Buddhas, Battles and Birds

Easily the biggest surprise of my trip is the revelation of how beautiful is Hong Kong. I am not referring to the dazzling illumination of the skyscrapers on either side of the harbour, or the stunning modern architecture. A few miles from the airport a bus carries up into the hills en route to a Buddhist shrine with an enormous seated Buddha statue over 100 feet tall. The scenery on the way rivals anything you see in the Pyrenees or the Alps, albeit on a smaller scale and much more verdant with subtropical vegetation. The road is even scarier than alpine hairpin benders, though the drivers are very cautious and considerate to other road users - you never feel in any danger.

The shrine itself reminds you how early Catholic missionaries thought that Buddhism was a corrupt form of Catholicism left over from earlier, forgotten missionary efforts. The burning of incense sticks in large pots looked eerily similar to the burning of candles at Lourdes and similar shrines. The explanatory text at the shrine described the importance of such statues as a visible witness to the Buddhist message - Buddhism is a religion of "image", which stirs memories of Protestant accusations of "idolatory" levelled at Catholics, and the Orthodox emphasis on icons and the need to keep the depictions of Christ, Mary and the saints unchanged down the centuries. At the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, a shrine to the Merciful Mother (surrounded by numerous supplicants) again aroused memories of the cult of Mary.

Now that I'm in Singapore you would think this highly populated little island had no space for wildlife or the plants that support all life on earth. But natural beauty is all around here. Even in the crowded Little India district, I was delighted to see a totally unfamiliar bird on top of a shopfront. In Fort Canning Park, a short walk from the mega-malls of Orchard Road where I am typing this email, you are surrounded by beautiful, unfamiliar trees, birds, birdsong, butterflies.... I probably won't have time to see the thousands of birds at Jurong Bird Park, the 250 acre Zoological gardens, the Botanical Gardens, the Orchid farm, the wetlands sanctuary.....

I have been round the Singapore Historical Museum on the north-east side of Fort Canning Park. The Museum is a wonderful example of redesigning and reinterpreting a traditional mueum's functions in telling past stories. Elaborate audio-visual displays and an excellent audio guide make for a fascinating visit. Fort Canning's very name reminds you of its recent military history. I have wanted to visit Singapore for over 35 years, since I read "The Battle for Singapore", which described Britain's "worst ever military defeat" in 1942. At least that's how it has been described countless times, though you could make the case that some WW1 battles or earlier strategic reverses, such as losing all British possessions in France, were even more catastrophic. Still, February 15th, 1942 was plenty bad enough and the "Battle Box" exhibition in Fort Canning Park describes that day in blow-by-blow detail. The "Battle Box" is the underground bunker where British generals directed the losing battles for Malaya and Singapore. It has been expertly restored with WW2 equipment, furnishings, sound effects and Tussaud-quality effigies of General Percival, General Bennett and several other key players in the debacle.

The weather is tropical, as you might expect, though the evening breezes make it pleasant and the early morning weather is walkable. But come midday to 2pm and you are reminded of Noel Coward's song:

"In the mangrove swamps
Where the python romps
There's peace from twelve to two.
Even Cariboos
Lie around and snooze.
For there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal
To move at all
Is seldom, if ever, done,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun"

Hong Kong: Which way is Mecca?

I'm writing this in the cafe at the top of the Peak on the East side of HK. A tram climbs The Peak at an amazing angle. It is one of the many interesting forms of transport I've used in the last week. The holiday started with Qatar Airlines flying to Bangkok via Dohar. I had never flown with an Arab airline before, so had never enjoyed airline food prepared in accordance with Islamic principles, as the menu assured me. The screen at the front of the cabin were not just for safety announcements and in-flight movies (the little individual screen for each passenger showed you Superman 3). The big screen showed the plane's position, distance from destination and (most important) orientation relative to Mecca. For a large part of the flight the arrow was set roughly at the 1 o'clock position relative to the axis of the fuselage. But as we approached Doha, Mecca drops away to the South-West and the arrow swung round to roughly five o'clock. As we landed the announcements reminded us of the Ramadan fasting regulations. You knew we were not in Kansas now, as was observed in the Wizard of Oz.

