The Schools' Inspector

This morning I attended a most informative conference on children's play and one of the early speakers shared the following story with us:

A Schools' Inspector carrying out his inspection of a class noticed a piece of paper on which a child had written what appeared to be a poem.

After quickly scanning it he exclaimed, "Why, that's a marvellous piece of poetry! May I read it out to the class?" he asked the teacher.

"Certainly," she replied and sat back to listen.

Yesterday Yesterday Yesterday
Sad Sad Sad
Today Today Today
Happy Happy Happy
Tomorrow Tomorrow Tomorrow
Hope Hope Hope

"Oh, no!" piped up a little boy from the back of the room, "That's not a poem - that's my spelling ...."

Grow your own ... on your window ledge

Hardly a week goes by without my attention being drawn to yet another request for an allotment from a well-meaning inner London resident hoping to make the most of the good weather and grow his or her own vegetables. The tragedy is though that while inner London is obviously deprived of the space to provide these, outer London probably has enough ... and yet many are fallow. What seemed a good idea last Spring ... led to back ache and then blisters and as the weeks dragged by the eventual acceptance that it had been a bad idea ... for now anyway.

So you're short of space? Well, don't have any space really - what to do? Easy: pop down to your local garden centre or nursery and ask to see their range of miniature fruit and vegetables. There are a wide range of these available and all are suitable for growing in pots, in hanging baskets or troughs for the window ledge.

One of my favourites is to grow spuds in a barrel ... as you top up the soil those growing at the bottom fatten up to be useful as Jacket Potatoes while those at the top are lovely "juliennes" or baby potatoes. Smother with a dob of Cornish butter ... how much more home grown could you get?

And if that sounds like a green revolution at the expense of colour - you're wrong! Consider the idea of "companion planting" - where two seemingly incongruous plants are grown side by side for often mutual benefit. This removes the need for spraying with pesticides and often adds colour to an otherwise monoecious crop. Grove garlic amongst your roses and you'll discourage aphids, or chives and you'll not only increase the perfume of the roses but also reduce the amount of blackspot. Tomatoes love to be surrounded by dward French marigolds which repel both green fly and blackfly (rub the leaves and smell your fingers ...) or add nasturtiums to your broccoli crop to increase colour, repel aphids and provide yet another source of salad.

Looking for colourful plants to put into window ledge vegetable garden? Consider the following: for BASKETS - Nasturtiums (need feeding); Strawberries; miniature Tomatoes; Borage; Carrots and creeping Thyme. For your TUBS AND TROUGHS - any herbs such as Mint, Thyme, Rosemary or the like; miniature Tomatoes; Lettuces; Kale; Borage; Carrots .. in fact pretty much anything will do!

Another novel idea if you have a little more space to plant up is to use a "tonnie" bag - the sort that builders' merchants use to deliver sand and gravel in. Filled with good drainage material at the base and then a rich free draining loam mix - these can be used to grow a wide variety of food plants in close proximity to one another and take out the back ache from bending too much or digging.

So this year - there's no excuse for not growing your own!

Religion

It's Easter in the Middle East and Orthodox churches today ... yet it was Easter last weekend for the rest - can't Christianity get it right? Probably not!

At this time of year I find myself torn between the rational that my partner Jeff represents (you don't seriously believe in that Jesus rose again stuff do you? etc etc) and the comforting but probably completely irrational spiritual side that I feel I have always possessed.

I can excuse Jeff - he's a scientist dealing in facts and figures and arguably when most in need of proof that a loving, caring God existed, he was sadly let down. Daily we read of similarly tragic stories and have to wonder ... if my God loves me why does he subject me to so much pain? You probably need to be a theologian to answer that: I certainly can't.

My kind of God, though, is one in whom I confide rather than charge with winning me the lottery ... though I probably do hope He'll be there for me if I need. Through that confidence I believe I do get some sort of positive direction and comfort.

So where does that place me within the Church? Well, I'm an Anglican - so I can rebel as much as I like and yet still claim to be of that broader church! In my early childhood I was influenced a great deal by the teachings and story of St. Francis - something that still intrigues me to this day. Patron saint of animals, he was also something of a rebel and probably deeply disturbing person to be physically close to - but his tenacity and intense confidence with his God must have been inspirational. He was a great innovator and is responsible for not only the Stations of the Cross found in Catholic churches but also our Christmas cribs.

St. Francis travelled to the Middle East to engage with Muslim scholars and I feel that he probably would share my personal view that there is as much in Islam for the Christian Church today to learn from as we perceive with our Western values that there is in the Christian tradition for the Islamic world to learn. And yet in the meantime we choose (as was happening in his day) to fight one another for our view of what our God wants us to do, the creed and customs or traditions that He might want us to practice and so on. We call upon our "loving" God to protect us and then despatch soldiers or mercenaries or others to kill and maim in His name.

When I look around the modern "secular" Britain I find it satisfying that we no longer are subjected to irresponsible and irrationale interpretations of Christian morality to dictate how we should behave or conduct ourselves (no gay person could!) but I also feel saddened that in moving away from that clarity of the "ideal" world we have thrown out all sense of public decency, kindness to others and tolerance of other people.

In My Father's house there are many rooms and I go ahead to prepare one for you - that's my God: loving, considerate, tolerant, omnipotent.

Happy Easter!

The Police - foul we cry!

I never cease to be surprised by the expressions of outrage and hurt that follow public demonstrations that have turned violent. While I would never condone violence, the recent spate of complaints following the conduct of demonstrators in the City of London almost beggars belief.

I'm deeply saddened by the death of the newspaper salesman - in my mind he was clearly the victim of being in the "wrong place at the wrong time" as much as a probable unprovoked assault by an over-hyped police officer responding perhaps instinctively to the scenes of anarchy around him. I am however bemused by the hurt shown last night on television by the woman "beaten back" by a police officer: not because I applaud his actions in anyway - but by how she thought she was not opening herself to harm by taking part in a violent controntation with the Police.

London sees many marches and demonstrations every year - they pass off peacefully enough and as one who takes part in the Gay Pride march I am grateful for the presence of the Police - particularly when passing those yelling abuse.

I recognise too, though that those marches held by extremists tend to bring out the very worst in both those demonstrators and police officers intent upon "having a go". The Thin Blue Line is there to protect our democratic right to legitimate peaceful protest as much as it is there to protect lives and property. Officers of all ranks who attend these events with their faces covered or identification numbers obscured should be dismissed: not given the opportunity to retire (on a very good pension) or resign (with their honour in tact). They bring their colleagues and service into disrepute and are as much a threat to our democracy as the extremists who hijack legitimate debate or public peaceful demonstration.