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Eurovision too

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Backing track, back tracking or tracking back?

Vesna ‘are not your dolls’: Eurovision Q&A

Six piece girl band Vesna have already made the final, with a song that urges support for Ukraine.

When I saw the headline I thought this might be a political comment, for if typically you tried to make a political statement at a sporting event you would quickly find that sport is apolitical. Whilst the joining together of the indefinite article and the adjectival noun is intended to express that politics is not permitted to enter sport, that is patently untrue. It is a mere pretence to cover up some other motive. Politics does have a part to play. So, the strap line of the BBC article which gave the impression that a particular performer was not only permitted to make a political statement but that that statement was an integral part of the performance aroused some interest. Even where apolitical is abused in sport, to go that far is hardly permitted.

A careful reading of the article however suggests that superficially at least there is no political statement at all in what is said or done. It is a matter of interpretation in a particular context. In a different ages and places different interpretations may be placed upon the words expressed in a particular language, as it is for the words ‘Lead kindly light’. However, there was something of greater interest and concern, but as one who has used similar techniques I have to be careful how I criticise.

Imagine what it would be like if you turn up at the cup final and on the field you do not see twenty three men, but one man and twenty-two androids. Would you not feel somewhat cheated? ‘Oh no, the reply would come. Don’t worry each android would behave exactly as you would expect the individual upon whom it has been modelled to behave. It will be just like watching the real thing. Each android has been programmed with AI to imitate its model. It will do even better. It will avoid all of the mistakes that the star performer would make or could make. The game will be far better’. Is the placement of artificial turf a preparation for such a change? Imagine being able to watch Pele, Hurst and Beckenbauer again even if only in avatar.

Or, if having spent months writing the dissertation for your finals, you find that everyone else wrote theirs just the day before using ChatGPT; and that the examiners were quite happy about that. Or again, you hear that Menuhin shall perform the Beethoven in the RAH, but when you arrive there is an empty dais and the compiled sounds of a Deutsche Grammophon recording* booming out of the speakers.

It was the words ‘The technical complexity of Eurovision means that all songs are sung to a backing track’ that caught my attention. I had always thought that the performances were live, though of course very well rehearsed and flawlessly performed, just as in every other music competition throughout the country. What would you think if the Black Dyke Band turned up and simply mimed to their own playing, which was a compilation of several different ‘performances’ from which all of the faults had been ironed out. In Leeds the whole orchestra turns out to play live for the pianists. So why, in the light of so called technical complexity, is a band not permitted to play its own music in front of the audience. Do they think that in some way a wholly live performance will devalue the ‘competition’? Do they fear that the quality of the acts may not be as good as the organisers want you to think they are. It becomes a sham of a competition when you are permitted to iron out the defects in the backing track. Might as well project holographs of the group as mime.

In any event, what is this reference to a backing track? Has someone lost sight of what the music is. Is not the backing track an intrinsic part of the musical presentation? Erlkönig would not be as fearful as it is without its ‘backing track’. Or do they actually not care about the music at all, it is really simply about physical gyration? Nothing else matters.

How disappointing! But then that is what this world loves. It loves the appearance, but not the reality. The splendid buildings which rise up contrary to the building regulations, but collapse at a shifting of the ground beneath them. The war games fascinate and captivate many in their games’ rooms and virtual reality worlds, but place the same in the reality of Bakhmut, Dresden or Saigon; what then?

It is the same with godliness, men love the appearance of it, but ask them to change their way of life to live godly lives and they turn away. They are very happy with a religion which says: ‘Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,’ all of which concern things which do not endure. These are but the commandments and doctrines of men. They are regulations. ‘If we keep them we shall live’ is what they think. Well, these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in a self-imposed religion, but it is a false humility and are of no value against the indulgence of the body. (Colossians 2:20-23) Ask them however to become lovers of God rather than pleasure, and they turn away. They want the benefits of religion, but do not want its power to change the way in which they live. We love ourselves, we love money, we love pleasure. This will all pass away, and then what? ‘What good will it do for a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?’ the Lord Jesus Christ asked us.

