Week 6.10

Tendring Topics………on line

Weather Folklore

Red sky in the morning,
Shepherd’s warning!

So says one of the best-known pieces of weather folklore. A red sky just before sunrise is a presage of strong wind or rain before night. This certainly proved to be true when a few weeks ago, I took this before-dawn photograph from the back door of my home in Clacton’s Dudley Road.

The second couplet of that particular piece of folklore, Red sky at night, Shepherd’s delight, I have found to be rather less reliable. A beautiful red sunset may be followed by a glorious windless and sunny day – but it may not be.

Another piece of thoroughly unreliable weather folklore is the prophecy that the weather on St. Swithin’s day (15th July) determines whether or not the next forty days will be wet or dry. It is true though that at about that time of the year we often do have long spells of either very wet or very dry weather.

Tuesday of last week (2rd February) was Candlemas Day, when the Church remembers the presentation of Christ in the Temple and celebrates his role as the Light of the World. Prior to the Reformation it was the practice on that day to bless all the candles to be used in the church during the year. I believe that the custom is continued in the Roman Catholic Church.

It is a day also associated with weather folklore that seems to come true rather more often than not.

If Candlemas be clear and bright,
Winter will have another flight.
If Candlemas be dull, with rain,
Winter has gone and will not come again.

This year, if you remember, Candlemas was ‘dull with rain’ for most of the day though there was a brief period of brightness mid-morning. I hope that the worst of the winter really is over – but I won’t be putting my winter overcoat and fur (synthetic of course!) hat away just yet!

Prince of Peace…..Weapons of War!

Among the recorded sayings of China’s former leader Chairman Mao Tse Tung, was that ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’. Who am I to say that he was wrong about this? Guns and political power can certainly make a deadly combination – as the current Public Enquiry into the causes, conduct and aftermath of the war in Iraq is making abundantly clear.

A cause that I am quite sure is not best served by weapons of death of any kind, is the Christian Faith. As a Christian Quaker I believe that Jesus Christ meant what he said when he told us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who despitefully use us. He set an example that Christians should strive to follow – though few of us completely succeed. Furthermore I believe the everyone in the world, fanatical terrorists as well as men and women of peace, is endowed with Christ’s inward light, the instinct within us all that urges us towards love, compassion and forgiveness. Whatever the cause, it is not for us to snuff out that light in a fellow human, however much it may have become dimmed by bigotry, greed, superstition or fear. ‘Inasmuch as ye have done these things (good or bad) unto one of my brethren, ye have done them unto me’.

I was shocked therefore to learn that each rifle of the latest consignment for our troops in Afghanistan has inscribed upon it a reference to a New Testament text. An example quoted in the national press is JN8:12 referring the user to Verse 12 of Chapter 8 of St. John’s Gospel, within which Jesus proclaims, ‘I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’. United States firm Trijicon, said to have been founded by a devout Christian, manufactures the rifles. I find this message, engraved on what is a weapon of death, to be profoundly offensive, even blasphemous. I had a similar though I think lesser, shock when many years ago I discovered that in World War II every German soldier had ‘Gott mit uns’ (God is with us) engraved on the buckle of his uniform belt.

You may (or may not) be astonished to learn that this offensive aspect of the engraving is not the one that is bothering our politicians and the national press. Their worry is that a reference to a New Testament text might be used by the Taliban to persuade waverers that the allied forces in Afghanistan are engaged in a Crusade to convert them to Christianity. As the Taliban and Al Quaida are already trying to persuade Afghans that they themselves are engaged in a Holy War (a Jihad) to drive the infidels from the sacred soil of their country, that would hardly seem necessary.

In any case Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, who is usually prompt in telling us of anything that might offend his co-religionists, says that he regards the inscriptions as ‘fairly harmless’.

A single sentence in the Daily Mail’s report suggests to me that if the Press and Politicians hadn’t decided to publicise this silly business, it is likely that no one would have known about it. That sentence is, ‘The inscriptions appear in raised lettering at the end of the gunsight’s stock number’.

