Virtual Methodist

I fully intend being as far away as I can be from a computer this morning, preferably with a nice cup of coffee and a book in my hand. But here's a quick link dump on related themes for those of you not in such halcyon surroundings: Wonga-World and Beyond Following on from my own piece earlier in the week, I came a cross a nuanced look at the regulation of pay-day loan companies by former head of Church Action on Poverty, suggesting that Credit Unions alone are an inadequate response to the banking needs of the poor. Then I came across this piece by Bishop Nick Baines responding to an editorial in The Independent written in the light of the AoC's pronouncements, ably defending the place of the church in the public square. Then there was a piece looking at the moral-murk behind ethical-consumerism - are companies getting more ethical about their production practices and effective use of slave-labour, particularly children - or are they just getting cleverer in cover...

Just finished Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's book, "South Dublin: How to get by on, like, €10,000 a day" a very funny, guide to the the land of conspicuous consumption on the far side of the Liffey. It is not for those of delicate sensibilities... But then again that is true of so much of what passes for popular culture today, be it in South Dublin, South Belfast, South London, or to be fair, at any of the compass points in any of the major cities in these islands. We may tut at the immorality on our TV screens, radios, newspapers and magazines... But it isn't so much immorality as amorality... As Lily Allen puts it in her recent song: "The Fear" "I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore..." There's no concept of wrong... Just what you are prepared to pay for... It remains to be seen whether this phenomenon will survive the credit-crunch, but until it does, Allen's song, could well be a hymn to the god of the age... the one we see in t...