Let them have their backing tracks if they will, but let us, without hypocrisy, love the Lord our God, who gave himself to save our souls, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

2 Timothy 3

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
* Coco is not aware of any such recording

Coronas

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Today is an important day for many reasons. We have crowned a man who is king, who in that crowning made certain clear commitments. We do not have to be monarchists to recognise the benefits of those commitments, and I would suggest that of whatever form of government you want if you do not require of the governor those same commitments then you do both yourself and your fellow countrymen a great disservice. There are only two, or perhaps three, on which comment shall be made here.

Firstly, a commitment is made to protect his people both from external troubles and from those within the kingdom who would exploit them. Now we cannot argue against that.  A king, or any governor, who exploits his people, leaves them defenceless or makes war against them is a not one any of you would want, but we do see such elsewhere in this world. We are called upon to pray for kings, rulers and all in authority, for why? Two reasons are given, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life (1 Tim 2:1). I shall come to the other later. This is an important commitment.

Secondly, a commitment is made to defend the Christian religion.  The Scriptures provide the foundation upon which our treatment of each other rests. If we have any other foundation then we shall conclude that some are second or even third or lower class, or that the death of a man is no more significant that the death of a fly on the wall, it being merely a rearrangement of the chemicals of which he is made. We are told: ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth’ (Genesis 1)

I am not arguing here that we have been obedient to that instruction, the king whom we have just crowned has long spoken about many of the ways in which we have overstepped the authority that we have, but where else do we such a clear testimony to the value of a human life. We are made in the image of God; what could be a more beautiful image than that? Even more so, what this means is that we cannot relegate one of our kind to a lower position, or consider them to be soulless, for every one of us carried that image with him. It is this, and this alone, that gives us value not any other trappings that we may carry with us. Secondly, God declares: ‘Male and female he created them’. Men and women are not the same, otherwise we would have the same noun to describe us, but we are both made in the image of God, If not the same then, what are we? We are both made in the image of God, but made complementary to each other as we read later: And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.’ And Adam declares: ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.’ I do not claim that my etymology is correct, but superficially the English words used here do show a similar connection as the Hebrew: she shall be called ishah, because she was taken out of ish. Jigsaw pieces could not all be the same for the jigsaw to fit together (except in certain special cases of which I am sure mathematically minded individuals would be delighted to point out), the pieces must be complementary to each other (the complementarity of the special cases is what makes the same special cases work as jigsaws). And so it is for us, men and women are complementary to each other.

What a great, glorious, enlightening and liberating teaching this is! No-one is second class; no-one is of less worth than any other.

Depart from the Christian faith and we shall descend into the abyss of superstition, idolatry, paganism, false religion and oppression, for it is only the Christian faith that demands that we love one another, even those who show themselves to be our enemies, and treat others, not as they treat us, but as we would want to be treated ourselves. As the king said on his arrival today: In [the name of Jesus Christ] and after his example I come not to be served but to serve. The example of Jesus Christ was to love his enemies, those who would hand him over to be crucified. Many of them later received mercy from the one whom they had, by means of the Roman nails and spear, pierced.

Thirdly, we are reminded of the importance of kingship. There is one true king, the true man, the perfect man Jesus. He is the only one who has fulfilled the law of God and the only one therefore who is fit to be king. The Scripture says of him ‘You love righteousness and hate wickedness; Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions.’ (Psalm 45:7)  But each earthly king is to be like him, and to exemplify him before us. Some do it better than others. Many fail in many ways, as we may read in the books of the kings, and in our own history books, but their failings do not invalidate the value of a king. Rather let them learn what a true king is and learn to be like him. Even the wicked king Manasseh towards his end understood how badly he had failed and repented of his wickedness (2 Chr 33:13).

You see, we do not appoint a king, nor do we elect one, we acknowledge the one who is king. This one, some would say, is king by an accident of nature. So let it be. An accident of nature is certainly no less likely to choose the right man as the vicissitudes of an electorate choosing from a group of power hungry men, and probably more likely to do so. But I cannot say it in that way.  It is God who raises up rulers among men, and he has appointed one to rule over us:  Yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion, (Psalm 2:6) and later warns the kings of the earth to serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling, to kiss the Son (the king) as our Prince did his father today. That we do not choose our king reminds us of this, pointing both us and our king to the King of kings in whose name he was welcomed to the coronation today.

