Older blog entries for marnanel (starting at number 961)

Biblical double entendre

I wish Bible translators would avoid double entendre. Two cases in point:

Psalm 16:11. The Episcopal psalter renders this as: "in your right hand are pleasures for evermore."
Luke 18:5. The NIV renders it as: "because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming."

I suppose I have a dirty mind, but it's really, really distracting, at least to me. I stop thinking about the text and start thinking about the double entendre instead.

Edit: After I posted this, I thought of a case where I've seen translators deliberately duck such a misreading: Luke 11:7. The Greek has the man saying his children are *with him* in bed. This is open to misinterpretation in our cultural context, so different from the original context where a household might only own one bed. As you can see in http://bible.cc/luke/11-7.htm there are translations which work around this by saying "My children and I are in bed"; I'd be surprised if this wasn't a conscious choice to depart slightly from the Greek.

Syndicated 2012-10-25 20:45:13 (Updated 2012-10-25 20:58:32) from Monument

Creeping things

This is actually the most recent hymn text I've written, but it may not be entirely serious.

As we see in your creation
creeping things upon the earth,
show us, with the caterpillar,
how to reach a second birth.

As the spider spins her cobweb
patiently to catch a fly,
grant us means to share your message
in the lives of passers-by.

As you granted limbs aplenty
to the peaceful millipede,
make our feet upon the mountains
swift to reach a world of need.

As the beetle digs the dunghill
seeking where its food is stored,
teach us that this world is refuse
set against our loving Lord.

Syndicated 2012-10-24 16:46:39 (Updated 2012-10-24 16:51:56) from Monument

Agustina Ruiz

The other day I discovered the story of Agustina Ruiz, who told the Mexican Inquisition in 1621 that every time she saw religious iconography she began to imagine herself having sex with the Virgin Mary. As a penance, she was sent to a convent for three years. And what better place to send her than a building full of religious iconography and women?

Syndicated 2012-10-24 14:14:48 from Monument

Medical calendars

I wish there was a common online calendar service that various NHS trusts used. Then a) I could set my email/SMS reminders globally; b) it could export live calendars so I could integrate it into Google Calendar or my phone and have new appointments just appear; c) it could check for clashes where two different medical services want me at the same time. I know how it would work at a technical level, but how it would be managed and paid for is beyond my comprehension, so I suppose I can't make it happen.

Syndicated 2012-10-23 16:04:18 from Monument

Collapsing viaducts

What is it about collapsing viaducts which produces terrible poetry? I'm sure you've heard William McGonagall's poem about the train wreck in the Tay. Here's Julia Moore's poem about another collapsing railway bridge. If it wasn't bad enough that all those people died in the Ashtabula disaster, it's even worse that the most famous thing that survives to commemorate them is this truly awful piece of work.

(P P Bliss was a hymnwriter. author of "Hallelujah, what a saviour", which is still sung today.)

Have you heard of the dreadful fate
Of Mr. P. P. Bliss and wife?
Of their death I will relate,
And also others lost their life;
(in the) Ashtabula Bridge disaster,
Where so many people died
Without a thought that destruction
Would plunge them 'neath the wheel of tide.


CHORUS:

Swiftly passed the engine's call,
Hastening souls on to death,
Warning not one of them all;
It brought despair right and left.

Among the ruins are many friends,
Crushed to death amidst the roar;
On one thread all may depend,
And hope they've reached the other shore.
P. P. Bliss showed great devotion
To his faithful wife, his pride,
When he saw that she must perish,
He died a martyr by her side.

P. P. Bliss went home above --
Left all friends, earth and fame,
To rest in God's holy love;
Left on earth his work and name.
The people love his work by numbers,
It is read by great and small,
He by it will be remembered,
He has left it for us all.

His good name from time to time
Will rise on land and sea;
It is known in distant climes,
Let it echo wide and free.
One good man among the number,
Found sweet rest in a short time,
His weary soul may sweetly slumber
Within the vale, heaven sublime.

Destruction lay on every side,
Confusion, fire and despair;
No help, no hope, so they died,
Two hundred people over there.
Many ties was there broken,
Many a heart was filled with pain,
Each one left a little token,
For above they live again.

Syndicated 2012-10-18 00:56:06 from Monument

Least weasel

Please read this aloud:

"In some districts of Macedon, women who suffered from headaches after having washed their heads in water drawn overnight would assume that a weasel had previously used the water as a mirror, but they would refrain from mentioning the animal's name for fear that it would destroy their clothes."
Thank you.

(This is not because I think it might cause a weasel to destroy your clothes, but merely because I can't myself read it without corpsing.)

Syndicated 2012-10-09 02:10:00 from Monument

Sad and yet happy

I randomly got into a conversation about poetry with an elderly woman in a bookshop in Bakewell a few months ago, and promised to send her a copy of my anthology. Well, I just got an email from her daughter and son-in-law: she collapsed and died from a brain haemorrhage shortly afterwards, and they found the book on the doormat on returning from the hospital. They wanted to thank me for writing poems that have helped them through their grief. I'm not sure of the word for my feelings about this: sad and yet happy.

Syndicated 2012-10-08 18:46:43 from Monument

Seven-year-old Marnanel went through a range of emotions in any given day


Syndicated 2012-09-23 17:46:29 from Monument

In which I am confused about exim

I'm trying to configure an exim4 server under Ubuntu, but this is happening:


$ /usr/sbin/exim -bh 127.0.0.1

**** SMTP testing session as if from host 127.0.0.1
**** but without any ident (RFC 1413) callback.
**** This is not for real!

>>> host in hosts_connection_nolog? no (option unset)
>>> host in host_lookup? yes (matched "*")
>>> looking up host name for 127.0.0.1
>>> IP address lookup yielded localhost
>>> gethostbyname2 looked up these IP addresses:
>>>   name=localhost address=::1
>>>   name=localhost address=127.0.0.1
>>> checking addresses for localhost
>>>   ::1
>>>   127.0.0.1 OK
>>> host in host_reject_connection? no (option unset)
>>> host in sender_unqualified_hosts? no (option unset)
>>> host in recipient_unqualified_hosts? no (option unset)
>>> host in helo_verify_hosts? no (option unset)
>>> host in helo_try_verify_hosts? no (option unset)
>>> host in helo_accept_junk_hosts? no (option unset)
220 wombat.example.com ESMTP Exim 4.72 Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:09:23 +0000
EHLO localhost
>>> host in pipelining_advertise_hosts? yes (matched "*")
>>> host in auth_advertise_hosts? yes (matched "*")
>>> host in tls_advertise_hosts? yes (matched "*")
250-wombat.example.com Hello localhost [127.0.0.1]
250-SIZE 52428800
250-PIPELINING
250-STARTTLS
250 HELP
AUTH is broken
503 AUTH command used when not advertised

Why on earth does it say the host is in auth_advertise_hosts but not return AUTH in the EHLO response? Someone, please throw me a clue here.

Syndicated 2012-09-19 13:13:33 from Monument

Middlesborough

Mr. Gibson: Is the Minister aware that these proportions show quite clearly a drunkenness ratio three times worse in the City than in Middlesbrough? If that is so, would it not be a good idea for the Minister to encourage the Temperance Alliance to run a campaign in the City?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe [Home Secretary]: Great as are the charms of Middlesbrough—Macaulay said, "And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees"—" nevertheless, the number of people who visit it is distinctly smaller than the number who go into the City of London.

Mr. Marquand [the member for Middlesborough]: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that Middlesbrough is an orderly and well-administered town and is not seeking his assistance in this matter?

Syndicated 2012-09-14 21:13:36 from Monument

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