“I hope it’s not like Dibley”, said at least one vicar’s wife. “Dibley” did appear, but only as a term of abuse to greet Adam, a vicar moving to an inner city London parish.

Rev is a new series on BBC2 that started this week, starring Tom Hollander. My worry is that the Vicar Hollander played would be similarly wet and useless as some other characters he’s played, such as the (Government) Minister in In the Loop. I’m not yet he’s going to avoid that as we already see that he can’t stand up to the manipulative and oily Archdeacon, deliciously played by the ever-watchable Simon McBurney.

The Vicar of Dibley was rightly a huge success, but didn’t really have any interest in the faith or work of the Vicar despite her being the central character. But it did at least put an unusually human and positive face on that Vicar, complete with interesting weaknesses. The supporting cast were caricatures with little complexity.

Rev does have it’s stock characters too, such as the scheming ex-MP. But I can forgive this, as it already shows much more interesting character plotting and subtle interplay between Adam Smallbone, his wife Alex, and what I expect to become the other major characters Nigel and Colin. Most encouraging, though, is that the writer James Woods seems to be interested in getting under the skin of this role, and not just play for cheap laughs. And knowing a vicar or two and their work quite well, I’d say he’s done a good job of it. I look forward to seeing of the crises of conscience, and the tensions between the roles and realities of the relationship between Adam and his wife. We also hear Adam’s thoughts as as he sits contemplating what’s going on, praying without it being childish, embarrassing or out of place.

So I hope that Rev shows not just another human face of the clergy, but shows more of what this complex vocation is all about. And to continue doing it through my ideal kind of comedy: subtle but with the odd belly laugh too.

Just one word of warning: there is occasionally more colourful language than one might expect … but still I’d highly recommend catching a few episodes.

We recently decided as part of the re-decoration of our living room, to commission a piece of art from Worcester-based artist Sharon McSwiney. She creates wonderful decorative metalwork installations and jewellery, and we first caught sight of her work at a Saturday Cheltenham Craft Market.

On the way back from Iona we stopped in and picked up the finished artwork, having paused to take a pic of the artist in front of it in her little studio.

Here’s the overall effect on our newly painted ‘accent’ wall:

And here’s a close-up of a single piece, which is copper and brass mounted on painted wooden boards.

We worked on the general size and layout and colouring of the work, and the sorts of individual pieces we liked, but Sharon then did the rest as she saw fit. And we’re delighted with the result!

It’s hard to find 2-player games. So when we saw Phil and Rachel last time, we got their recommendations, which included Hive. We’ve not player it much yet, but it’s good so far …

One of the things we talked about during the week on Iona as part of gbiona2010 was sustainability. And particularly our avoidable use of plastics. Clare Lissaman led a very interesting session on this, partly drawn from her experience on giving up (new) plastic for Lent. This is partly chronicled in her blog, unsurprisingly called Giving Up Plastic.

Here are a few of her hard lessons:

I’ve been having quite a few “oh no….” moments over the last few weeks of giving up plastic.

I finished up my Marmite. Cant buy a new jar as they have plastic lids….oh no.

I used up my deodorant and toothpaste. Oh no. Can I find replacements without plastic…..watch this space.

My Freeview box appears to have broken. Can’t replace it because it’s made from plastic. Oh no. (Though my father pointed out it may just be the fuse – I still need to check though unless I can find the spare fuses I have somewhere in the house I may still be TV-less as any new fuses will come packaged in plastic.) So there’s an interesting unintended consequence of giving up plastic, I appear to have given up TV as well. I’d love to say that I’m filling the time reading spiritually developing books (it is Lent after all) or even books and research about plastic, but that doesn’t appear to have happened.

Thankfully there is some good news as well. For example, Gawker reports:

… California lawmakers have voted to ban single-use plastic bags at supermarket checkout stands.

Good thing too, as the average plastic bag is used for 12 minutes, and then lasts for a thousand years or more in landfill. Crazy.

We need more positive stories on how we can give up on unnecessary plastic — particularly in disposable packaging. Clare reported that Boden and/or People Tree now send out their catalogues in the post without a plastic wrapper. It can be done!

I’ve probably got more to say here, but this will do for starters.

We’re back safely from a week staying with the Iona Community on the small Inner Hebridean island of Iona. We stayed in the Abbey along with 80 or so other supporters of Greenbelt.

We had a great time, but have come back fairly tired still: living in Temporary Community for a week is a fairly full-on experience. Particularly for us introverts.

Still, I managed a week without laptop or internet, which is the first for a long time …

A few months back I blogged about the real significance of the iPad. I’m glad to find that I’m not a lone voice in thinking its about what its hidden away from its users … see /the/path/of/most/resistance, including a good story about he changed the way he did tech support for the rest of his family.