I mentioned that there were two reasons why we should pray for kings and all in authority. The second points us again to the king of kings, it is that it is good to do so in the sight of God our Saviour who desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth through the one mediator between man and God, the man Jesus Christ.

So, only three comments:

The king is our nation’s protector, just as Jesus, the king of kings is our protector.

The king is the defender of the Christian faith, from which we learn that our worth is that we are made in the image of God.

The king is appointed not by us, reminding us that we are to serve the one whom God has appointed, Jesus the king of Kings.

And this Jesus has been anointed by God, not men, so that the Spirit of the Lord God is upon him to preach good tidings to the poor; to heal the broken hearted; to proclaim liberty to the captives; and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. (Isaiah 61:1)

We have a king, who lives to serve his people not to be served by us, which points us to the King Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. (Matt 20:28)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65503950

Further comments:

All remain standing. Samuel Strachan, Child of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, addresses The King
Your Majesty, as children of the kingdom of God we welcome you in the name of the King of kings.
The King replies
In his name and after his example I come not to be served but to serve.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. And with thy spirit.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?

Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?

Give the king your judgements, O God, and your righteousness to the son of a king. Then shall he judge your people righteously and your poor with justice.

Alleluia. May he defend the poor among the people, deliver the children of the needy and crush the oppressor.

During the chant the Lord President of the Council exchanges the Sword of State for the Jewelled Sword of Offering, and delivers it to the Archbishop, who says: Hear our prayers, O Lord, we beseech thee, and so direct and support thy servant King Charles, that he may not bear the sword in vain; but may use it as the minister of God to resist evil and defend the good, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Jewelled Sword of Offering is placed into the king’s right hand. The archbishop says: Receive this kingly sword: may it be to you and to all who witness these things, a sign and symbol not of judgement, but of justice; not of might, but of mercy. The king rises. The sword is put upon the king, and he sits. The archbishop says: With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God and all people of goodwill, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order: that doing these things you may be glorious in all virtue; and so faithfully serve our Lord Jesus Christ in this life, that you may reign for ever with him in the life which is to come. Amen. The king stands and offers the sword at the altar, where it is received by the dean. The king returns to the coronation chair. The sword is redeemed and is returned to the Lord President of the Council.

It is very meet, right and our bounden duty that we should at all times and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God, through Jesus Christ thine only Son our Lord. Who hast at this time consecrated thy servant Charles to be our King, that by the anointing of thy grace, he may be the Defender of thy Faith and the Protector of thy people; that, with him, we may learn the ways of service, compassion, and love; and that the good work thou hast begun in him this day may be brought to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name; evermore praising thee, and saying:

There are parts with which Coco may disagree! The Church of England is not fully reformed, and elements derived from paganism through romish errors have been retained. Notwithstanding this, though there is error as Paul said of those in Rome who spoke supposing to harm him: Christ is proclaimed. There was a clear proclamation at the start that he had been raised from the dead; the reading from Colossians spoke of his pre-eminence, creative and redemptive power; and the words of the communion the purpose of his death on a Roman cross.

Logic

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Do you excel?

Logic is very important, and if you code or are a mathematician then sometimes you will not be surprised to find that even machines are defiant, recalcitrant and incorrigible, just like human beings. Take this very simple case, you have a two cylinder lock. In order to undo the lock you need a key which has cuts to match both cylinders (not being a locksmith I do not know the technical term for the cut, please enlighten me). So, if we call the cylinders A and B, then then we can say for any key C that if it is TRUE that the A cut matches the A cylinder AND it is TRUE the B cut matches the B cylinder that the key is a TRUE key that will open the lock.

Do you see? Both A and B must be TRUE to give us a TRUE key. If only A or only B matched you would say it is a FALSE key (it doesn’t fit). You would not be happy if only the A or the B cuts matched and it was still true that the key opened the lock. You might just as well have a single cylinder lock and wait for the intruder to walk in.

Well, we have many more cylinders in our locks these days to prevent that sort of picking and for four five, six or seven cylinder locks we expected the key to match every one for it to be a TRUE key. But in another context I found that for the equivalent of a four cylinder lock in Excel using AND() function that it gave me TRUE when only two of the four cylinders were TRUE. The other two were FALSE as you can see here….the correct answer is FALSE. This key should not be able to open the lock.

