Hi Kate,

Just a quick line to thank you for your kindness and altruism in listing these tickets without reserve.

I was attracted by the fact that it mentioned carols etc!!!

I suspected a different slant when I eventually noticed who was appearing!

To cut a long story short, after a fraught start in arranging matters at such short notice, I missed attending 6pm mass to go to the show and was delighted with the evening. Not least with the fact that my faith was not in the least weakened or compromised by anything portrayed on stage.

So … once again … thank you for your kindness to allow another to experience something completely novel … albeit at your expense.
God bless!
Jim.

Thank you so much, Jim, for being such a good sport, for giving the show a try and enjoying it, and for seeing the funny side. I felt really warm and Christmassy all the way home!

Today, as I walked down to the canal, the streets rang to the sound of construction: the clang of scaffolding, the shouts of construction workers and the roar of drills. But this was not in the service of manufacturing, printing or boat repair – instead, it was the massive Waterways site, a Berkeley homes development that runs all the way from Jericho up to Summertown, and is so breathtakingly banal that it is hard to imagine how they sell any of the houses. Some effort has clearly been made to echo the gorgeous red-brick and Cotswold stone of Jericho’s original houses, but it looks like a cheap knock-off – an Asda version of a four-star meal. The Lucy’s site has been swallowed up and will soon be residential accommodation.

Houses are big business in Jericho. The area itself is a thriving, lively place, with restaurants, the Phoenix arts cinema, good pubs, local primary schools and plenty of independent boutique shops. It is within walking distance of the station, making it possible to commute to London, and close to the city centre. It is, in short, a nice place to live and work. And all this means that the price of houses in Jericho has reached the dizzying heights of over £350,000 for two-up, two-down cottages with no guaranteed parking and minuscule gardens. No wonder every house is being extended or tarted up; no wonder every scrap of available land is being bought up by developers to turn into luxury flats.

Watching a repeat of the first TV adaptation of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse novels, The Dead of Jericho, a few weeks ago, I was struck by how much the area had changed since 1987. Jericho in the programme was full of students and working-class people, academics and young, poor families – the kind of people I remember. The left-wing, politically aware familes whose children I played with when I was growing up, and from whom I first learned about causes such as the anti-apartheid movement, would not be able to afford to live here now. I learned to play the piano from a retired music teacher who lived on Cardigan Street, whose pension would undoubtedly fail to cover the mortgage in 2007. Instead the wealthy young families living here send their children to the Dragon and the cars parked on the narrow streets are the SUVs, Mercedes, Audis and new Minis of the well-off. But there are still plenty of long-term residents and the area has a sense of community.

For years, Jericho has had a working boatyard, a colourful, untidy, cheerful, bustling place where residential boat-owners could come for repairs. Lying in the shade of the beautiful, austere St Barnabas church, the boatyard and its community was the inspiration for the Gyptians in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Now the boatyard has been shut and the site sold to developers, whose plans for it seem to be to build as many flats as possible, no matter whether it’s in keeping with the character of the area. Watching the end of the boatyard, it feels as though I am watching a bright flame go out, dwindling down to that little glow of red before it dies. The world is a poorer place without it.

So the world turns. The kind of people I remember from the Jericho of my childhood were very different from the print-workers at OUP, the canal-boatmen and the iron-workers of the past. But I feel a palpable sense of sadness at what will be lost when half of Jericho is turned into flats and luxury developments, with only the monolithic neo-classical structure of Oxford University Press still housing the industry for which it was built. There is a sense of history about this place; a suggestion that you are only a turn of a corner away from the people who lived and worked here in the past. There is a feeling of cohesion and of belonging, a sense of a tangible past shading into present with graceful ease. Will that all go?

