chrishansenhome

I came across this book about Washington DC and Freemasonry, written by the author of Freemasons for Dummies, W. Bro. Christopher Hodapp. I thought you might find it interesting.

We had a very leisurely day today. At 1 we went out to Leicester Square to meet M, and then go to lunch. After a bit of a tussle over "where" that reminded me of Douglas Adams' three questions that denoted the three stages of civilisation:

• What should we eat?
• Why do we eat?
• Where should we go for lunch?

we decided to go to Jom Makan again, and this time we did much better. HWMBO gave it 7 out of 10 this time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We had no dessert, which was better as all the desserts are chock-full of sugar or sugar syrup. I took pictures!

M and HWMBO:




My lunch: Hainanese Chicken Rice and Gado-Gado salad:



I'd eaten a bit from the left side of this!



HWMBO had Nasi Ayam Percik ("Grilled chicken with sweet spicy coconut sauce served with steamed rice, fresh salad, and prawn crackers")



and M had Nasi Goreng (I think):



Afterwards we strolled to the White Cube, where a forgettable exhibition called "Lesser Panda" had its last day today. The top level was full of people watching a movie about the psychologist for the Munich police during the 1972 Olympic Games (you may remember, that was when Black September took Israeli athletes hostage), and the bottom level had some rather geometric and abstract paintings incorporating things which might or might not have been rings.

Then to Waterstone's Piccadilly, where I bought an O'Reilly title: "Windows Vista Annoyances"--which have been much on my mind of late.

We parted from M there, he to Leicester Square again to enquire about a movie, and us home via Boots, where HWMBO got an "alice band" for his hair.

We had stew for dinner, and HWMBO was mightily annoyed that I hadn't eaten some cottage cheese which expired yesterday. I think it'll stay until tomorrow night, when I won't really want to eat much.

Now to reading about Windows Vista annoyances...it does seem that the book isn't quite thick enough to accomodate all of them.

Whatever that is.

1) Total number of books I've owned:
The last time I moved I had about 45 cases of books. I have the equivalent of 7-1/2 floor-to-ceiling Ikea bookcases some of which have more books in them as they are two layers deep. I would guess about 1500 or so books.

2) The last book I bought:

Today, St. Augustine's Confessions, in an abridged version (which I found out only after I bought it). I've been working with a group who together are translating it as a Latin exercise. It's quite difficult later Latin but fun to translate.

3) The last book I read:

A book by my Columbia University faculty advisor and Dean of the College Peter Pouncey, "Rules for Old Men Waiting". It's his first novel and quite interesting.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):

The American Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer. My first exposure to Anglicanism and much better than either Common Worship or the Alternative Service Book.
Isaac Asimov's biography, "In Memory Yet Green" and "In Joy Still Felt". Interesting and voluminous 2-volume autobiography covering about 57 years. It goes to show you what keeping a diary can do for your memoirs.
The Bible. Sorry, folks, but there it is.
Hitchhiking to Heaven, by Lionel Blue. His fuller autobiography. He is an openly gay Rabbi here in the UK who is retired but often appears on Radio 4's Thought for the Day. He is funny, poignant, and a role model in that his faith is constantly tested and he is constantly seeking transcendence in everything and everyone. He's one of my heroes.
The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies. He was a very funny Canadian author. The first book in the trilogy includes a character who reminds me very much of a friend of mine from the seminary (who is now dead). He was not the scoundrel that Davies' character was but the character's mannerisms and views on life remind me of Richard very much.

5) Tag five people and have them fill this out in their LJs

On second thought, let me tag one person, spwebdesign. He gets what he asked for!

I'm painfully aware that my many friends here have been posting merrily during the holiday season while I've remained officially mute. Some of this is due to the ennui that Christmas in England produces in many of the sons and daughters of St. George. The rest of it is due to my own indolence and mine and HWMBO's desire to spend lots of time with each other this week as we are both off work. So, here we go with a megaupdate.

The run up to Christmas and the day itself were relatively quiet. We had ham, potatoes, turnip, and Brussels sprouts for Christmas lunch, with homemade squash pie for dessert (topped with a spoonful of Haagen Dasz). I am particularly proud of the squash pie: this delicacy is unknown here, where squash is invariable either mashed or roasted and served as a side dish. I used James Beard's recipe and am happy to report that not only did the pie (and the pastry, praised be the goddess of pies!) come out well but we did not tire of it and consumed all of it, in contradistinction to the mince pie I baked last year, which although tasty was a bit too much for us and had to be discarded after a week or so. Another homage to my mother, who was a consummate baker of pies. Another speciality of hers was fudge, which I have not attempted as it would probably mean instant diabetic coma in my delicate condition.

We didn't get each other any presents, formally, but have accompanied each other on shopping expeditions and have, at times, shopped alone. I am preparing for my Masonic initiation in February by today purchasing a white shirt, a black tie, and black socks. I shall have to purchase a black suit, good black shoes (I need shoes anyway.) and white gloves. I am led to expect that it will be a good experience but sartorially I shall be looking somewhat like a funeral director. No top hat, as far as I know. HWMBO has purchased shirts, shoes, and various other sundries. I've bought shirts, some computer equipment, and the like. Toys for boys, I guess. I think our shopping expeditions are probably over for now.

