Virtual Methodist

Yesterday a friend posted on facebook a link to the following excerpt from a 1988 recording of BBC TV's "That's Life", honouring Sir Nicholas Winton, a stockbroker and former banker, who, before World War II, almost single-handedly organised an operation known as the Czech Kindertransport. This involved the evacuation of about 669 children, most of whom were Jewish, to Britain from German occupied Czechoslovakia. 250 further children were due to leave Prague in autumn 1939, but the invasion of Poland and subsequent declaration of war stopped that. Winton kept quiet about his humanitarian exploits for many years, until his wife Grete found a scrapbook in their attic in 1988 listing the children, their parents' names (most of whom perished in Auschwitz), and the names and addresses of the families that took them in. This then prompted the telling of his story on "That's Life" where Winton finds himself surrounded by some of those whom he had saved... (...

Who is allowed to say what on the Beeb these days? On Friday night I turned on BBC1 QI which stands for "Quite Interesting"), with Stephen Fry et al, a programme which I really enjoy, being a trivia nerd, although some of the guests sadly often go for cheap and not quite so interesting laughs. On this episode they asked a question concerning the number of commandments in Exodus 20 (answer according to Fry is 14... been back to Exodus 20 and don't quite get what he means), and during that part of the show Stephen Fry told the sort of non-PC joke that would have been common in the days of Bernard Manning. Apparently God went ot the French and offered them the commandments, but they weren't interested because of the command no to commit adultery... He went to the Germans, and they weren't happy about being told not to kill... He went to the Italians and they weren't happy about being told not to steal... He finally went to the Jews, only to be asked "How muc...