Yesterday I walked down a different Jericho street – also all scaffolding, house-painting and gentrification, parking permits and resurfaced streets. A beautiful set of black wrought-iron railings outside one house caught my eye, with a plate affixed to them that said “Lucy’s of Oxford”. I felt the pride in that plaque. Looking around, there were many more wrought-iron railings, their manufacturer not named, but it would be a safe bet that most of them were made by Lucy’s in its glory days, when Victorian Oxford fell in love with the Gothic style and wrought iron. I touched the sun-warmed black paint and sensed the ghosts move around me.

Photo reproduced from the Castlemill boatyard gallery and St Barnabas Church website.

I had a lot of fun playing with it, but none more than when I cut and pasted in some words from an anti-feminist who has been hanging around tigtog’s Feminism 101 site lately. Hard to tell which is which, isn’t it?

Two versions below – the first with the phrases in order, and the second where I tried to give it some meaning (more of a mash-up).

BlogWarBot vs the Anti-Feminist 1

BlogWarBot: I’m BlogWarBot. Didn’t we ban you?
Guest: It is not your blog that is “101,” it is your own mind. You do not have the mental firepwer to go toe to toe with me, sweetheart.
BlogWarBot: What the hell does that stuff matter? We have to enact campaign finance reform!

Guest: I’m a attorney working in commercial litigation and a small business owner whose toes are firmly planted on the clutch and gas pedals of my ‘07 Porsche.
BlogWarBot: What, Malkin didn’t cover this on Hot Air?
Guest: I was sent here by others who couldn’t answer my challenges – so have I really trolled at all?
BlogWarBot: What business is it of yours?
Guest: Look, football season and baseball playoffs are around the corner, so I will probably find much better things to do with my time than argue with people whose ideology could be reduced to the pleas of Fredo: “I’m smaaaat! I can do things!.”
BlogWarBot: You’re trolling me, aren’t you?
Guest: Hmmm . . . thanks for putting words in my mouth, ma’am. They are tasty. Like pie.
BlogWarBot: While I’m thinking of it: Are you registered to vote?
Guest: How facile it must be to simply make your opponent’s worst case, to accuse him of all manner of horrid thoughts and beliefs, and then to argue against his caricature.
BlogWarBot: What are you, some kind of provocateur?
Guest: But once again you’ve evaded my challenge, which was to reference the source for “rights” claims to parity, or at least to reference some common ethical principle supporting the claim that such parity is at the very least desirable, much less one that compels my acquiescence. We usually don’t get far from “I want a pony. ‘Cause.”
BlogWarBot: You’re projecting. And in denial. And ugly.
Guest: You really need to be able to articulate these things in order to graft your cause onto the tree of “rights” properly understood in Western legal and moral traditions.
BlogWarBot: What other reasons might there be?
Guest: Military conscription is, for example, the state demanding use of a man’s body up to and including ordering him to certain death, as in the invasion of Omaha beach or Guadalcanal.
BlogWarBot: This is a woman-only space. Go away.