We flew Emirate Airlines to Hong Kong, and they were not so emphatic on Islamic observance Emirates have huge expansion plans and are by far the biggest customer for the A380 super-Jumbo. But the menu still claimed that meals were prepared in accordance with Hallal guidelines.

Bangkok offers the joys of Skytrain travel; quick, smooth, air-conditioned and dodges the city's horrendous traffic jams. Also, unlike other cities' metro systems, you get a wonderful view of the city. The tuk-tuk tricycle taxis are noisy, nimble and great fun if you ignore the fact that they offer as much crash protection as a wet paper bag. But they are very cheap and turn in incredibly tight spaces. The river buses are ridiculously cheap (13 to 18 baht, around 20 to 27 British pence or 40 to 55 US cents) and offer easy access to many of the main tourist spots along the river. There are over 30 numbered landing stages (jump on and off quickly, as with London buses!!) and numerous "routes" link these stages in very confusing combinations indicated by the coloured flags they fly. At least it was confusing to me, not the locals.

Hong Kong has the best metro system I have seen anywhere; immaculately clean, frequent, reliable, with the simplest, clearest route information you could wish for. To take one example: a large panel on the wall of each carriage shows the whole metro network. The route your train is on is indicated by having each of the stations on that route illuminated by a steady light. The next station to which the train is heading is indicated by a flashing light and a green arrow indicates the train's position and travel direction. As if this were not enough, announcements of "next station" and other information are in Chinese and English. Of course, if you're French, German, Russian, Brasilian etc - Learn English Or Die!!

The Hong Kong people love their double decker buses; there seem to be more here than in London. Nathan Road, the main artery in Kowloon, is packed with convoys of them. And what magnificent beasts: triple-axle monsters, much bigger than the puny British twin-axle double deckers. You see why they need three axles; depending on the exact model they carry up to 143 passengers (104 seats, 39 standing). Of course, between their huge diesel engines and industrial-strength air-condiotioning, they throw out terrific heat, which makes summer time even hotter on local roads.

Feed Me - In Hong Kong

Neville Shute in his novel "A Town like Alice" commented that "It is amazing how little difficulty an unknown language makes between a willing buyer and a willing seller". Thank God this is universally true, as otherwise I would probably have starved to death by now. My hotel in Hong Kong, unlike that in Bangkok, does not offer breakfast so I had to go looking in nearby streets. Despite Hong Kong being saturated with eating places of just about every nation on earth, there are very few open early in the morning, even in the seething hotbed of free enterprise called Kowloon. This place makes Wall Street look socialist, but few seem to see a profit in catering for early feeders like me.

I found one less than 100 yards from the hotel, but no one spoke English and the menu was entirely in Chinese. I pointed at Option A and received a fried egg, a steaming bowl of noodles and ham and a cup of coffee. Service was very quick, the cafe was very clean and it cost $HK20 - around $US2.60 or 1.30 sterling. You could hardly complain about value for money and I suppose I could have continued the week by working down the alphabet, but was reluctant to carry on playing Lucky Dip or Russian Roulette with my meals. So the next day I headed downtown to the Island, where the huge mall (is there a small mall in HK?) overlooking the Harbour has numerous eating places. Was there one open? "Pret A Manger", the English sandwich bar with the pretentious French name, was supposed to open at 730, but in the best British traditions of customer service it was still shut at 810. The only one open was McDonalds. Yes, I've seen "Supersize Me", but this was no time to think of healthy eating. McDonalds lacked the view of Victoria Harbour enjoyed by other restaurants, but it employed people who could be trusted to open on time.