So whether you excel or not, please do not use Excel for your security system.

Ready and willing to be corrected, for I am sure that someone will spot the flaw (otherwise known as a falseness, which is not a village in Shetland) in this demonstration.

O Miserable man!

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An apology coming so soon after the previous one? One would have thought that cartoonists might have learned a thing or two by now. It is fitting however when two interesting articles are placed side by side they provoke an interesting thought, but given that this morning’s sermon was on Romans 12: Be subject to the authorities, I wondered whether political satire may sometimes be haram rather than kosher. But we do have Rutherford’s teaching also on the matter who promoted Lex rex rather than Rex lex, aptly illustrated by when on the appointment of one of his governors, Trajan handed to him a dagger with the words: ‘to be used for me (As Paul said: they hold the power of the sword) and [if I do wrong] in me’. How different from the lèse-majesté of another nation. On the basis of this, the interesting (or not so interesting depending upon your point of view) thought becomes public at the risk of offending those who by their nature are afflicted with the plague of sensitivity to that which is ill aligned with the contemporary notion of politica rectitude, and given with apologies to those who will recognise that I, being ignorant of such matters, have used the incorrect case.

Now the cartoon which has been hidden from view by the author, but not by many others who are not, is clearly an abomination in the good tradition of political satire from at least the end of the 18th century exemplified by Gillray. To show a former prime minister sitting on a throne hidden behind a pile of whatever you may wish to describe it but would be quite at home in a farmyard, with such a grotesque visage is at the best described as insulting, but perhaps a gentler form of treatment of the gentleman, if a gentleman, could have been found. The other gentleman has a face which AI may easily have produced if it had been asked to cartoonise a photograph of the gentleman whom the cartoon portrays but has actually been produced by the real intelligence of a real man. What a jolly description it is indeed of at least one of the ills of our times.

In the other article we are presented with a protest against laws and regulations by a government by which under the cloak of a ban on fake news, as the nation’s own judges recognise by the way they have been written, it would be possible to silence fair criticism including satire and parody. Now I suggest that that other nation perhaps needs to look at the Western approach (except of course it cannot because that would be to allow itself to be subject to the colonialists) to the banning of satirical literature, ideographs and cartoons. The Western approach is simply to get the PC brigade on your side and never again a word shall be spoken against you ever – even if it would have been spoken in jest – for those very comedians and comediennes will regulate themselves and keep silent being more afraid of the wrath of the liberal elite than that of the government. So, it would seem that as well as exposing as intended one of the ills of our time, it also unintentionally exposed another of the ills. I suspect the putative claim of the ‘offended’ is a cover for the real reason which is closer to that from which the lèse-majesté are designed to protect those who would wish to sit upon a throne but have proven to be unsuitable candidates for it.

As for caricatures, they are necessary and are necessarily built upon actual characteristics of real people. ‘Paint me, warts and all!’ the man said for it was well known that if the warts were painted out it would be said that it was not a true likeness. If we are offended by a caricature of our culture, race, tribe or even locality then remember it is a caricature because it is like that in some way, and we then should ask why? What is it that makes that particular caricature? What is it in the caricature that is offensive? What is it of which we, as members of that class, are ashamed? If it is something bad, we then need to further ask ourselves: is it found in me? If it is then I must expunge it from myself.

So when I hear words spoken about or see a cartoon of a particular class or group of people to whom I may, or may not, have a relationship or a belonging: ‘Though their pockets are deep their arms are short’ remember that this is a caricature. And then ask does it apply to me as much as it does to the miser. O miserable man that I am!

Guardian apologises over cartoon of BBC chairman Richard Sharp

Kunal Kamra: Why an Indian comedian is challenging fake news rules

Inadequate

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Raising standards, improving lives?

It has at last been discovered. It is the time to speak openly and to come out. Coco has been found to be inadequate. There is no other one-word judgement that can be applied. So, it is now time to publish a parable that Coco heard many years ago, but first of all a brief explanation.