Guest: I am looking for an ethical system which requires that the government/men/patriarchy acknowledge and respect that you are something more than one of millions of animated meat puppets deserving of “rights” inuring by virtue of something which transcends your material existence and the government’s power to coerce – which is loosely what “rights” are – but which at the same time supports your claim that a full-term, viable baby is excess tissue to be removed and destroyed at will or whim.
BlogWarBot: You keep using that word something more than one of millions of animated meat puppets deserving of “rights” inuring by virtue of something which transcends BlogWarBot’s material existence and the government’s power to coerce – which is loosely what “rights” am – but which at the same time supports BlogWarBot’s claim that a full-term, viable baby is excess tissue to be removed and destroyed at will or whim. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Guest: Once again, you demand a degree of autonomy that is a fiction – it neither exists for men nor women, and would subsist in using the coercive power of government to force others to do by compulsion that which a woman and a man would otherwise divide between themselves on a voluntary basis.
BlogWarBot: That’s the problem with people like you. You’re never constructive about anything.
Guest: Do you really not expect me to believe that the feminist utopia is not one of womb to tomb government envelopment?
BlogWarBot: What the hell does that matter? We have to spread the truth about 9/11!
Guest: I never claimed to be on the fence, but I am certainly arguing in good faith. The difficulty that you have in accounting for the fundamental underpinnings of your belief is a very real one – and one that you cannot wish away by calling me a misogynist asshole.
BlogWarBot: Do you recognize the privilege involved in your calling yourself certainly arguing in good faith. The difficulty that BlogWarBot have in accounting for the fundamental underpinnings of BlogWarBot’s belief is a very real one – and one that BlogWarBot cannot wish away by calling you a misogynist asshole?
Guest: A smarter interlocutor might give the matter some thought and hone her argument, much less reflect upon it and reconsider her worldview, but not you.
BlogWarBot: Yeah, well, Hitler said ‘NO’ too.
Guest: I do not expect to lessen your religious zeal, but the numbers – yes the numbers – they do not lie.
BlogWarBot: Dig into the trust fund, pal. Maybe you can pay someone to expect to lessen BlogWarBot’s religious zeal, but the numbers – yes the numbers – they do not lie.
Guest: You are now a fringe element – a shadow in the lives of so many younger women – and you know this.
BlogWarBot: That’s the problem with people like you. You’re never constructive about anything.
Guest: Oh, you sneaky minx!
BlogWarBot: You’re projecting. And in denial. And ugly.
Guest: So yes, the state does DEMAND use of men’s bodies – in a manner much more common to lead to maiming and death. I don’t complain (former Marine). If the government gave you a dollar every time you wanted an abortion that was prohibited, would this satisfy you?
BlogWarBot: You seem awfully positive. Did you read Rand as a child?
Guest: A man does not have the social “autonomy” to quit his career to become a stay-at-home dad at will.
BlogWarBot: Crap. Did Goldstein link us again?
Guest: Patriarchy or not, career women are not stumbling over one another to snatch up all the aimless but handsome men making minimum wage.
BlogWarBot: Lemme guess. You’re a Libertarian.
Guest: The American regime of Divorce Laws comes to mind as well
BlogWarBot: Would you move? Someone with something interesting to say may want to use the machine.