I went to 1115 Mass at St Pauls on the east side of the Island city centre. It is a traditional French Baroque building surrounded by the convent, school and hospital run by the dwindling band of nuns. Not easy to find, but well worthwhile. The architecture has been adapted to cope with HK's steaming climate; doors down both walls opened to allow cross-flow of air, assisted by several electric fans. It is much cheaper and almost as effective as air conditioning. An elderly parishioner corrected me when I expressed admiration for his lovely "church" ; it is strictly a chapel, an outpost of St Margaret's up the hill in Happy Valley. I looked for a Sunday lunch venue and noticed an Italian restaurant offering authentic Italian dishes at Central London prices, so I ended up at a Thai restaurant where I was fed for $HK55 - around $US6.60 or 3.30 stirling. In that same street, crowded end to end with Chinese signs, there was a sign in a doorway advertising the British Riding School. Plainly the lessons could not be held anywhere nearby if horse or rider valued their lives, but it was yet another incongruous reminder of Empire days.

After Mass I spoke to one of the elderly nuns who expressed gratitude for everything the British did to develop Hong Kong. A Christian might express reservations at some of the rampant materialism on all sides in the present HK, but British rule plainly had advantages over the joys of Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward, mass executions, mass starvation, Cultural Revolution, concentration camps etc. Of course many current HK residents were so fond of Chairman Mao that they risked everything to swim to the colony - a much more dangerous business than scaling the Berlin Wall.

So far I have seen the Astronomy Museum, the Performing Arts Centre, some of the most amazing modern architecture in the world and a tailor to order a bargain suit - another HK tradition. On the evening of 1st October there is a huge
fireworks display over the harbour for National Day; fireworks is a Chinese speciality, so I look forward to that.

Marie Antoinette In Bangkok

Bill wrote surprisingly this morning from Bangkok, on one of his many vacations, no doubt. Although being a programmer he may have a gig there. I was surprised that I found on Google Images, a picture of the McDonalds at the Siam Centre he refers to. But what really surprised me was the skyline in the Highway picture below. It looks like several Manhattan's strung out together. I really need to get out more. Now, here's Bill. (S.Williams)

Dear Stan et al:

Hope you are all OK. Am writing email from the i/net cafe inside the Siam Centre, an enormous supermall which is about as Siamese as George Bush. Among the first things you see on entering are a McDonalds and a Haagen-Daaz ice cream stand. But it is a break from the heat and humidity. Bangkok lives both up and down to its reputations. On one hand, the numerous temples and Royal Palace are stunning. On the other, I was propositioned 5 times in 500 yards on my way to my hotel last night. You can buy everything in Bangkok, including every perversion in the dictionary. Thank God for American cultural imperialism; nearly all important signs are in Thai and English. As
for all other foreigners - in the spirit of Marie Antoinette, Let Them Speak
English.

Best wishes, Bill

-----
From a later post:

In the amazing Siam Centre in Bangkok, there is a superb bookshop crammed with mostly English language titles. There are also large French and German language sections, which is more than you would get even in good English bookshops. One of the titles in the business section had a surreal ring in that context: "The Starbucks experience" analyses the reasons for this coffee chain 's success (it certainly isn't the quality of their cappucinos). Under the one vast roof of the Siam Centre there are at least three Starbucks on different levels. I failed to find the 1,600 seat opera house which is allegedly on Level 5, the same level as the 14 screen multiplex, the Imax cinema and the bowling alley. So there may be another few Starbucks secreted around the oceanarium in the basement or the Maserati and Aston Martin showrooms on Level 2.

The first thing you see on leaving the Customs hall at Hong Kong airport is another Starbucks. But Hong Kong is otherwise deficient in this respect; I found only two Starbucks inside the Times Square megamall, which is spread over 11 levels and possibly even larger than the Siam Centre. Lacking the time and specialist tools for a professional survey, I am not sure if Times Square is larger on a volume or square footage basis. But it contains just about every designer label known to shopping woman and any which may have been omitted can be found in other malls within a five minute stroll.

