Lucky Jim ?

Before you think I have gone all highbrow this is not a blog about the hero of the Kingsley Amis novel of the same name.

It is a story in the unfolding about my friend Jim...lucky Jim some would say.

Not because he is a season ticket holder at Aston Villa looking forward to the ongoing revolution under St Martin, not because of his vast collection of vinyl records going back to before Cliff was a lad (he must have a lot?), not even because of his office furniture empire.

None of these things in fact .....but rather because of his soulmate Jackie....

.....and the results of a recent operation where she has been told she should not speak for a week.

Which one of us would not swap places given the chance to have a week of silence from our beloved??

Not me I say. Dare any of us risk a week of silence for the torrent to come in a week's time. Can you imagine the pressure building up, just like a volcano before eruption?

Lucky Jim. No way. My advice.

Let it all flow out through the old fashioned means of pen and paper. Then stock up with earplugs from Boots or book in for that urgent operation where temporary deafness follows for a week, while the torrent flows out to everyone else!

And if all else fails hope the operation also induces short term memory loss so the things she was bursting to say at the beginning of the week will be forgotten by its end....

Anyone for tea?

Some of you may think that Mrs Teapot has finally put Timelord out to grass for a model whose refinement is more in line with her own. After all I have never managed quite this poise when delivering the juice of the leaf.

In fact this is my senior partner Quentin Poole as he appears in our graduate recruitment brochure "Breaking the Law". Legal eagles go to www.wragge.com for a look.

We say in it that "everyone’s an equal at Wragge & Co, so there are no rules about who makes the tea or coffee."

I thought about this picture after listening on Sunday last to Peter Worth talk about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Peter encouraged us to seek out ways to serve others and adopt a culture counter to the ways of the world.

This picture is a foot washing picture and it is part of the message we as a firm want to give out. We will be judged by it. The cynics will smile at it. I do not know how often Quentin makes the tea but I do know it captures something of our values. Sometimes we will not live up to them. It is one reason why I am a partner .....and not just because I bake apple cake and muffins!

It is borne out by the care and support I have been given and the letters and cards I have received from lots of people in the firm since FreelanceNerd died.

Of course it is an age old challenge for the church that organisations and individuals outside the church sometimes adopt values which Jesus would applaud. Obvious really, when you think about it.

I then had a curious thought: Jesus washed the feet of his disciples to teach the disciples a lesson. We start at home so to speak.

And I know from our loss of FreelanceNerd and the response of our friends in the church how deeply that lesson has been learnt among us.

Black Holes

The world is out of joint........

FreeLance Nerd no longer raids the cake cupboard. He does not ring with the latest rantings from the Portsmouth Evening News. His gentle (?) banter about those misguided souls who go to the Temple of Doom is no longer heard.

My friend Baddog has the same point. El Pasto no longer taps on the window pain, falls in the hedge or rushes for the downstairs loo.

It seems like water does not boil any longer at 100C. Apples appear to fall from the trees but somehow never reach the ground. 2+2 no longer make 4.........

We may feel like we are at the edge of a black hole. Our energy is sucked in and at times light may be very dim. Yet we do not go there. We are not crushed even though we may be bowed down. We are renewed for each day and just that day.

Our friends carry the comfort of our God into our lives. They refresh us. Those who are closest to us have the knack of saying the least, laughing the most and listening lots.

We are wonderfully blessed by you and we will never forget you.

No Left Turn

I make no apology for returning to the subject of my last blog.

According to the Times, today Saturday, Council workers in Birmingham have been falling sick with stress.

News broke earlier in the week about big wages and complicated bonus schemes for white line writers and bollard cleaners.

Workers now claim that abuse from members of the public as they polish the city's "keep left" signs has reduced some to tears.

I have two theories fellow bloggers:

First: the London hack who wrote this libel could not recognise the honest sweat rolling down the cheeks of our noble hard working lads. Old fashioned elbow grease and spit and polish must have its effect. He misunderstood the gentle banter of fellow Brummies for abuse. Whatever they may think Times writers do not have the range of vocabulary found in Nechells and Sparkbrook.

Second: the spirit of Sergeant Bilko is alive and well in our second city and Colonel Hall is now the Leader of the Council

[those of you who have never heard of Bilko and Col Hall are invited for an evening at the Tardis to view an episode or two from the 50th anniversary DVD collection which was a top present for junior time lord on his recent birthday]

Bonus Time

According to the Birmingham Post today wage deals approved by Birmingham City Council as long as 15 years ago make it possible for workers who paint white lines on the roads to earn up to £53,000 a year.

A staff member described as a bollard cleaner can more than double his basic pay to earn £36,000 per year. This includes stand-by payments of £4,500 in case a gully or bollard needs a late-night clean-up.

