When the flood was over

When the flood was over, Noah told all the animals to go forth and multiply. After a while, Noah found that all the animals had offspring, apart from a pair of snakes.

“What is the problem?” asked Noah.
“We can’t multiply”, answered the snakes. “We’re adders.”

Noah and his sons started to make furniture for themselves, using rough hewn logs for chairs and tables. Next time Noah checked, he found the snakes with a clutch of young.

“I thought you said you couldn’t multiply”, said Noah. “We can’t. We used the log tables”, answered the adders.

Catholic to Orthodox?

I come across a fair number of discontented Catholics these days, who are looking at the Orthodox church as a solution to their dissatisfaction. This is not a decision to be made lightly, or possibly, at all. It is a big commitment. An important reason for not moving are the current scandals within the Catholic church; misbehaviour is a human attribute and will be found in every organisation. However, these are a few things to ponder when approaching the matter.

• The Roman claim to Papal supremacy is based on an interpretation of Matthew 16:18. From this verse is derived the Roman ecclesiology. You have to be satisfied that Rome is wrong and that the Orthodox are right. The subject has been much discussed and disputed, to put it mildly. No firm conclusion can be drawn.
• What does the history of the early church tell us? One needs at least a broad picture of developments from Apostolic times to the thirteenth century, by which time the Schism had hardened. Here too, no firm conclusion can be drawn.
• Pray about it. 
• Discernment, a practice which was developed to a high level by the founder of the Jesuit order, St Ignatius Loyola.
• Does the Orthodox liturgy speak to you? Initially it will seem strange and alien, so you would need to attend at least a dozen times before you can begin to grasp what is happening. You also need to study the texts and actions, which are broadly similar to the Roman Catholic liturgy but differ in important respects. It is worth trying the alternative forms in which the Orthodox liturgy is presented. There are at least three main traditions: Arabic, Greek and Slavonic. In addition, Orthodoxy is slowly taking root and become naturalised in that part of the world which became Roman Catholic after the schism, in the Protestant lands and in the former colonial mission territories. Thus can be found Orthodox liturgies in languages such as English and Spanish in the English-speaking countries and South America.
• What happens after the liturgy? Does the parish demonstrate Christian love?

What is in the burqua?

This extract from The Silver Chair, by C S Lewis comes to mind.

“All the same,” said Puddleglum, “I wish we knew a bit more about her.” “I was going to ask her all about herself,” said Jill. “But how could I when you wouldn’t tell her anything about us?”
“Yes,” said Scrubb. “And why were you so stiff and unpleasant. Didn’t you like them?”
“Them?” said the wiggle. “Who’s them? I only saw one.”
“Didn’t you see the Knight?” asked Jill.
“I saw a suit of armour,” said Puddleglum. “Why didn’t he speak?”
“I expect he was shy,” said Jill. “Or perhaps he just wants to look at her and listen to her lovely voice. I’m sure I would if I was him.”
“I was wondering,” remarked Puddleglum, “what you’d really see if you lifted up the visor of that helmet and looked inside.”
“Hang it all,” said Scrubb. “Think of the shape of the armour! What could be inside it except a man?”
“How about a skeleton?” asked the Marsh-wiggle with ghastly cheerfulness. “Or perhaps,” he added as an afterthought, “nothing at all. I mean, nothing you could see. Someone invisible.”
“Really, Puddleglum,” said Jill with a shudder, “you do have the most horrible ideas. How do you think of them all?”

The Jews as a moral barometer

Einstein wrote this in 1927

“The position of our scattered Jewish community is a moral barometer for the political world. For what surer index of political morality and respect for justice can there be than the attitude of the nations towards a defenceless minority. The barometer is low at the present moment.”

Britain’s new inter city trains - could have been better.

Long distance trains in Britain dating from the 1970s and 1990s are being replaced wholesale by the new 800 series trains from Hitachi. They could have been worse, but the designers have not really addressed some of the fundamental problems which go back to the time when mark 3 stock was introduced in the 1970s.

1. Seats misaligned to windows. This is primarily a matter of getting the bay dimension correct in the first place. If this is 1.90 metres there is sufficient legroom for everyone and all the seats can align.
2. The luggage space is in the wrong place. People will not use the large luggage areas as they are not secure. The optimum location for luggage is between seat backs but this means that most of the seating should be in facing pairs as in the mark 1 and mark 2 stock. As soon as the seats are arranged in an airline configuration, this useful luggage space is lost. Given that it is too late to change the fundamental design, the large luggage areas should be fitted with some means of securing cases eg with lockable cables and keys with a coin deposit system. Otherwise people are not going to use them.
3. Space next to the unglazed sliding door pockets should be used for luggage or toilets or equipment cabinets.
4. The discomfort of the seats is due to insufficient lumbar support. This could easily be remedied by changing the shape of the foam inserts.
5. The vehicles are too long. The end space cannot be used for seating due to the tapered shape and it cannot be use for entrance vestibules as there would be excessive platform gaps.
6. The vehicles are difficult to get on and off - indeed, hazardous - due to the design of the steps and the large gaps. Retractable steps should have been fitted. The excessive length of the vehicles is probably a factor.
7. The overall design of the trains is ugly, with a flat roof with lumps of equipment spread along the top, giving the trains a horrible skyline, rotten aerodynamics and likely problems with snow and rain. These items should have been faired into the roof, as an stock such as Electrostar series.
8. There is a huge gap between vehicles. This is also terrible both visually and aerodynamically. The space aught to be closed by rubber fairings or extended panels, or the vehicle bodies built out and used for equipment. There is probably quite a lot of equipment which could usefully be relocated here from under the floor or elsewhere.

I would question the wisdom of having a single fleet huge fleet to a single design from a single supplier. Britain’s railways have run the risk of a fault affecting the entire fleet, and then what? It has happened enough times before. The current problem with the Boeing 737 Max is only the latest in a series of such events; the same thing happened with the Merchant Navy class of steam locomotives in the 1950s, when the fleet had to be taken out of service and replacements drafted in from all over the country.