The energy and commercial zest of this tiny ex-British colony beggars belief. You would not believe that so many businesses could be crammed into such a tiny space and all somehow contrive to flourish. I am staying in the centre of Kowloon and the surrounding streets are more brightly lit and crowded than London at Christmas. Strangely, the only service it took me some time to find is an internet cafe, which is why I'm typing this in a room at the top of some narrow stairs off one of the main streets in Kowloon.

The weather is slightly cooler and less humid than Bangkok's and the prevailing breeze off the surrounding sea makes walking much easier. The population is far more salubrious; I have not been pursued down the street by a pimp peddling his hookers, as happened in one of the main streets in Bangkok, and I cannot believe that I have not seen a beggar yet, unlike the numerous indigents crowding the streets in Bangkok.

The influence of Western culture seems sad in many places. Go into the bookshops, record shops or video stores and Chinese products are a minority section. In one glossy video store, a state-of the-art home cinema system was playing the DVD of "Celtic Woman" - five Irish women vocalists performing at Slane Castle in Ireland.

It was a bizarre experience sitting in Pacific Coffee on Sunday morning, reading the excellent "South China Morning Post" (entirely in English) and listening to one of Neil Diamond's worst songs droning from the sound system. One of the SCMP's Sunday sections is aimed at the teenage audience. Page 3 recorded the death of James Dean on this date in 1955 and Page 2 quizzed several local teens on their favourite poetry. And what moved these young Chinese souls? Shakespeare, Robert Frost's "The Road less travelled"......

Movies in Reading

Dear Stan,

I loved your perceptive review of "The Illusionist". (see Stan's Movie Blog.) I was enthralled by this unusual movie when I saw it in the cinema and I have just received my DVD from Amazon.co.uk - hot from its much delayed UK release. Neil Burger's informative commentary, the "making-of" featurette and every review I have seen somehow ignore the elephant in the living room - the Eisenheim character's Jewishness. His real name is Abramowitz; the subtext of the alien outsider and his potential subversiveness runs throughout the story. The theme of rebellion against the corrupt and dictatorial regime bubbles to the surface on several occasions: the talk of a "spiritual revolution" inspired by spiritualism, Eisenheim's power over the agitated crowd outside the theatre, the scene where the ghost of the murdered Duchess Sophie apparently appears on stage before the suspicious audience - who explicitly accuse the Crown Prince of her murder. The suspect patriotism of Jewish communities throughout Europe was a sore point; this story is set around the time of the Dreyfus affair in France, and after the rise of socialist and communist movements inspired by the Jew Karl Marx. A few years later, a penniless vagrant in Vienna called Adolph Hitler had his first education in hatred - partly from local anti-semitic politicians and partly from his reaction to the visibly different observant Jews in the city.

Last week I saw a film with a most unexpected spiritual subtheme - "La vie en rose", the biopic about Edith Piaf. As a biography, the film is a masterpiece of evasion. It entirely omits her career in WW2 - an unforgetable period for any French person of her generation. The stories of her singing for senior German officers and entertaining Gestapo officers in her apartment above a bordello obviously wouldn't comfortably fit into the picture of the plucky French icon. But it does put repeated emphasis on her devotion to that most French of saints, St Therese of Lisieux, patron of your local basilica on 12 Mile Road (Shrine of the Little Flower -- see Stan's article on Mass Dimension for a description and pictures of this unique church), and shows her totally confused but sincere spirituality, along with her alcoholism, drug addiction, promiscuity, etc. The movie was shown in one of our local multiplexes, the Showcase on the east side of Reading, a rare honour for any foreign language film. Obviously the managers thought that there are enough English people "d'un certain age" who would want to see a Piaf movie. Or it might be desperation at the sight of another summer of Hollywood sequels - Shrek 3, Die Hard 4, Evan Almighty ( may Bruce Deliver Us!). Perhaps they thought that any remotely different or unusual film might attract filmgoers turned off by mainstream dross.