Those of you with whom Coco worked will fully understand why this judgement has been applied (many others will have a partial understanding, and some will know that it is unquestionably just). The behaviour of Coco was so audacious as to risk the bringing of the whole group into disrepute. It was well-known that Coco (and not only he, but the others Coco shall not name here) rode roughshod over systems, policies, regulations, even at times of standards in order to achieve for the client what the client needed at that time. This failure to adhere to proper controls (preparing a change document, designing functionality tests and user tests, which would provide measurable results; building a safe programming environment in which testing could take place; proper separation of duties and therefore accountability for the several parts of the process of implementation of the change; as well as the modification of design and help documents and systems, which followed their own separate processes for change) often resulted in a few short words of correction being spoken, and ignored but ensured that the client was happy and the client’s timetable was not disrupted by an internally imposed process when all we had done was incorrectly spell Xiannopulou’s name in the formally approved release two months earlier. It was for this reason that someone was always allocated to Coco who understood the need for these things – in other words a compliance officer (please don’t take that as an insult, Coco says it in jest, you were always admirable in your work, correcting Coco where needed, and without your help Coco would not have remembered or done anything that was required and it provided you with an opportunity to manage a recalcitrant and incorrigible colleague). Every attempt to change that behaviour simply provided a new and interesting opportunity to design new ways to beat the system.

The parable was along these lines:

It was Monday morning, the weekend had been longer and more tedious than usual, and Norbert was preparing to leave for the office, when there was a knock at the door. Norbert was surprised to find Jeremy the local bobby outside.

N: Good morning, Jerry. What brings you here today?
J: I am very sorry, sir, but I must take you away to a place of confinement where you will remain for an indefinite period.
N: I don’t understand, are you saying that you are taking me to gaol?
J: Yes, sir, that is what I must do. You were condemned by the Court yesterday, and I have been instructed to escort you to The Lawful Place Of Confinement.
N: I know you must do your work, Jerry, but perhaps you would enlighten me. For what have I been condemned?
J: I have not been told, sir. I am aware that your statement was presented to the court, one witness was called and then came the judgement, but I was not permitted to enter into the courtroom.
N: May I have a few moments to pack a bag? Please come in and take a seat. I shall not be long.

As he packed, Norbert reflected upon the situation. He had been called into the station several weeks ago to give an account of his movements on a particular day in December. He thought carefully about what he had said in that document. He had been out of town all of that week on business, and could think of nothing in it that could give rise to what was now taking place. He mused thoughtfully, as the absurdity of the situation pressed home upon him. Here he was about to be committed to a place of confinement on the judgement of a court at a hearing of which he had no knowledge. He supposed that had he troubled himself to go to the court every day, he would have seen his name on the list of cases to be heard: Person or persons unknown v Norbert Smith Defendant 1230 Room B, he imagined to himself. What had been said about him? Why had he not received a call to attend the hearing and reply to his accusers?

He resigned himself to his fate. He remembered that the wise man said: the first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him. (Proverbs 18:17)

Coco added his own comments to this, which at the time seemed to be appropriate:
Coco wonders how many of us feel a little bit like Norbert. There are flaws in many processes which would not be permitted in the legal process in a liberal state. And if you wonder why Coco wrote this, it is quite simple, there are two reasons. Firstly, the [assessment] document appears to be empty. Nothing has been said, so there is nothing to which a reply can be given. And secondly, there has been no process meeting with the preparer of the assessment, but merely an informal chat with the one who has been interposed. It is of course nothing less than is expected to happen or not happen however you may wish to look at it.

There was however an opportunity to respond to the electronic document, so Coco entered this parable, only to discover that having made the entry it was not possible to remove it or even edit it. It was once only effort – make a mistake in it and the mistake is forever written in stone or at least electronic bits.

It now appears, in the light of the reports of certain Government bodies that such things do happen in a liberal state, as, although the documents promulgated by that body are not empty, the evidences to support the assessments are not disclosed so no answer can be given.

I understand that to break the law in one part is to break the law as a whole, for the law is one; but you do not label a pupil as inadequate if they fail in English but excel in all of the others.

You may care to refer to Coco’s blog on targets which considers raising educational standards from a slightly different perspective and for a different purpose.

