Pitch & Punt

Costing the Earth? The Quest for Sustainability

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 08:33:54 +0000

We exist because the Sun is. It was 5 billion years ago that the Sun "turned on" and scientists estimate that there is another 5 billion years of life left in the Sun. We live in the midpoint of its life; at its noonday. It is a star - it is our star - it is our daystar. It's not the biggest nor the smallest of the 200 billion stars even in our galaxy - but to sustain life on Earth, it is just right.

Egypt's painfully slow progress to a free press

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 18:31:18 +0000

The People's Assembly (parliament) approved the last of the new articles of the penal code governing the press on 10 July. The legislation places numerous restrictions on journalists, despite an intervention by the president to overturn the controversial article 303, which specifies prison sentences for journalists who question the financial integrity of officials and publicly elected figures.

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest joke is on Americans, not on Kazakhstan

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 18:30:33 +0000

Sacha Baron Cohen has followed his rude-boi Ali G spoof with a new character, Borat Sagdiyev, a foul-mouthed TV reporter from Kazakhstan, who tours America "promoting" his home country with a stream of sexist, homophobic and anti-semitic views. The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is outraged and has commissioned a $40m movie celebrating Kazakhstan's noble history to counter Cohen's pastiche and has complained to President George Bush about Cohen's portrayal in a recent visit to the States.

The bigger disappointment for liberalism: Tony Blair or Rowan Williams?

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 18:29:19 +0000

It's been a disappointing decade for liberals. It promised so much - in May 1997, Tony Blair and New Labour were swept to power by an electorate committed to a spring-clean for the Augean stables of 18 years of Tory government. Then, rather more recently in 2003, Dr Rowan Williams was enthroned as 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, against the early odds and against the desires and aspirations of the forces of evangelical conservatism, which had been gaining ground in the Anglican Communion.

Why the West doesn’t own Christianity

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:32:08 +0000

I was listening vaguely to the radio at my desk on 10th August when President George Bush called the putative Heathrow bombers "Islamic fascists". Ten minutes later, I was called by an old friend at the Church of England Press Office, who asked if I'd be prepared to go on Club Asia. This turned out not to be an exotic travel operator offering priestly perks in the sub-continent, but one of the short-wave specialist radio stations.

It's lay people, not priests, who offer hope for the future

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 18:28:19 +0000

David Smith, better known as Dave or Smithie to his colleagues, is the verger of St Bride's. He's also been licensed as a lay reader in the Diocese of London. He greets visitors to the church and is a man of not a few words; a man for whom conversation is not so much an art as an obsession. Perhaps that's how they make them in Derbyshire. Why tell an anecdote when an entire history of Derbyshire will do?

A feminine gospel demands that women tell their men to sit down

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 18:27:14 +0000

Not being a particularly scripturally-based Christian, I tend to miss the subtleties in Bible stories, the little phrases and grace notes that make the texts real and human. One such is the John's gospel account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, a miracle narrative that has lots of iconic moments - the loaves and fishes, the baskets left over - that eclipse one little opening order from the tired Jesus of Nazareth to his burly bodyguards and associates, as he faces a large, hungry and potentially hostile crowd: "Make the men sit down". It's a peaceful, ameliorating, hospitable, even feminine, injunction and speaks against the male grandeur of the Judaic tradition.

How & why?

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 15:20:14 +0000

The internet has memorably been described as "garbage at the speed of light". We have instant access to almost limitless rubbish as never before. But it seems to me that this offers two encouraging implications. First, low standards are a symptom of healthy pluralism - there's a lot of rubbish in our newspapers too, but that's because we have a free and competitive press serving all parts of the market and that's better than the alternatives. Second, blogs like this can only be as good as their content and contributors. As the spiritual home of journalists, St Bride's ought to be a forum for a high quality of dialectic among its dispersed congregation - and for many more besides.

The media deal with issues that are critical to the future of our planet on a daily basis - global warming, genetic engineering, poverty and natural disaster, war and terrorism. Then there are issues that seem closer to home: family breakdown and violence, drugs and drunkenness, gender politics and issues of human sexuality. And, before it all sounds too bleak, we live in a time of unparalleled access to much of what we want, fuelled by prosperity and economic independence. And, while there's much to worry about, there's much to laugh about too.

St Bride's should be an exchange for such currencies. A Rialto Bridge, rich in conversation, spanning the old Fleet Street and the new. We were the home of the first commercial printing press which revolutionised the spread of the printed word. We span the diaspora of the newspapers and the transformation of Fleet Street from geographical to metaphorical locus. Now, a little over 500 years after that first printing press arrived, the internet has sparked another media revolution. And, again, St Bride's has the opportunity to widen its reach and we hope that this site can be a public place in which we can discuss and revise our views and attitudes to a rapidly changing world.

We very much hope that you will post comments and views spontaneously or in response to articles written by contributors representing as broad a gamut of opinion as possible. Contributions will be moderated - and I reserve the traditional, though accountable, rights of editorship. No comment can be posted without it first being monitored and assessed. We aim to publish as many comments as possible, but we won't publish any which are gratuitously abusive or offensive - or, in the finer traditions of Fleet Street, which are downright boring.

Comments should be based around the original post and any subsequent discussion. If you want to make a more general comment, or to submit an article for consideration, then please email us. If we don't always respond to every email, we will at least read them all.

Please join in. In a wounded and wounding world, communication can only be healing.