Unfortunately, the Showcase plainly does not employ the sharpest knives in the drawer. The only reason anyone in the Reading area is out of work is if you don't want a job. So any business which offers unsocial hours and low pay is going to find itself choosing from the near-unemployable of the English workforce ( 20% of our school-leavers are functionally illiterate and innumerate) or from the huge number of recently arrived East European immigrants who have an IQ above room temperature and a terrific work ethic, but limited English. This leads to much entertainment in local eating places. At a wedding reception last October, the Polish waitress came round with plates of ham salad asking "Who ordered pig?".

Which of these groups works in the Showcase projection rooms, I do not know, but the first ten minutes of "La vie en rose" were shown with the wrong lens, so it was horizontally compressed, with half the image and all the subtitles squeezed off. It could be worse. Years ago, I took a Greek friend to see "LA Confidential" at the Showcase and instead we started seeing "Eight heads in a duffelbag". After several minutes the embarassed staff moved the disgruntled audience into another theatre and gave us all free tickets for another show.

Our town centre multiplex, the Vue, has shown two superb European films recently - the peerless "Battle of Algiers" and "The lives of others". Sadly, the audiences when I saw these movies were even thinner than those for Hollywood sequels, so I don't know if they will repeat the experiment. The fact that they would even consider screening "Battle", a 42 year old black and white film in French and Arabic, shows that business must be flagging and they are willing to try anything. Amazingly, given the large Indian population in the Thames Valley and the fact that India has the largest film industry in the world, they have never screened a Bollywood film.

Making a living from the rapidly changing British way of death

Undertakers show their wares at the industry's biggest-ever gathering

Oliver Burkeman
Saturday June 16, 2007
The Guardian

Death comes to us all in the end, but yesterday it paid a special visit to the Stoneleigh Park exhibition centre, outside Coventry, for the biggest-ever gathering of the British funeral industry. And the message it came to deliver was clear: reaping doesn't always have to be grim.

"I'll never forget the first time I exhibited these ones," said Mary Tomes, of Colourful Coffins, gesturing at a display of caskets covered in vivid nature photographs, sports team colours, and sparkling holographic foil. (Another vendor, a few feet away, was exhibiting a coffin designed to look like a KitKat.) "I went to a big meeting, took them along, and when I unveiled them, everybody just sat and stared. Nobody said anything for ages. My husband said, 'Maybe you better sit down.' But eventually someone asked how much they cost, and after that, it all just took off."

Many years ago, Ms Tomes said, "I decided that if anything ever happened to me, I wanted a bright yellow coffin with white daisies. But until recently the technology just wasn't available."

It would be wrong to suggest that pallid gents in pinstripes were entirely absent from the National Funeral Exhibition 2007, which runs until tomorrow. From the gleaming new hearses arrayed outside the venue to the man playing soft organ music on a Yamaha Clavinova, the traditional British way of death was never far away. Most of the £1.2bn we spend each year on funerals still goes towards conventional ceremonies. Even so, there was a distinct sense of long-standing taboos being eroded: of new technologies, and new ways of thinking about dying, being tentatively embraced.

These days, the granite slab above your grave can feature a bust made from a 3D scan of your head, and the web address of a professionally designed online memorial site. A company called Ecocoffins, part of the growing trend for green funerals using biodegradable caskets and woodland burial sites, will sell you the "signature coffin", made of ultra-strong reinforced cardboard, on which funeral guests can write a final message. Or your family can keep your ashes in an urn in the shape of a football.

Innovations like these are badly needed, too, because the funeral industry is facing serious challenges. For a start, there's the costly problem of mercury emissions from dead people's fillings, which crematoriums are legally obliged to minimise, and which was the subject of a seminar at the exhibition yesterday. Then there was the news last week that our cemeteries could be full in 30 years, prompting a government proposal to introduce "double-decker" graves.

Above all, there's the phenomenon no funeral director likes to contemplate: the country's falling death rate. "And it's going to get even worse," sighed Simon Albin-Dyer, of the venerable South London funeral company F Albin & Sons. It will be at least the end of the decade before the baby boomers "come on stream," said one official of the National Association of Funeral Directors, adding one more euphemism for dying to an already long list.