I haven’t always been a Christian Quaker and my views on the compatibility of Christian Faith with armed conflict haven’t always been those that I hold today.

During World War II I was a gunner in the Royal Artillery. I didn’t therefore routinely carry a rifle. We all had to learn to fire one though, and in the summer of 1940 when it was thought that a German invasion could be imminent, we were all issued with one (from which we were forbidden ever to allow ourselves to be parted!), together with fifty rounds of ammunition,

I did make sure that I was pretty familiar with mine, and was capable of using it effectively if the occasion arose. If I had happened to notice the manufacturer’s serial number it would certainly never have occurred to me that JN8.12 embossed immediately after it might be a Biblical reference………unless, of course, I had been alerted to the fact by the press and politicians.

Essex Jobs for Essex Enterprise?

Do you remember, it was only a few months ago that Lord Hanningfield, as leader of Essex Count Council, was urging Essex public authorities to choose Essex contractors to undertake their services? I remember suggesting that if Tendring District or Colchester Borough, for example, chose, without a very good reason, a tender for services from within Essex, rather than a lower one from across the border in neighbouring Suffolk, they would be in trouble with their auditors.

This advice from the County Council evidently applied only to other authorities, not themselves. More recently Lord Hanningfield has announced that he personally had negotiated a deal for a £9.4 billion contract with computer services giant IBM, a multinational IT organisation with its base in the USA and its tentacles worldwide. This, he assured us, would save the taxpayer thousands of pounds annually.

Let us hope that it does, because it has also recently been announced that the jobs of up to 275 County Council staff, Essex men and women, are to be axed either as a direct or indirect result of this deal.

I have no doubt that in the upper echelons of the County Council’s staff, there are a few faces that would never be missed. However, the inadequacies of, for instance, the Council’s child protection service, suggest that lower down the salary scales, among social workers at least, they need to be recruiting staff rather than dismissing them. No-one has yet invented a robot or computer that can knock on doors, interview householders, inspect their homes, assess the well-being of their children and their capabilities as parents, and take appropriate action.

Assuming that computerising many of the County Council’s services would be a good idea, are there really no Essex, or at least East Anglian, IT consultants who could have offered the same service as IBM, probably at a lower price?

Latest Developments

I wrote the above before the news broke that Lord Hanningfield was the one member of the House of Lords who faced prosecution in connection with the Parliamentary expenses scandal. I have decided to let the blog stand.

I have been very critical of Lord Hanningfield in the past. I have thought that many of his policies, especially his ‘ground-breaking initiatives’, were mistaken and that his style of leadership introduced an undesirable ‘cult of the personality’ into local government. However, I never, for one moment, thought of him as being dishonest, and I hope that he succeeds in clearing himself of the current accusations.

I am not going to pretend though that I am not pleased that he has laid down his leadership of the County Council. I hope that under its new leader, whoever he or she may be, the Council will spend rather less time and money on globe-trotting trips abroad for its members and senior staff, on seeking customers for Essex products in China and elsewhere, and on running banks and failing post offices (though I do think that the latter was a worthwhile exercise). This should release resources for the County's failing child protection and child care, its care of the old and disabled, education, maintenance of highways, consumer protection, refuse disposal and recycling and other responsibilities entrusted to County Councils by central government.

I hope too, that the expenses claimed by County Councillors in connection with their duties, will be investigated every bit as meticulously as those of members of parliament have been.

A Seventeenth Century Law

I find it almost unbelievable that MPs, accused of fiddling their expenses should have the effrontery to seek to avoid the judgement of the criminal courts by means of a three hundred year old law enacted for no other purpose than to ensure absolute freedom of speech for MPs within the House of Commons! Is that what they meant when they said they would be 'defending themselves robustly?'

Perhaps, as they are seeking the protection of a 17th Century law they should, if found guilty, suffer a 17th Century penalty. A few months in a cell in the Tower for instance, under the conditions of prisoners there in the sixteen hundreds, might be appropriate. Or, and this would be by far the cheapest option for we tax-payers, a few hours in the pillory in a public place within their own constituencies.