BlogWarBot vs the Anti-Feminist 2

BlogWarBot: Hi, I’m BlogWarBot. Are you on my side or THAT side?
Guest: You are now a fringe element – a shadow in the lives of so many younger women – and you know this.
BlogWarBot: I know you’re now a fringe element – a shadow in the lives of so many younger women – and BlogWarBot know this, but what am I?
Guest: It is not your blog that is “101,” it is your own mind. You do not have the mental firepwer to go toe to toe with me, sweetheart.
BlogWarBot: Hey! Sexism hurts men too!.
Guest: Do you really not expect me to believe that the feminist utopia is not one of womb to tomb government envelopment?
BlogWarBot: Hey! Sexism hurts men too!.
Guest: A smarter interlocutor might give the matter some thought and hone her argument, much less reflect upon it and reconsider her worldview, but not you.
BlogWarBot: That’s the problem with people like you. You’re never constructive about anything.
Guest: I never claimed to be on the fence, but I am certainly arguing in good faith.
BlogWarBot: Do you recognize the privilege involved in your calling yourself certainly arguing in good faith?
Guest: You really need to be able to articulate these things in order to graft your cause onto the tree of “rights” properly understood in Western legal and moral traditions.
BlogWarBot: Correlation is not causation, fartface.
Guest: But once again you’ve evaded my challenge, which was to reference the source for “rights” claims to parity, or at least to reference some common ethical principle supporting the claim that such parity is at the very least desirable, much less one that compels my acquiescence. We usually don’t get far from “I want a pony. ‘Cause.”
BlogWarBot: Stop placing your oppressive expectations on me!
Guest: The difficulty that you have in accounting for the fundamental underpinnings of your belief is a very real one – and one that you cannot wish away by calling me a misogynist asshole.
BlogWarBot: And it IS my belief is a very real one – and one that BlogWarBot cannot wish away by calling you a misogynist asshole, so keep your hands and eyes and laws off it, pig.
Guest: How facile it must be to simply make your opponent’s worst case, to accuse him of all manner of horrid thoughts and beliefs, and then to argue against his caricature.
BlogWarBot: What, Malkin didn’t cover this on Hot Air?
Guest: I do not expect to lessen your religious zeal, but the numbers – yes the numbers – they do not lie.
BlogWarBot: I’m sure you’ve oppressed a woman into expect to lessen BlogWarBot’s religious zeal, but the numbers – yes the numbers – they do not lieing for you.
Guest: Oh, you sneaky minx!
BlogWarBot: In your dreams, jerk.
Guest: If the government gave you a dollar every time you wanted an abortion that was prohibited, would this satisfy you?
BlogWarBot: Stop placing your oppressive expectations on me!
Guest: A man does not have the social “autonomy” to quit his career to become a stay-at-home dad at will.
BlogWarBot: What the hell are you doing here?
Guest: I am looking for an ethical system which requires that the government/men/patriarchy acknowledge and respect that you are something more than one of millions of animated meat puppets deserving of “rights” inuring by virtue of something which transcends your material existence and the government’s power to coerce – which is loosely what “rights” are – but which at the same time supports your claim that a full-term, viable baby is excess tissue to be removed and destroyed at will or whim.
BlogWarBot: And I suppose you know all about being something more than one of millions of animated meat puppets deserving of “rights” inuring by virtue of something which transcends BlogWarBot’s material existence and the government’s power to coerce – which is loosely what “rights” am – but which at the same time supports BlogWarBot’s claim that a full-term, viable baby is excess tissue to be removed and destroyed at will or whim.
Guest: I’m a attorney working in commercial litigation and a small business owner whose toes are firmly planted on the clutch and gas pedals of my ‘07 Porsche.
BlogWarBot: What are you, some kind of provocateur?
Guest: I was sent here by others who couldn’t answer my challenges – so have I really trolled at all?
BlogWarBot: Maybe you should ask yourself that.
Guest: Military conscription is, for example, the state demanding use of a man’s body up to and including ordering him to certain death, as in the invasion of Omaha beach or Guadalcanal.
BlogWarBot: Are you a Men’s Rights Activist?
Guest: yes, the state does DEMAND use of men’s bodies – in a manner much more common to lead to maiming and death.
BlogWarBot: You seem awfully positive. Did you read Rand as a child?
Guest: I don’t complain (former Marine).
BlogWarBot: Typical. An expression of privileged ignorance.
Guest: Patriarchy or not, career women are not stumbling over one another to snatch up all the aimless but handsome men making minimum wage.
BlogWarBot: Your keyboard says ‘no,’ but your eyes say ‘I’m a big ol’ troll.’
Guest: Look, football season and baseball playoffs are around the corner, so I will probably find much better things to do with my time than argue with people whose ideology could be reduced to the pleas of Fredo: “I’m smaaaat! I can do things!.”
BlogWarBot: What are you, some kind of provocateur?
Guest: The American regime of Divorce Laws comes to mind as well.
BlogWarBot: Robin Morgan used that in a poem once. But you knew that, you damn plagiarist.
Guest: Once again, you demand a degree of autonomy that is a fiction – it neither exists for men nor women, and would subsist in using the coercive power of government to force others to do by compulsion that which a woman and a man would otherwise divide between themselves on a voluntary basis.
BlogWarBot: Yeah, well, Hitler said ‘NO’ too.

P.S. If you find BlogWarBot as amusing as I did, why not give Chris some cash towards hosting it? Details on the BlogWarBot page.

I’ve been everywhere I can think of and Chris is the only person who mentions Ilyka closing her blog. I suspect it’s fallout from one of the sudden rash of blog-wars, but it makes me really sad, as these are two of the most talented writers out there.

I’m baffled, surprised and upset to lose two of my favourite blogs. If anyone knows what has happened and how I can get in touch with Ilyka, please let me know.