Virtual Methodist

This morning I'm off to a meeting with mixed feelings... It breaks my heart that I have to go to it at all, but it is  also a wee ray of hope against a fairly bleak background. The background is created by an economic environment where people are facing mounting debts and are facing the choice of feeding or clothing their families, or heating their homes, and where small charities that have been seeking to help such people, such as our own Dundonald Family and Community Initiative, are having to fold due to lack of sustainable funding. So much for the BIG society... The ray of hope comes in the form of community food pantries... I first came across such ventures in the US on various fact-finding tours including one 5 years ago with a group of church leaders and civil servants under the auspices of CCWA, where we visited programmes in Pittsburgh and Washington DC. Many of us were impressed with what we saw but roundly dismissed the need for such ventures in the UK with our much va...

My friend Spike posted this wonderful picture on his Facebook wall, with the comment: "Now who can remember what happened to this banknote? 100,000 Reichsmarks? Anyone? You at the back? Scotsman, big fellow, rumpled suit, grumpy face? Yes. I'm talking to you!" It was prompted by an earlier dialogue between us on the announcement that the Bank of England, as well as dropping the interest rate to "half of one percent" (ie next to nothing), have decided to try some "quantitative easing," the wonderful new euphemism for printing up a few billion extra pounds. This brought to mind thoughts of the Weimar Republic and ultimately the oft quoted need for a barrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread... But for Spike it drew to mind Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" when the useless one third of the population of Golgrafrincham crash land on Earth and decide on leaves as currency... "But, we have also run into a sma...

Regular listeners of Terry Wogan will have heard one of his TOGs (and if you don't know what one of those are I'm not going to start explaining), comparing the recent wide-eyed frenzy on the floors of various stock markets and legislatures, to a lot of pre-school children running around fuelled by sugar, E-numbers and fizzy drinks... What they need, said the correspondent was good old Joyce Grenfell to come in and say "Stop it you boys!" and of course, "George! Don't do that!" But frankly, George doesn't really know what to do for the best, and, I'm not convinced that many other politicians do either... But for your delectation and delight, here is a YouTube posting of the "Nursery School Free Activity Period" monologue, with an unnecessary naff animation. Just hit the play button, sit back, close your eyes and let the dulcet tones of Ms. Grenfell soothe the worries of impending economic meltdown away. Cheers

Is this, in the immortal words of REM, "The end of the world as we know it?" As I was heading to bed last night news was trickling through of the U.S. House of Representatives rejection of the US Treasury inspired White House plan for the bail-out of the US banking sector. It was rejected by 228 to 205 votes, despite supposed bi-partisan support for it, and in the aftermath of the vote there seems to have been a "what have we done?" moment . The rest of the world quickly worked out what they had done... and rapidly began dumping banking stocks all across global markets. This meant that banks already under threat because of the sub-prime crisis, the overall credit crunch and the recent spate of opportunistic short selling came under even greater pressure. yesterday probably saw the single greatest reorganisation of the banking system in history with many banks being nationalised or taken over. Wachovia, the fourth-largest US bank, was bought by larger rival Citigroup...