Apparently London is about to flood (in which case I assume low lying areas of Essex are facing the same fate). So says LondonPrayer.Net (via Tall Skinny Kiwi). It’s all to do with the whale and the fact 40 days have passed:
Several have felt that London will experience a flood, which will affect the financial security and structure of the city. It is also interesting to note that 40 days from the sighting of the whale and this ‘sign of Jonah’, which falls on 1st March is also the 4 days of the high Spring tides in the Thames. These high spring tides will be from the 1-4th March this year.
I have a non-working campervan and a few sundry items such as a washing basket, a hat stand and a clothes rack. If it starts raining I’ll be heading outside to see what sort of ark I might be able to construct.
If it happens, well, fair goes to them. If not then I hope we’ll see some good old Old Testament stonings of the kind reserved for false prophets.
Posted by Dave at 3:54 pm on February 28, 2006 and filed under Current events.
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Nine miles down the road, on the island of West Mersea, the local vicar has joined a campaign against an application submitted by Tesco for another Express store. Rev Sam Norton has taken to giving Saturday morning talks on the unsustainability of international trading, and warned in the local newspaper that Tesco would “hollow out the life of our town”.
From Guardian Unlimited Shopping | Campaigners unite in bid to cut Tesco down to size
Revd Sam explains his thinking on his blog. His blog homepage is here. See also the Tescopoly site.
Posted by Dave at 9:51 am on February 28, 2006 and filed under Essex Life.
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Yes, I know, a Shrove Tuesday cartoon should really come before an Ash Wednesday one.
Posted by Dave at 5:21 pm on February 27, 2006 and filed under Cartoons.
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Tom Allen posts a stinging attack on the Church Times and Simon Sarmiento’s web column in particular.
I can’t help think that ‘comically inept’ is a little harsh, not least because Simon publishes what is probably the most well read Anglican blog in the UK*. I think I’m reading a different Church Times too (no - no-one is paying me to say that).
Meanwhile the Methodists are getting a bit cheeky 
*Made-up fact. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true.
Posted by Dave at 3:35 pm on February 27, 2006 and filed under Church, Blogging, Anglican goings-on, Ecumenical matters.
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Every blogger gets around to posting a picture of the cat eventually.
Her head is, as you can see, slightly larger than mine. I am glad to say that she is a bit better than she was at Christmas when, you may remember, she was quite ill and so we couldn’t go away.
Recently she has developed a taste for Lidl catfood over and above every other make. The supermeat rather than the ‘in gravy’. Neither of us normally shop at Lidl, so please don’t ask how we found this out.
Posted by Dave at 11:46 pm on February 26, 2006 and filed under Essex Life.
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Several of the clergy bloggers I linked to yesterday have been talking about cycling recently. Maggi has been learning to ride a bike, whilst Paul has written this rather good piece ‘Bicycles - surely a sign of the kingdom‘.
And there’s something truly wonderful about a machine which can propel a human being at speeds exceeding our running speed, without contributing a single ounce to global pollution. The bicycle is a parable of faith: needing the rider to work with the machine, enjoying its benefits but also taking responsibility for their own contribution to maintaining its forward momentum (and if you give up peddling long enough, you will stop and fall off!)
I’m hoping to buy a new bike shortly. I do already have a mountain bike but it is a little bit of a relic from my racing days in the early 90s. I have a birthday coming up too which is a good excuse. I am quite inspired by the latest generation of ‘hybrid’ bikes - part mountain bike, part road bike. You can get quite a reasonable amount for your money too. I have seen the Raleigh Pioneer Metro GLX for around £250 and the Claud Butler Classic for as little as £177.99. This might seem like a lot but it really isn’t compared with the cost of owning a vehicle or repeated public transport trips. You can get less expensive bikes but with heavier steel frames and cheap components such as the brakes etc which seem to me like a bit of a false economy.
Has anyone reading bought one of these ‘hybrid’ bikes? Am I thinking along the right lines?
