that is possibly a bit close to home for some of us. The film provokes thought rather than directing in which direction those thoughts should go and I don't think it's disrespectful to religious beliefs. The question of why God lets bad things happen has been asked before; believers must surely have their answer ready by now. It's a sweet and very moral film - for those of us who don't find sex immoral - and, if you don't find it entertaining then I wouldn't bother going to the cinema ever again if I was you.

It also feeds my love of synchronicity by in large part being about whether one would live one's life the same way if one knew how it would develop, the same theme as Arrival, which in other ways could not be a more different film. There is a minor plot point revolving around Proust's 'À la recherche du temps perdu' - a reference to which appeared here less than a fortnight ago - but this time mixed in with a splash of Officer Crabtree.

Oh, and don't leave before the end of the credits.

Law 1522: If one day you fall in love with a woman there's a great chance you will not spend your life with her.

Geoffrey Brindley, R.I.P.

I would like to put on record how saddened I was to hear of the passing of the Bradford Jesus Man, Geoffrey Brindley. I was an undergraduate student at the University of Bradford in the mid-1970s and at that point he had already been walking through the streets for more than a decade. Unbelievably, until a week or so ago, in his late eighties, he was still at it; a seemingly permanent feature who one was never surprised to see anywhere across the district.

And now, sadly, he will walk no more.

Proverbs Chapter 28 Verse 13 (again)

I have been to Temple Newsam, and admired various rare breeds of livestock, birds of prey etc. The estate, owned by Leeds City Council, has various historical connotations of possible interest to wargamers: the Temple bit comes from the Knights Templar for example and it was the birthplace of Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. The picture gallery contains some interesting seventeenth century battle scenes, with lots of cavalry firing pistols at each from close range. However it was another painting that caught my eye the most.

'Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery' - Gaetano Gandolfi

Now I'm no theologian, indeed now I come to think about it I'm not even a Christian. But that story (John Chapter 8) has always seemed to me to get to the heart of what the man was on about. I understand the subtexts of Jewish versus Roman law (remember this event took place only days before his own arrest and appearance before Pilate); of the Pharisees' real aim of finding evidence of his guilt rather than that of the woman ostensibly accused; and even of the gender inequality of the adultery rules of the time (married men were allowed to consort with single women - the married woman restriction was more of a property issue than a moral one). But, rising above all that, is surely the simple message: acknowledge one's own wrongdoings rather than judge other people's.

As the philosopher whose name I have assumed, wrote not long after the events above "When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger."

Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!

"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury." - Marcus Aurelius

Proverbs - Chapter 28: Verse 13

 Another wargaming blog, which I decline to identify, has been having a competition to choose a name for the author's newly acquired English Civil War siege mortar. For some unaccountable reason my own rather fine entry - 'The Mighty Phallus of Puritanism' - did not win. Now for most people this rebuff would be enough to put them off blog based competitions for life. But I am made of sterner stuff and have decided to arrange my very own competition.
 

MS Foy's ECW Siege Gun

Yesterday Google nearly broke under the strain as pretty much the entire blogosphere searched for a particular Biblical reference and were rewarded with the following: 'Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.'
 

Does anyone know why he isn't wearing a Codpiece of the Peace of God?

The competition question is: 'What did Epictetus mean to tell us by obliquely using those words as the title to a blog posting?'

Possible answers are:

a) He has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal saviour
b) He is sending a coded message that Lee Harvey Oswald was, in fact, the last of the Merovingian kings of France.
c) He is pseud and a charlatan who was bound to drop a humiliating bollock at some point and this is it.
d) He typed 'Proverbs' when he meant to type 'Psalms'

Competition Rules
 1) Anyone responding c) may well be right, but they're deluding themselves if they think they are going to get a prize from me
2) There are no prizes

Donald Featherstone

Well, I certainly didn't intend to post about death again so soon. I was watching 'Annie Hall' with my elder daughter yesterday - an attempt to counteract years of anti-Woody Allen  prejudice from her mother - and, as you will no doubt remember, the subject crops up frequently therein. Diane Keaton's Annie refers to 'Death in Venice' and in the ensuing conversation she complains that Allen only ever buys her books with death in the title. Allen replies to the effect that death is a serious business. Quite so.

I am not a religious man. By and large I'm with Marx on this subject (as with a surprisingly large number of other subjects, especially given what I do for a living) when he wrote "The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.". However,  I envy the religious the strength their faith gives them during bereavement and, whilst I cannot share their belief in an afterlife, I often share the sentiments they express, but in a less literal way. And so when Conrad Kinch writes of Donald Featherstone that "In death he is reunited with those that were taken from him in life" I simply say "Amen".

Donald Featherstone's books gave me immeasurable pleasure both when I was young and upon re-reading more recently. I, like most of us, have moved on from the specific rules, but not from the enthusiasm engendered and for that I thank him. I also honour him, as I do his comrades-in-arms, for being one of those who served to defeat facism and save the world. And furthermore I note with no surprise at all that like many successful people he achieved that success in two completely disparate fields; in his case the other one being sports physiotherapy.

Marx also said that "Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand." and perhaps death is therefore the exception that proves that rule. For surely it is the knowledge that we shall at some point die that above all separates man from other sentient beings. As Hamlet says "if it be not now, yet it will come". As well as my own recent family bereavement, there have been a series of deaths of people that I only knew by their work and reputation and yet whose names I instantly recognised: Heaney, Frost, Jacobs and now Featherstone. As one read about their lives and the impact that they had made on others one common thread came across - a kindness and generosity with time and support. It seems to me quite clear that their success in life was not achieved despite this attitude, but because of it. By being nice to others, they caused others to be nice to them. If I were founding a religion then I might adopt that as a rule for my adherents to live by; one could do worse.

Mishigas

There have been one or two questions about yesterday's second post. Well, in the words of George Carlin "I don't have to tell you that it goes without saying that there are some things better left unsaid. That speaks for itself, The less said the better.".

So, from an overtly atheist comedian to two Jewish comedians, Sol Bernstein and Adam Bloom. I saw these last night in a show that formed part of JFest International, which is apparently the exciting new name for the Jewish Performing Arts Showcase. Leeds of course has a large, well-established Jewish community (it's where Marks and Spencer started for example), but as I'm not one of them I struggled with the Yiddish expressions and cultural allusions that make up a large part of Berstein's act. I didn't struggle at all with the filth that makes up the rest of it and laughed a lot. Steve Jameson - whose alter ego the 84 year old Bernstein is - had apparently been told to tone it down for the largely middle aged and middle class folks who had driven in from Adel in their Jaguars; and if that was the redacted version I must seek out the full blown thing immediately.

Bloom was funnier on the night, with a more mainstream act with less focus on the religious makeup of the audience, at least until he found out that the tickets were only £10. He does look like Harpo Marx without the hair though. It was interesting that both acts were able to get laughs from the fact that there were clearly some subjects which the audience wasn't comfortable with jokes being made about, in particular Islam.

Let's finish with another quote from Carlin: "I think everyone should treat one another in a Christian manner. I will not, however, be responsible for the consequences."