The defiled mind

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Der Spiegel: India anger over ‘racist’ German magazine cartoon on population

A good man once said: To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure. So now, in the light of this and the recent reaction to a cartoon depicting a race between two trains which was perhaps as much of a contest as the legendary race in which a man and horse competed to be the first from London to York. To pit a new HSR (‘Bullet’ train) against an old diesel is surely a foregone conclusion, just as the outcome of the horse-man race would have been in the seventeenth century. Oh! distracted again so that my first intended sentence became little more than a noun and a qualifying subordinate clause I should resume where off I had left. So, in the light of the afore described colourful line drawing, if there is any element of race in it, and of course there is but perhaps not in the sense that has been expressed elsewhere, should I not now consider that there is an element of race in all things that are or could be said in the minds of some? It has often been said: ‘it takes one to know one’, but I would add that it is often incorrectly said in order to attribute, perhaps insinuate is a more appropriate word in this context, to attribute to the accuser the imputed qualities of the accused.

Whilst seeking to avoid the claim to any kind of purity in myself, if one sees impurity in a thing that is not in itself impure, does that not in the light of the words of our good and wise man, suggest that there is some impurity in the one who sees what he thinks is a kind of impurity in it? In which case the often ill-used saying: ‘it takes one to know one’ may also in this instance be true, that those who cry wolf are in fact wolves themselves, and that the same kind of impurity that they found in the pure thing is the very impurity which defiles them. But if you simply look at the cartoon as a cartoon depicting a race, is it not simply, purely, funny?

On the other hand, had the cartoonist given us the identities of the drivers perhaps we may have different views of the world.

The relations between the two drivers were quite cordial until the red train began to move ahead.

With thanks, and apologies for any possible infringements of copyright which may be found in this not-for-profit educational use of a small part of the material of the copyright holders, and in particular to Chappatte, Stuttmann, knowthenation, the Chinese Embassy authority and the BBC, without whose article this blog would never have been written.

Be careful how you say

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When you are a marketing executive it becomes you to ensure that any advertising you do will not raise the expectations of your customers and potential customers to an unsustainable level even if you write the most taxing spreadsheet in the world; are the best in the market place; everyone knows that and you always get AA ratings. So that, anecdotally, if you had bought a Rolls Royce, in the days when quality was quality and you had a problem with it, there would be no questions asked when you took it back to the showroom. A new vehicle would be provided. Coco has a suspicion that the one you returned was later rebranded as a Bentley, but that might be an apochryphal addition to the tale.  

You also need to ensure that there are no gaffes in the material you publish. The should be no germlings introduced as a result, as happened to the government of Wales when they suggested that those who were in Slovenia should remain in their ski resort in the event of an emergency arising in Wales, which seems to be fairly good advice if it is safer to be there than it is to be at home, by the use of autocorrections in the processes used to produce written output, though clearly we would not want any shcool boy errors to slip in.  

So, it behoves you as a marketing director to ensure that your marketing moderates those expectations in a way that is potentially quite subtle and may be difficult but perhaps not impossible to achieve without indicating any diminution in the value of the goods or services that they would wish that you would purchase.  Now response times for certain types of service can be quite critical, whereas in other cases they may not be very important at all. For many of us however we would regard a short response time as a necessity if we have, say, a car engine issue on a long journey you will want help within an hour. It appears that such service is the industry standard. In the winter months we would want a similar response time from our home service agent, so it was heartening to see on a long journey the back of such a serviceman’s van, surprisingly however not a white van, but nevertheless well emblazoned with the marketing directors’ material.

It was only when once more we entered a slowly moving queue that the truth became apparent.

The use of alien languages

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Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau*

If Coco had written:
Gan nad yw rhywun yn disgwyl gweld Firenze mewn erthygl am Fflorens neu 臺北市 mewn erthygl am brifddinas y weriniaeth Tsieineaidd, pam mae disgwyl i un ddarllen Snowdon mewn erthygl Gymraeg am yr Wyddfa?

Coco is quite sure there would be much support for the view expressed, which is why Snowdon in Wales is known as, and probably ‘always’ has been known as yr Wyddfa.  I quite understand this, for if Coco were to speak in Italian, which Coco cannot, it would be intolerable to refer to Florence and not Firenze, and in French, which the French do not permit, to refer to Paris as Paris (euphonically speaking of course). 

But if Coco asks:
As one does not expect to see Firenze in an English article about Florence or 臺北市 in an English article about the capital city of the Chinese republic, why is one expected to read yr Wyddfa in an English article about Snowdon?
will Coco receive a similar response?