Boxing Day (December 26) brought the terrible news of the earthquake and tsunami in South and Southeast Asia. We considered going to Phuket last October but settled for Bintan Island in Indonesia instead. The waves did not reach Singapore or Bintan because of the Straits of Malacca and the island of Sumatra shielding them from the water. The news reports have been terrible. I cannot but think of the picture of eight smiling staff of a gay hotel in Phuket that I found on my hard disk a few nights ago. I wonder how many of them are still alive, and unhurt. Various people have been trying to extract meaning (invariably a religious one) from this event. The people of gothatesfags seem to think that it's God's revenge on the area. Others speak of the Godly activities of those caught up in the tragedy, both people who died, people who rescued and were rescued by others, and those who are digging deep into their pockets now. I resist attaching any religious meaning to it whatsoever. God didn't direct the tectonic plate shift that caused the earthquake, S/He wasn't punishing the inhabitants of the area and the tourists for Godless living, nor was S/He trying to make any point at all. Any meaning to it will be injected by people and extracted by them. The interdependence of the world's areas comes to mind as one lesson to be learned. This is not on the order of a "butterfly beating its wings in England causing a tornado in India six months later" lesson in interdependence. This is interdependence in a real sense. The people of the region depend on us to visit their areas and spend money, to buy their products, to take in their migrants, and to ensure that our waste and pollution do not contribute to the flooding of their islands and coastlines. We depend on them to provide safe and comfortable places to stay in a generally felicitous climate, to produce things like oil, rubber, coconut meat and palm oil, and the natural beauty of the land and the people who live there. We are all responsible for each other.

HWMBO and I want to donate to the Disaster Emergency Committee here in the UK. I have been trying to donate through their website for four days. They have made it impossible so to do. The first try ended in failure after I had filled out the form: their servers were overloaded and couldn't process the donation. At least, I hope they couldn't: I've been checking to ensure that the message which I received to that effect was genuine and that the money hasn't left our account. Evidently they realised that their servers were overloaded and switched to another collection service provider, as the form has now changed. However, the ineptness hasn't left. The second and third time I filled out the form properly, with the correct Visa card number, and was told that my Visa card number was invalid. I tried it with and without spaces, and still it was said to be invalid. I've given up and will call in our donation later. But wouldn't it be nice if for a change some software testing was done on such sites BEFORE a major event left them high and dry?

An interesting sidelight on the tragedy is that one of my pet peeves about the US is no longer unique to it. I have always noticed that, when there is a disaster of some sort in foreign climes, the US media are interested only to the extent of the loss of life suffered by US citizens. QUAKE IN EAST BUMLAND: 4 AMERICANS DIE! is the headline: only later in the story (sometimes cut by the editors) do you find that 100,000 East Bumlanders have also lost their lives. The British press is now going down the same road: while the total death toll is still high up in the story, the 27 British confirmed dead is a major part of the story, while it's only 0.02126% or so of the current death total. I am presuming now that every country is for itself in this: the Scandinavians, according to the Grauniad, are going through major grief and trauma as many of the tourists were Scandinavians and their respective governments were slow to respond to the need for information to get to relatives and friends of the holidaymakers. The few celebrities (the grandson of the King of Thailand and a granddaughter and daughter of the broadcaster Lord Attenborough are the only ones that come to mind at the moment) are of intense interest. Our Prime Minister didn't cut his holiday in Egypt short. This is another reason why Labour, who have left their roots and become the party of the nouveaux riches, should be defeated and returned into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Unfortunately, so should the Tories.

Even the least casualty of the quake is worthy of remembrance.

I have finished two books during the holidays, Cosmo Gordon Lang, by Lockhart, and Winnington-Ingram, by Carpenter. Lang was successively Vicar of Great St. Mary's, Cambridge, Vicar of Portsea, Bishop of Stepney, Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury from the end of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth centuries. He is generally only known for his odd name and for the fact that he had a part in the Abdication of Edward VIII, and made a broadcast after the event that sounded like he was kicking the man while he was down. He was much loved during his lifetime, and died on the pavement near Kew Gardens while rushing to the train to attend the House of Lords. Arthur Winnington-Ingram was Bishop of London from 1901 to 1939, and was also much loved and venerated. He had a "Catholic" feel about him, while being resolutely an Evangelical of the Old Skool: loving all his neighbours unconditionally and trusting all to be virtuous, even if they were scamps and scallywags and let him down in the end. Both these biographies had the feel of hagiography or panegyric. They were written soon after the deaths of their subjects, and many of those who were mentioned were still alive and kicking, so some references had to be quite guarded. Lang has been assumed to have been gay, and Winnington-Ingram was unmarried and very much a promoter of young men: he ordained more than 2200 men to the priesthood in his long career. However, neither biographer would have dreamed in the 1940's that anyone would have thought that either prelate were homosexual. Reading them makes me wonder whether there's a market for research into the first half of the twentieth century in the Church of England as regards her prelates and history. Perhaps I'll get motivated to do something about this. Lang in particular is quite an interesting subject when placed in historical perspective.

We have seen two movies in three days: Before Sunrise, and The Incredibles. I enjoyed both: the animation in The Incredibles was excellent, and perhaps foretells a time when actors (except for their voices) are supernumeraries in the film world. Before Sunrise is an older movie (1995 or so) that was shown by our local art house, The Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square. We are both Life Members and saw the film for a grand total of £3 (not including the soda and popcorn). I was really touched by the movie and kind of sad when I read of the sequel, Before Sunset, where the characters meet again for a short time not in the way that the first movie envisioned.

Today after the film we had a late lunch at the Surrey Quays mall, did a bit of shopping (surprise!) and then home. I have some dip prepared (good old French Onion dip!), and we have some cheese and crackers. We'll have some soup soon and then nibble (almost wrote "nipple") our way through midnight. We may have a drop of port. Another year will (presumably) dawn. The world is broken yet again. Will this year see any decrease in global war and strife? I certainly hope and pray it will.

I also wish for all my friends, both lj and not, a happy New Year.