I make no comment on the sums involved but fellow bloggers will want to know the secrets of various bonus schemes I have encountered in my time travels [sometimes slowly] in Birmingham:

stand by payment: general term for payment for standing by watching others work.

brush down payment: for additional time spent brushing horse attached to cart. Since we no longer have horse and carts it is based on actual time records from 1906 adjusted by the assumed variance in the size of cart horses since that date. Disputes are referred to the president for the time being of the association of rag and bone men in Wednesbury.

shower down payment: for lost time at home showering and changing clothes after day's work. Industrial action threatened in 1985 because payment did not cover gas or electricity consumed at home in heating water. Employers successfully claimed payment originated when men used cold showers at Tysley depot.

equipment allowance: for the tools of the trade including paint brush, wash leather etc. Tools provided by the Council since 1952 so allowance fixed at 1952 level plus inflation at RPI + 3% compounded since that date.

trade society allowance: a fixed sum for membership of certain apron and trouser rolling societies and similar

fodder allowance: a payment for horse feed to cover the cost of feeding the horse when kept in the back yard thereby allowing an early start instead of picking up the horse at the depot. The last horse and cart was used by the Council in 1975 and payments based on costs of feed at that date uplifted by the rise in DERV prices since that time

stable allowance: see above. Assumes each operative has a stable for 2 horses.

unsocial hours payment: for working at any time when others are not working. Some problems of definition.

timesheet payment: for completing timesheets within 1 year of the period to which they relate

spaghetti junction bonus: if all else fails........

Old friends?

According to Ron Crisp writing in this week's Rossendale Free Press there is a network of compost advisers in Lancashire waiting to advise those blessed to live in the Red Rose county on the benefits of composting. The Lancashire Home Composting project offers support by providing large black Dalek style bins free of charge delivered to your home.

I have a deep inner foreboding. Does Mr Crisp [or is his real name Cheesy Whatsit] really understand the forces he is about to unleash? Soon he and his volunteer friends may have more to advise on than the best mixture of tea bags, grass clippings and potato peelings for a good top dressing.

Time rushes on [or goes backwards more slowly] but before there was Teapot (BT) I found myself again on planet Scaro in a struggle with the Dalek race leading to their final submission and defeat....or so I thought

Before I could say sonic screw driver the planet was the hunting ground of recycler traders from the alpha minus constellation who persuaded the galactic empire there was money to be made in recycling the defeated foe [after suitable treatment of course] to a gullible planet called earth......but some traders thought they would cut corners and make an even bigger buck.

Yes and you have guessed it here are three of them. At the top of our garden!

Knowing a thing or two about Daleks myself I can say that these three are completely recycled. No life in this lot [at least not of the Dalek kind]......but can you be sure about any which may be in your garden. Did you buy them from a reliable source? Do they have the galactic stamp of authentic recycled Dalek on them.....a kind of hallmark on the inside rim in the shape of a drain plunger with a cross through it?

If not, you need help and I am not sure trading standards are up to it. You see no one knows what happens when you cut corners with a Dalek....except it is usually exterminating; nor when....it could be the next solar eclipse or the one after that or that...

So look out for the stamp on the inside rim, and if it is not there do not ring Mr Crisp or Cheesy Whatsit......ring the Ministry of Defence and ask for Dalek Busters, and hope they are not too late.

I am optimistic....

"....about human nature. That's why I will trust the people to do the right thing" said David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party on Sunday.

The trouble with sound bites is that they can bite you in the bum. On Monday our TVs and newspapers were filled with news of the awful shootings in Nickel Mines Pennsylvania.

Yet I too am an optimist.

I am an optimist because the God of all the earth will do right. He has not washed his hands of the human race in all its wrongdoing and folly as well He might. He made a plan to send his son Jesus to suffer and die and take on himself the consequences of it all. To make a way back to the kind of relationship God wants with us.

I am an optimist even though His plan means bad things will happen as He gives time and waits for humankind to respond.....because it gave me time to respond as well as FreeLanceNerd and El Pasto.

I am an optimist because in that plan Jesus chose a path of suffering so that God knows more than ever I can the pain of the death of a son and is with me in the hard moments.

I am an optimist because as a result of that plan I can go to meet FreeLanceNerd and El Pasto one day.

I am an optimist because God is never taken by surprise. He does not have or need an emergency plan.

I am an optimist because I have hope........ in the God of all the earth.... and heaven as well.

It's all in the b[l]og

So the world chess championship has been suspended after a row over bog [oops lavatory] breaks. Kramnik led Topalov 3-1 when on Friday Topalov protested that his opponent had abused the rules allowing visits to the private rest room during play.

He claims that Topalov used the lav 50 times during one game. The lav is the one place not covered by CCTV and therefore the inference is he was testing his moves on a computer secretly placed there.

Of course this kind of allegation is not new. it is one of the final throws of the defeated.

We all remember Ricky Ponting captain of the ex-cons throwing a wobbly during the last Ashes series about the England fast bowlers abusing so called toilet breaks. It is a certain thing though that Harmison and co were not honing their reverse swing skills on the computer. It all came to a head at Trent Bridge Nottingham when Ponting was run out by Gary Pratt a fielder substituting for one of the bowlers who was taking a break giving rise to that glorious score book entry

"Ponting run out (Pratt)...........48"

The chess championship is taking place in the Russian republic of Kalmykia. Topalov is a Bulgarian and I recommend he proposes that for the remainder of the competition lavatory facilities are imported from Bulgaria.

My friend Irene Liddy tells of a visit to Bulgaria and a lavatory full of bees. When asked what she should do about it she was told to keep the door open. Just what these chess grandmasters need.