The editors of the BBC seem to take a different view and give more regard to those who would detract them for reasons of being PC, which you will understand is nothing to do with pure chocolate, than to their intended audience. For, when they write for an English speaking audience, then they do not write in English but introduce other tongues. If there is a need to write in another tongue, and from time to time there must be such a need, as Coco has demonstrated in the foregoing, then a translation should be provided for those who do not understand what is written. In the slightly better article from this perspective, to which we thought we had already referred, but have not so the link must be edited later, though the explanation was rather lacking in due care, at least an attempt had been made to provide an explanation. In this one* (Snowdon: Yr Wyddfa could be the first plastic-free mountain) however, whilst Yr Wyddfa is the proper name for Snowdon in the Welsh language, it is not the name for the mountain in the English language.

As a great man once said: If I come to you speaking in tongues [you do not understand] how will I benefit you? So with you, if you utter speech that is unintelligible how will anyone know what is said? You will be speaking to the air. If I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker a foreigner to me. … I would rather speak five words and be understood than ten thousand words in a language that is not, but if I must speak in another tongue, please let there be an interpreter.

With apologies for not providing a translation of the Welsh and to those who know for Google’s bad Welsh.

* Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau – The land of my fathers

* There is an appearance that since Coco first saw the article, a change has been made to make it clear that yr Wyddfa is Snowdon, but still we have Eryri National Park. Is this a location in Transylvania or near the great lake of a slightly similar English name?

Trade Marks

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My surprise is not so much in the way Lidl managed to win, but how they managed to gain a trademark for a yellow disk on a blue background in the first place.

Has no-one looked at the sky recently?

I suppose it was the fiery red ring which cannot be seen with the naked eye that tipped the balance in their favour.

Who is she who looks forth as the morning,
Fair as the moon,
Clear as the sun,
Awesome as an army with banners?
The Song of Songs

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run its race.
Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end; and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
Psalm 19

The feint red ring

A word you should not use

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He was twenty minutes into the sermon when he heard the sound of a little girl’s voice in the congregation. She was speaking to her mother, who was desperately trying to tell her, quietly, not to speak. Then everyone one heard it: ‘But mummy, he used the word which you said we should never say’.  He thought back for a moment at what he had just said, and wishing to take away the mother’s now very public embarrassment, he addressed the little girl:

My dear, he said, you are quite right, and your mummy is quite right also, we should never use that word. It is all too often used in quite the wrong way, and for the wrong reasons. Let me explain to you, and to everyone else here why that is, but first of all I must say that we must not forget that the place described here really does exist and we have to give it a name, otherwise either no-one would know what we are talking about or we would have to use a very long-winded name for it which would be quite a mouthful to use as I hope shortly you will understand, and also understand why your mother said that you must never use it.

Let me first of all describe it, and the deprivations that all who go there would feel and know, and then I shall tell you why we should not use the word.

The Bible is not afraid to speak of that place, and the Lord himself gave us a number of descriptions of it, but I would like first of all to remind you of some words which you will have heard here which to me provide, perhaps quite unexpectedly to some, one of the most terrifying descriptions of what that place is like. It is found in Psalm 129, which is one of those Psalm that the children of Israel would sing as the made their way up to Jerusalem for one of their feasts. It closes with the words: The blessing of the Lord be upon you; We bless you in the name of the Lord!

You know that we enjoy many blessing from the Lord in this world. He gives us our daily bread. He gives us homes, and families, people who love us and care for us, and whom we love and for whom we care. He gives us friends, and a place in our community. He gives us sunshine and rain, seed-time and harvest-time. He clothes the fields with flowers, the trees with blossom, and provides such beauty as we see all-around us. He gives us the ability to make beautiful things, and to enjoy them, to have some understanding of the world around us and to influence it. He gives us his Word, by which we learn about him, and people in his church who will teach us, and point us to Jesus. Above all else he has given us Jesus, who died on a Roman cross in our place.

These are but a few of the countless blessings that we enjoy from the hand of God our Maker and Saviour, from the Lord our God. Where would we be without them? What would life be like if all of his blessings were taken away from us. It is unthinkable, is it not, that we should have to live without them for even one hour? What if the sun were darkened for one hour? I have heard that even in the few minutes that an eclipse takes we start to feel the cold. The hottest desert becomes at night a cold bleak place. What if this blessing were removed for ever? Could we bear it? But even still this is only the removal of one of his blessings.

