The Wardman Wire

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This is Simon Sarmiento’s second Guest Column on the Wardman Wire, while David Keen is on holiday from the blog. This week Simon reflects further on the Lambeth Conference, and in particular the discussions (or non discussions) about attitudes to homosexuality.

I ended last week’s column by asking the question, is it all about sex or is it all about power? And I suggested that a suitable metaphor for the Lambeth Conference was Brownian motion, with a lot of energy being expended by participants but virtually no change of position. This week, a few hints as to the answer.

There is a competition for a hilltop sculpture to be a focus or the new “town” at Ebbsfleet. David Keen reflects on the five competition entrants, and wonders whether a giant silicone sculpture of Jordan’s breasts would be a better symbol of the national soul. Surely three hills are better than one, anyway?

Any life worth living is a life spent bothering about something important: our families, apartheid, justice, politics, community, the environment, the vulnerable. That’s the reason (we hope) why people want to get elected. The reason we campaign, argue, work, study, pray, organise, battle against injustice, and put up with criticism without quitting is because we care. It’s when we bother only about trivial things that we lose our humanity

Simon Barrow has been thinking about the tensions within the Roman Catholic Church between a traditional vision of authority, and a desire to engage with human rights and the modern world.

‘Bulimia’: the normal image conjured up is of an emaciated model or troubled teenager, not a rounded 69 year old Northern bloke with a taste for pies and official buffets. John Prescott’s revelation that he suffers from bulimia overturns most of our stereotypes about who suffers from what. Brave man.