Changing demographics could also prove to be what you might, if you thought you were being clever, call another nail in the coffin of the traditional British funeral. "The East End, where we're based - it's changing," said John Cribb, who owns a fleet of vintage motor-powered and horsedrawn carriages. "There's the strong Muslim influence - well, that takes away business from us. And the eastern European people, they drive over in the car, pick the body up and take it back home. Which doesn't do us a bit of good."

Thinking laterally, the Cribb family are expanding into Ghana, where funerals can attract hundreds of guests from miles around, and where, collectively per funeral, "they spend more than they do over here". Another expanding niche is "repatriation services" - arranging for bodies to be flown from their country of death to their country of burial. Whenever you take a long-haul international flight these days, said Mr Albin-Dyer, "it's more than likely you've got deceased on board".

Strolling the aisles were Peter Vincent, a funeral director from Tasmania, and his wife, Tara. "We're over here on our honeymoon," said Mr Vincent, "and we thought, what could be more romantic than - no, I'm kidding. But it's all very interesting." Like almost every funeral director I met, Mr Vincent inherited a family business, and he gave the consensus explanation for the satisfactions of the job, too. "My father always used to say it's the only industry where people say 'thank you' and mean it," he said. "It's just that thing of being able to help people at one of the worst moments in their lives. You're doing what you can to help them with their grief."

And grief was not really banished from the cavernous exhibition hall, however much it was obscured by layers of euphemism and corporate-speak. On Mary Tomes's exhibition stand, the brightest colours adorned the saddest caskets: child-sized coffins covered with pictures of angels and teddy-bears.

Working in such close proximity to death tends to elicit one of two responses from the public, said Richard Arnold, an embalmer whose recent tasks have involved preparing the bodies of British soldiers in Iraq for the journey home. "There are the people who say 'Oh, that's what you do? How interesting!' and ask you loads of questions. And then there are the ones who say 'You're disgusting'. They don't want to come near you. They don't want to have anything to do with you."

Standing beside a stainless steel, hi-tech autopsy table - which Mr Arnold's employer, Omega Holdings, was selling for £6,500 - he reflected on why he had chosen to join the ranks of Britain's death professionals. No matter how many challenges the industry faces in the modern world, he noted incontrovertibly, its existence in some form is hardly in question.

"My parents said to me: 'You've got to do something that everybody wants'," he said, matter-of-factly. "And I didn't fancy being a midwife."

Blair to Become Pope British Press Report

Dear Stan and Pam,

I thought you might enjoy the attached articles. The first is on the amazing
Fr Michael Seed, (a Fisher of Men if ever there was one), who has recently
published his autobiography. This covers only the 50 years of his life to
date. What will the complete version be like? The second describes, with
appropriately macabre humor, the recent exhibition of funeral goods at
Coventry, about 90 miles north of Reading. Naturally, Barry Albin-Dyer's son
Simon is quoted in the latter article. Probably Barry was too busy to
attend.

Fr Seed was interviewed by Roger Bolton on the regular Radio 4 "Sunday"
program early on 17th June 2007. You could hear the incredulity in Roger's
voice as Fr Seed explained that the worst details of his savage sexual abuse
at the hands of his adopted father had been watered down during the lengthy
editing of his autobiography. As Fr Seed is severely dyslexic, it is amazing
that he has produced any book at all - much less acquired three degrees and
two doctorates.

I was interested to see the idea that we will soon have to double-deck the
graves to fit all the deceased into the horribly expensive land area of
Britain. They have been doing this for centuries in Prague. The Jewish
cemetery in the Old Town could not be expanded due to the cramped ghetto
area, so the Jewish community created layer after layer of graves. The
"ground level" inside the cemetery is several feet above the level of the
surrounding streets. The "new" Jewish cemetery to the east of the city
centre, beside the TV tower, was created in the late 18th century when
Jewish emancipation meant that they could live and bury their dead outside
the ghetto. When I visited the new cemetery in 2003, it was a revelation to
see the languages on the tombstones. Most were inscribed with Hebrew.
Perhaps 10-15% were in German - to get ahead in the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
you had to learn German, just as you have to know English in present-day
Prague. I saw only one grave with a Czech epitaph in this Czech graveyard.