Posted by Dave at 8:00 am on February 25, 2006 and filed under Sundry posts, Essex Life, Cycling.
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I’m not sure about this one. I’ll post it on the main site later on if no-one objects.
My Church Times Lent cartoon is here too for those that don’t mind peering closely at the screen. (The booklets in the bottom right hand cartoon say ‘Lent Course’ on them.)
Apologies to anyone who is checking the site in vain for new worksheets. They are one of a number of things that haven’t been happening very well in recent months for reasons that I don’t really want to post here. I do hope to address this issue soon, but in the meantime please feel free to send me an angry e-mail about it.
Posted by Dave at 2:11 pm on February 24, 2006 and filed under Cartoons, CartoonChurch progress.
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Warning: dull technical post.
A couple of technical issues to do with the Cartoon Blog:
New windows
There was a blinding flash of light and all of a sudden my eyes were opened to the fact that opening new links in new windows was no longer the thing to do on the internet. In the old days (1999, 2000 sort of time) it was entirely acceptable to open every external link in a new window, but times have moved on and in order to make web page ‘accessible’ one should no longer do so. So from now on all Cartoon Blog links now open in the same window. If this upsets you and you really really want links to open in a new window there are a few things you can do:
- Right click on a link and select ‘open in new window’
- Use the ’shift’ button as you click on a link
And probably the best of all:
- Download Firefox and then click on the scroll wheel of your mouse to open links in a new tab. This is great because it means that the new link loads behind the one you are currently reading.
Full feeds
The feeds for the Cartoon Blog are now full feeds rather than partial ones. This means you can now read the full text of a post in your feed reader rather than just an excerpt. I’m not sure whether this is a good move as it means less people will actually click through to the site itself, but I’m giving it a go. If you have no idea what a feed is or have no idea what I’m on about click here.
Feedburner problems
Please note that at the time of writing those using the Cartoon Blog FeedBurner feed along with Bloglines are experiencing some problems in that the combination isn’t working. This has been going on for a few days on this and other blogs. I’m hanging on a day or two before ditching Feedburner altogether, but hopefully it will improve soon.
Posted by Dave at 1:09 pm on February 24, 2006 and filed under Technical.
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Simon Sarmiento’s internet article in todays Church Times is on the subject of clerical bloggers. He’s set up a couple of special Church Times demonstration blogs to show clergy how easy it is.
The clergy blogs featured in the column are:
I wouldn’t recommend visiting more than two or three of these on any one internet surfing session though. You might become addicted to clergy blogs.
Posted by Dave at 11:27 am on February 24, 2006 and filed under Church, Blogging, Anglican goings-on.
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Posted by Dave at 10:50 am on February 24, 2006 and filed under Mundane.
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The cartoon museum opens its doors in London today. Hopefully I’ll be able to go and have a look before too long and report back. I can probably get away with justifying it under the heading of ‘research’ or some such. Here are some news reports:
BBC NEWS | England | London | New cartoon museum in the picture
Guardian Unlimited | Arts news | London cartoon museum opens
I don’t know whether it has a tea room. It might do, it might not. If that is your question I afraid I am not the person to answer it.
Posted by Dave at 2:27 pm on February 23, 2006 and filed under Cartooning.
2 Comments
The Church of England has opened a new bit of its website where you can find out how to get hold of old ecclesiastical documents, reports the Anglican Communion website.
The idea is that if you are after old orders of service from the 1980s or a copy of that photocopied sheet all about the catering arrangements for the 1992 parish retreat there will be a central place to start looking.
I notice that the Church of England Record Centre is included. This will be of interest to collectors of old vinyl who have until now been unable to trace a mint copy of the LP ‘Now that’s what I call a Praise Chorus (Volume 23)’.
Posted by Dave at 1:38 pm on February 23, 2006 and filed under Church.
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The not- quite- daily internet column of Dave Walker. Dave writes and draws for the Church Times and is to be the 'Cartoonist in Residence' for the 2008 Lambeth Conference. (
