Critic Cal

world-view   n.  [after German Weltanschauung  n.] a set of fundamental beliefs, values, etc., determining or constituting a comprehensive outlook on the world; a perspective on life; = Weltanschauung n.  ( OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 15 August 2015 ). I've been endeavouring through  N.T. Wright 's  Resurrection of the Son of God . It's a weighty tome in both senses (or would be if I hadn't opted for the e-book version) but he does have a lovely clarity of thought and expression which renders complex academic ideas comprehensible even to (reasonably determined) laymen. I especially appreciate his framework for describing and comparing world-views via the answers to five major questions: Who are we? Where are we? What is wrong? What is the solution? What time is it? The exercise of unpicking cultures and belief systems on this basis seems highly instructive, at least when he attempts it (more on that later). Bu...

In early March, the builders finally returned our door keys at the end of a "four week job" that started in November ... We'd got them in to fit us a new bathroom, before the old one rotted or important bits snapped off or water, water everywhere or some other hypnogogic horror realised itself before our eyes. And also to stop it raining in our kitchen because, well, that particular original feature was starting to seem rather worn. And they did an admirable job and charmingly to boot, and there are many very sound (but miserable and boring) reasons why it took so exhaustingly much longer than estimated, so we would confidently pass their contact details on to anybody looking for a builder. But ... it was a long "four weeks" ... to have people around all the time when I'm so greedy for solitude; to have plastic sheeting three-quarters through the house; to have a functionless cave where the amenities used to be (downstairs toilet + gym membership = much...

This friend I had — I don’t make friends easy. We met at the bus-stop I pass on the way to the gym. It took a year or so of amicable passing nods before we got to talking. And then … his thick Scottish accent … my tongue-tying social anxiety … it took a further while to piece together much of a rapport. But he was patient and, unlike so many, keen to see the best in me. Besides, we found ourselves on the firmest of common grounds. Soon our early morning chats were a routine feature of my rigid routine. I’d walk up first thing from my nice warm bed to go workout-away all the mental and physical hindrances between me and the forthcoming day. And he’d have been there some time already — the first stop of the day after quietly easing away from whichever half-sheltered corner he’d managed to stake for himself in the night. The thing with bus-stops is that "waiting" and "hanging around" are fairly indistinguishable activities — at least until the full roster of routes...

Oh! the inundation of triumphant screenshots: four-by-four arrays of cool-grey bevelled tiles, warming up to rust and cheeky crimson, dawning -- finally! -- victorious in glorious sunshine yellow. If you haven't 2048 ed yet, you're nothing  in today's world, even should you boast whole hosts of grand post-nominals. Or so it would seem from Facebook. For those who've been passed by by this particular phenomenon, 2048 is an online, single-player, sliding block puzzle game, the aim of which is to collide (and consequently additively combine) matching tiles displaying powers of two until the value 2048 (= 2^11) is reached. It's all the rage. At least, it was a week ago...at the time I start to write it is already on the wane, and by the time I finish (in a few months if my recent rate of composition's anything to go by) we'll doubtless be several new-fangled iterations down the line, our Facebook feeds populated by some hybrid whatsit -- virtual cultivation o...

"Who here is bad ?"... The speaker surveyed the congregation with spoof solemnity. It was a typical Sunday morning, the "bit before the kids go out" at church. I must have been about 6. "Who here is  bad ?"... I knew all about sin. I'd had it explained to me, and everything, and quite frankly it seemed to make a lot of sense. Disobedience, lies, unkindness; I could think of lots of things that I had done which would make me sad if someone else did them to me. And it made me sad that I had done them, and I imagined it would make God sad too, going by what I knew of God. So, naturally, I raised my hand. And everybody burst out laughing. "Oh, dear, dear", chuckled the speaker, "I'm sure you're not bad  -- maybe naughty occasionally, but not bad ". But nonetheless he summoned me up to the front, where I was made to hold a piece of paper emblazoned with that word in bubble letters as part of his interactive family-friendly warm...

I take great issue with the pseudo-scriptural aphorism "cleanliness is next to godliness". Whatever its original intent, it sounds too much like something a prim and disapproving well-to-do would utter disdainfully in the presence of a small, grubby child or a dishevelled 'vagrant'. Whereas, when you look at what the Bible actually says, there turns out to be a good deal more affirmation than there is reproach for such persons: And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. ( Mark 10 :13-16) Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs ...

"Having heard, or more probably read somewhere, in the days when I thought I would be well advised to educate myself, or amuse myself, or stupefy myself, or kill time, that when a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping in this way to go in a straight line. For I stopped being half-witted and became sly, whenever I took the trouble… and if I did not go in a rigorously straight line, with my system of going in a circle, at least I did not go in a circle, and that was something." ( Samuel Beckett , from 'Molloy', 1951) [1] Days when 'only Thom Yorke understands' are likely to be punctuated by the odd trip to the ladies' room to shed a few self-pitying tears; days when 'only T.S. Eliot understands' are probably best spent working from home where I am less likely to make a nuisance of myself; days when 'only Beckett understands' I would perhaps ...