Fantastic
30 July

Going back to work was not an entirely happy event.

Having done so many different things within the span of a fortnight, it certainly felt as though I'd been away for more than a couple of weeks. By the end of the week, I felt that I'd been back for longer than four days.

I've semi-officially finished my work on Ambition:IT now. Most of this week has been spent preparing for next week's visit by a representative of the Institute of IT Training who will assess our work with a view to connect becoming a corporate affiliate of the organisation. And from there on in I shall be busy writing courses for commercial consumption. Like most of my colleagues, I view the future with some dread.

And, to top it off, Mitch has resigned thus gaining for himself an immediate 33% pay increase. Well, I told the powers that be that we wouldn't keep the good people on the salaries that they were on.

Ross's new care assistant, Sandra, started this week - Sue is now employed through access to work as his personal work assistant. The deal is that Sandra helps Ross with domestic matters whilst Sue offers support which enables Ross to function in a work environment.

In that line, Ross has been spending a goodly amount of time ensuring that his work finances are all properly up to date. It occurred to me that there are two different sets of tensions at work in society today. There is a tidal move towards accountability and transparency whilst at the same time there is a shift towards a total lack of shame in public behaviour which is rewarded by media exposure.

My Quaker training programme, Hearts and Minds, has been continuing. We've now reached a point where we are thinking about what we actually believe in. I have great difficulty in pinning down my beliefs which is probably why I am a Quaker. In a sense it is easier if you are a Roman Catholic because there is a dogma set out which you sign up to with membership. Quakers don't operate in that way.

And yet, the basis of Quakerism is Christianity. So, in what sense am I a Christian if I am at all? One of the things I intend to do is to get hold of a copy of the Nicene creed and to see just how much (or how little) I can own for myself. It begins with the words "I believe" and it will be a challenge to see what it is that I can unconditionally accept even without empirical evidence.

I have also been thinking about Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the books of the Old Testament that cause so many problems between those who hold a literalist (creationist) view of the Bible and those who see it, as I do, in a more culturally determined framework. It is those Books which are used today by fundamentalists as a rationale for despising homosexuality. But, if you see those writings as a code of practice for living in harmony with nature on the margins of the habitable world as a desert community, then they seem to be far more like a type of Greenpeace manifesto.

I've been re-acquainting myself with G P Taylor's (so-called) children's novels Shadowmancer and Wormwood. They are quite excellent up there with the best of fantasy literature with a high moral content. Apparently, there's a new one out in the series, Tersias, which I shall precipitate myself upon as soon as I am able.

Television has finally come up with some drama worth watching in the shape of To the Ends of the Earth based on William Golding's trilogy of final novels Rites of Passage, Close Quarters and Fire Down Below. Each title is in itself a quirky pun and the whole misadventure is laced with grim humour, just deserts do not abound and good intentions often lead to dreadful consequences. The whole tone and presentation of the piece was spot on and did ample justice to these wise and witty valedictory works.

Entertainment in the movie world has been much more mixed. Spielberg's latest, War of the Worlds was utterly dreadful. The technique is masterly but the content and substance are wholly awful.

Much better was Constantine which set its sights lower and hit the target. As a comic book battle between good and evil, it had a medieval feel to the theology thought through for the present day. all in all, a much better achievement.

Topping them all, however, was Fantastic Four which succeeded in being a spectacle and a fun romp at the same time. It neither took itself too seriously nor descended into self-indulgent campery. All in all Ross and I had a great night out at the movies.

One of my main reasons for going was to see Ioan Gruffudd (last seen on TV in Hornblower) wearing lycra. I was not disappointed.


All of this is far remove from his appearance in the film Very Annie Mary as part of a gay couple with his long time friend Matthew Rhys, who I saw on stage in The Graduate back in 2000 just before I left London. The film is pants, by the way.

We also took a particular liking to the look of Chris Evans both in and out of lycra.

In fact, the scene in which he appeared clad only in a towel to hide his immodesty, caused a great deal of soul searching as we both willed for a comedic moment where the towel would slip to reveal a rear view.

Sadly, we were not obliged.

Happily, the film Not Another Teen Movie had already provided the evidence required.

Top arse.