The "Essex Princess"

So Jade's time on Earth is over. Farewell Jade. You were interesting.

I've been watching these last few weeks with fascination, and morbidly waiting for the end - every time I've gone online I've headed for the BBC website looking for bad news. Love her or hate her, Jade has done wonders for cervical cancer screening rates nationwide and her public fight for life has made many younger people contemplate their eternal fate where previously they thought they were invincible.

There are enough articles on the web already commenting on how Jade has used the media to her own advantage over the last few years, so I'm not going to make further comment on that, but a few things have struck me.

1. It's Mother's Day today. I'm sure Jade's not the only mother who has died today, but she's the one who is getting all the attention. She's left two little boys, who in all likelihood had made her a card and bought a present that they will not get to deliver to her. That's happening up and down the country today, to children young and old, but everybody else is doing their mourning out of the public glare.

2. Jade's mum Jackiey said this: "My beautiful daughter is at peace. Family and friends would like privacy at last". That's ironic then. I'm guessing that family weren't too comfortable with Jade's hunger for attention.

3. Jade's spirituality. In her last few weeks Jade did some interesting things. She got married, she was baptised and she got her children baptised. I've read some interesting things about her motivations for these (I'm a bit concerned that she may have gone for the 'baptism will get me into Heaven' ticket, and also heard that she'd been hedging bets with other faiths too) but by now she'll have had the conversation with Jesus where he looks for her name in the Book Of Life (I always think that sounds a bit Monty Python-ish) and her eternal destination will have been determined by her personal relationship with him, and nothing else.

4. Bishop Jonathan Blake performed the blessing at her wedding and was interviewed on BBC News this morning. He's an interesting character. Very convincing, and from the same vein as Jade and Max Clifford. I didn't know that we had a Bishop of Greater London. Oh, we don't. And neither does the Catholic church. Or any other mainstream Christian church. At the risk of increasing his self publicity here's a link: http://www.bishopjonathanblake.com/. Just look at what he's not saying about himself and make your own decision. At least I know where to go if I have any trouble getting ordained!

I'm off to watch the news now - the public reaction to this is going to be interesting. I'll be watching for what people say when they drop some petrol station flowers off at the gates of her house, and for what they don't say - what being English prevents them from saying....

More news from East Angular soon.

Easter hols!

Believe it or not, it was the end of the Lent Term yesterday. Such stress we have in Cambridge for a whole 8 weeks in a row. I'm not quite sure what these other universities are messing about at with their 12 and 13 week terms....what on earth was I doing all that time in Brighton in the early 90's?

Essay on "The Difference between Worship and Liturgy" handed in, we gathered in the Lecture Hall for our twice termly meeting of students and staff, where we hear all the news and plans that have been brewing since the start of term.

And then we prayed, which is where it all started to fall apart. There have been quite a lot of pregnancies announced this term, as well as the sadness of a stillbirth. After we remembered that sadness I wanted to give thanks for the joys of pregnancy and ask protection for the expectant parents. Except once my mouth opened it seemed to lose connection with my brain, and before I knew it I'd dug a huge hole that there was no getting out of. A sentence that was meant to celebrate the joys of children turned into one about the joys of making children. Fortunately by now all were laughing so loud that my next few words were lost.....

At least everybody was smiling for the rest of the day!

Change? Change!!

There's a saying in the Church of England that if you do something once it's a change, but once you've done it three or four times in a row it's a tradition and you'll never be able to get rid of it.

I used to be amused by our youth group's impatience to shake things up at church and to make things a bit more, well, modern. Whilst I encouraged experimentation in worship I always used to stress the point that there's a time and place for some things and that not every Sunday morning can be the same as the youth events we used to frequent. There are ways and means of introducing things, although sometimes radical change can be introduced sensitively too.

So it's with amusement that I observe those same young people (and a curate friend of mine) reacting with horror when their favourite occupation, Facebook, makes some changes to its layout. And for the second time in six months too!

Look, I still haven't worked out where my Wall went to the last time Facebook made changes, but let's face it - all they need to do is make a third change and it'll be a tradition, and then nobody will be moaning about it.

As far as the east is from the west

Today's session with my Romsey Mill group was a completely different experience from last week.

Between 9 of us we planted and fenced in about 20 shrubs. I say 9 of us - me, Gavin and Ruth enjoyed planting and fencing whilst many of our charges observed proceedings with some disinterest and complained about how hard they were being worked, whilst Iwan did his best to chivvy and encourage.

Over the course of 90 minutes everybody got along just fine. My un-friend from last week is once more my friend, without me having done anything different.

So things aren't so different from my nice cosy hot-chocolate-and-biscuits-in-my-lounge CYFA group that I left behind in Ferndown. But the Ferndown lot didn't use quite so much Anglo-Saxon, not that close to my face anyway.

And I'm not sure how well Slum Survivor would go down in this group.

I've had many comments about the article I wrote last week, from a variety of sources. Thank you all for your interest and encouragement.