Justin Cantuar

My (long) answer to someone who asked me what I thought of Justin Welby as the new Canterbury:

Pluses and minuses, I think. Minuses: he's only been a bishop for a couple of years, and he's much-loved in Durham and my friends there report they're sorry to lose him (though that's a plus for the rest of us). And it is certainly not the best thing that he went to Eton, especially in the current political climate. But on the other hand he's a smart guy, he has experience running large organisations, he went into the priesthood for very good reasons, he's heavily critical of capitalism despite his background, and I think it speaks volumes that he sent his own kids to state schools. I could wish he was more pro-LGBT rights than he is (though despite what some have said I see no reason to call him actively homophobic; at worst he colludes with a homophobic status quo). But one of the important things with an archbishop is not so much what he himself believes, but what he's prepared to allow others to believe. I certainly doubt he'll drag the church to the right, as some have been saying, especially given his critiques of capitalism. Out of all the candidates, he was probably the best choice overall (Cocksworth would have been good, but I think on balance not quite as good). So I'm pretty hopeful about the next few years.

Auto-pun

I read today that in both Nazi Germany and East Germany the government would give you a loan when you got married, so you could buy furniture and so on, and for every child you subsequently produced, they would cancel a quarter of the remaining debt. My brain said to me, "So I suppose that was payment in Kind."

Pies

Wondering why I had an earworm of "Two Lovely Black Eyes" in the supermarket, I looked around and saw I'd just passed a sign saying, "12 Mini Mince Pies". This happens to me all the time.

End7.org

End7.org wants to get rid of seven tropical diseases (roundworm, hookworm, elephantiasis, river blindness, schistosomiasis, trachoma, and trichuriasis) by 2020.