We did better at this year’s Jazz Festival, I think.

We started with Kit Downes’ piano trio, one of the new-to-us groups we like to try each festival. They’d appealed because Downes is said to have some of the same mixed jazz and classical sensibilities of Brad Mehldau, who I first discovered at a Cheltenham Jazz Festival years ago. They started with Jump which indeed had echoes of Mehldau. We also liked hearing their tribute to early Keith Jarrett, called Tambourine. Like many piano trios we thought that the drumming was too fussy and intrusive, but it didn’t mar things too badly. We’ll try to find a recording, and hopefully be able to listen again to other great pieces such as Golden and Brixon.

A Big Fringe

Over at the free Fringe stage we enjoyed Jake Hall‘s singing by turns energetic and soulful, backing himself on acoustic guitar accompanied by a friend playing a funky cajon drum and bongos.

Later we enjoyed tapping and nodding along to The Roving Crows, who were a slightly strange choice for a Jazz Festival, being as they’re an Irish Folk/country/rock band. Perhaps their booking at the Cheltenham Folk festival got muddled up … Whatever it was their French-sounding bass player didn’t seem to be enjoying himself nearly as much as the lead guitarist.

I’d like to have seen Nikki Yeoh’s piano trio again, but it clashed with one of the others. And next time, Tommy, next time …

The Headline

But back to the main festival, and the treat that was Jamie Cullum headlining. Jo + John joined us to celebrate Jo’s birthday in style. We’d heard beforehand that the Town Hall’s regular piano tuner doesn’t like him coming as he ‘trashes’ pianos. And I did feel for him when Jamie jumped up onto the Steinway grand. But in the end he seemed to have mellowed slightly (maybe now he’s a thirty-something), only jumping off the piano twice. He hadn’t lost his energy, though, and his ability to entertain. It also needs to be said that he is a consummate musician, backed up by some serious talent. His voice and way of bending and working notes is unique, and great to listen to.

Most of the songs were new to us, as we’d only got one of his albums — a problem we’ve now more than fixed! — but he rounded off the show with the haunting Gran Torino, which he wrote for the Clint Eastwood movie. Before then he and the band came down off the stage, bringing a few instruments with them, and gave as extended acoustic variations on Cry me a River in the aisle, much to everyone’s delight.

It was a greal treat, and we’re looking forward to listening to those new albums …

Here’s one way to look at the results from the General Election:

Doesn’t look that equitable. Not just to the Lib Dems, but also to those parties who are missed off entirely, like UKIP.

Here’s a different view which just focuses on those parties who got 1% or more of the vote:

This again shows the Conservatives and Labour benefitting, and the Lib Dems, Greens, UKIP and BNP all losing out.

Whilst First Past The Post is easy to understand and links very nicely to local boundaries, this is clearly a long way from being entirely fair.

But this raises two questions:

1. Would a balanced parliament really hurt us?

BBC’s news site has an interesting set of Lessons from New Zealand in art of coalition building. They quote the Director of the Institute of Policy Studies as saying:
“We’ve managed perfectly well with our new electoral system, and many would say that it’s been an advantage to have that system because it has generated a better policy process, a more representative parliament and probably better policy outcomes …”

2. What to replace First Past The Post with?

There are lots of forms of PR, and they will create different outcomes. Since 1996, NZ have used a form of PR called Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP). In the UK it tends to be known as Additional Member System (AMS). According to Wikipedia’s entry on MMP, this is what the Jenkins Commission recommended for the UK some time back. And it’s already used for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and the London Assembly. It’s also used for elections to Germany’s federal parliament.

So maybe it’s a fairly straightfoward choice after all?

From Rev. Chris’ blog:

… Jesus came to announce the end of religion (humanity’s attempt to find God) and the arrival of love (God’s attempt to find us). And loves means reserving judgment, walking in humility and being very long on compassion, which is in stark contrast to what rule-making can do to us. In what ways do we put rule and ritual before basic love for ourselves and others?

h/t Maggi Dawn

Since giving my thoughts on the NHS’s Summary Care Records scheme, I’ve discovered some more relevant news.

Partly at the urging of the British Medical Association, the Department of Health decreed a week ago that the roll-out should stop, “until appropriate professional and public awareness has been raised”.

Earlier the BMA had claimed that the roll-out was “too hasty” and criticised the lack of an opt-out form in the patient information packs as well as calling for a national publicity campaign on the SCR.

This seems an entirely sensible plan; unfortunately at least 9 Primary Care Trusts have decided to continue with their schemes anyway, though I don’t know why.