What if he removed all of his blessings for one hour? Could we bear that? Perhaps we could for we would have some hope that after the hour had ended they would be restored to us. But what if they were removed for ever without any hope of restoration?

You may lose one of your favourite toys and find that it has gone forever, but you have another, you take comfort in that which is left; but if all of them are removed and you are told you shall never have another what then? What loss do you feel? You may sometimes find yourself alone in the shop and start to be afraid – but mummy and daddy are actually there still watching you – what relief you have when your parents come back into your view.

The blessings of the Lord, are countless, innumerable and manifold. How good he is to us. The absence of his blessing is intolerable for us. Our situation becomes hopeless.

Now consider, what appears to be the blessing of this psalm is not in fact a blessing it is an imprecation: Let not those who pass them by say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you.

We enjoy the blessings of the Lord because he has put them upon us. If they had not been put upon us we could not enjoy them, they would be far away out of our reach. This psalm is talking about those who hate Zion. Now Zion is the house of the Lord. To hate the place where God lives is to hate God. So the psalm is about those who hate God. We read about them here and elsewhere, perhaps more famously where the psalmist says: Why do the nations rage and the peoples imagine a vain thing? In Psalm 2. Here in psalm 129 the Lord tells his people they are not to put the blessing of the Lord upon those who hate Zion. The blessings of the Lord are not for the wicked, as we read in Psalm 1, who are like the chaff which the winds blows away.  

This is why the description is so terrifying. The blessings, that we all here today enjoy, will one day be taken away from the wicked. They shall no more know the blessings of the Lord upon them, and never have any hope that they shall ever even have one smallest drop of those blessings to cool their tongue.

Can you, my dear, imagine such a place as that, where you have no hope that anything good will ever happen again?

There are many other descriptions of that place, but this one that tells us that it is a place where all of the blessings of God are absent is terrifying enough. The Lord Jesus provides us with a great deal of information, as we may read in the Gospels, about that place.

So, we should not say that anything is like that place. There is no other place like it at all, just as there is no place like heaven: eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart, the imaginations, of men, what God has prepared for those whom he loves. There is nothing like it and nothing can be compared with it. But it can be compared to other things, even though all of those comparisons are inadequate. Comparisons do not always work in two directions. You can say that an elephant’s legs are like trees, but to say that trees are like elephant’s legs simply does not work.

Nether should we wish that anyone should go to that place, or even suggest that they go there, for when we do, do we not forget that we are just as equally deserving, if not more deserving, to be sent there as anyone else? Do we really want the person who made us angry, or has upset us, to suffer the deprivations that I have described? We may feel that they deserve it, but do they deserve it any more than you do? Remember what the apostle said: How can a man say he loves God whom he has not seen if he does not love his brother whom he has seen? If we do not love God, then we are haters of God, and fall under the imprecation in this psalm.

So, you see, it is quite right that we should not use that word in our everyday speech. We should not tell people to go there, nor should we say that this is like it. The place is one of indescribable deprivation and suffering. My attempt to describe it, it is quite inadequate. The comparisons that I have made, and that we find in the Bible, all in some way fall short of what it is really is, but every one of them tells us something of what the place is like. A great preacher once met with another preacher one Monday, Monday being a day of rest for them. They knew each other well. ‘On what did you preach yesterday?’ one asked the other. ‘On the place of death and misery’ he replied. ‘And you did that with tears in your eyes, my brother?’.

There is no other way to use this word that to use it with tears in your eyes. Tears that it is necessary for such a place to exist, and tears that there are those who will find their way there having chosen to walk on the broad road that leads to destruction, and tears that they have refused the free offer of a place in the kingdom of God purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ who on the cross suffered all of the deprivations of hell including the abandonment of the goodness of God, so that he cried out: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Should you ever find you need to use this word, little one, and you shall have need to use it, let the tears roll down your cheeks as you warn your friend by telling her what it really means, why you would never want anyone to go there and that there is no place on this earth that is as dreadful as it is. Then remind her that there is a way to avoid it. Go to Jesus, he will keep you safe from it.