A few years ago there was a long-running story that Liz Hurley was going to
convert and, if my failing memory is correct, that Fr Seed was her spiritual
mentor. It was around the time of Hugh Grant's misadventure with Divine
Brown in Hollywood and the combination gave the cartoonists plenty of fun.
Our satirical magazine "Private Eye" ran a photo of Liz and Hugh topped with
the title "Hurley to become Catholic". Liz's speech balloon declared "It's a
divine calling", while the harrassed-looking Hugh retorted "Tell her I'm
out". I don't know if Liz has ever converted, though she certainly had her
out-of-wedlock son (by a different paramour) christened in a Catholic
church.

The Father Seed article was yet another reminder of the different worlds
within the small world of English Catholicism. In February I mentioned the
very "up-market" Brompton Oratory as an example of an upper-middle
class/upper class parish for wealthy Londoners. A recent newspaper article
mentioned a Brompton parishioner - a devout German noblewoman with an
eye-watering family fortune and a name longer than a Henry James sentence.
St James, Spanish Place is another prime example of a church for the
well-heeled. Compared with Brompton Oratory, it is an austerely decorated
building, but it has splendid proportions and the scale of a cathedral. It
is only ten minutes walk north of Oxford Street, so it is conveniently
placed for some of the most expensive shopping in the world. Around 1992, a
well-connected friend told me that the starting price to book St James for a
wedding would be £5,000+ (currently $10,000), so you can guess what it might
be now.

As you can see from the article, Fr Seed is practically court chaplain to
Tony Blair. Tony Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, comes from a stern
Scottish Presbyterian background - his father was actually a church minister
- so even Fr Seed will have an uphill struggle to convert him.


Inevitably the religious lives of the rich and famous attract doubters. The
(staunchley atheist) political columnist Simon Heffer wrote a suitably
sceptical article in the "Daily Telegraph" of 16th June 2007:


"The Pope's Catholic, but is Tony Blair?

The air is thick with rumours that the Prime Minister will, on leaving
Downing Street, convert to Roman Catholicism. I don't doubt Mr Blair is
sincerely religious, but I wonder how he would handle the teachings of the
Catholic Church? After all, as a recent convert from the world of politics,
Ann Widdecombe, said this week in another context, Catholicism is not a
"pick and mix" religion. Why go through the business of converting and,
indeed, dropping in to see the Pope next week as your last overseas public
engagement, if on converting you might not be able to accept some of the
Pope's most fundamental teachings? I am very unclear where Mr Blair stands
on abortion. His party seems at times so much in favour of it that I'm
surprised it hasn't made it compulsory. In the Church that he may be about
to join, it is one of the most unspeakable sins. Perhaps now that he has no
more elections to fight, and no need to pretend to be all things to all
people, Mr Blair will confront this issue: and what fun it will be if he
does. "

Most of the British population are unclear as to where Tony Blair stands on
anything, not just abortion. Again, "Private Eye" have had endless pleasure
with the overtly pious persona he projects and have run a riotously funny
page throughout his ten year reign. This page is the weekly newsletter of St
Albion's Church, with the Reverend A. Blair as vicar and Gordon Brown as the
hapless parish treasurer. Another British political journalist declared
(correctly) that Tony Blair "unblushingly reads from the first letter to the
Corinthians as if he had personally written it". Will a recent "Private Eye"
photograph prove to be a true prophecy in jest? It shows Tony in a
remorseful pose beside our local lad, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.
"Forgive me, for I have spinned", he confesses. The title reads: "BLAIR TO
BECOME POPE?"

William Murphy,