2014年4月27日 星期日

Saving an Endangered British Species: The Pub

拯救酒吧,英式生活傳統保衛戰

生活方式2014年02月21日
這個月,倫敦的老白熊酒吧關門,前途未卜。
這個月,倫敦的老白熊酒吧關門,前途未卜。
Adam Ferguson for The New York Times
倫敦——漢普斯特德是一個精緻的小村,點綴着鋪滿鵝卵石的小徑和喬 治王朝時期風格的住宅,已成為倫敦數一數二的時尚街區。然而這裡的酒吧正在一間接一間地消失。馬頭酒吧(Nags Head)已成為一家房地產公司的辦公室。波西米亞國王酒吧(The King of Bohemia)現在是一間服裝店。兔與狗酒吧(The Hare & Hounds)已經被一棟公寓樓所取代。
在過去20年,隨着英國經濟形勢的改變和人們品位的變化,已經有大約五分之一的酒吧倒閉,而且情況還正在進一步惡化。自2008年金融危機爆發以來,已有7000家酒吧關門,這讓一些小型社區面臨了不可思議的境況:人們的生活里缺少了臨近的小酒館。
這種情況已經使政府開始行動。新立法允許人們可以提出要求,把一家 酒吧認定為「有價值的社區財產」。這樣的認定可以為酒吧提供一定保護,使它避免被拆除,也有助於社區組織自行購買酒吧,而不是看着他們被房地產開發商奪 走,後者期望把酒吧用作他途,或者拆了。去年,倫敦南部人們喜愛的小酒館常春藤之屋(Ivy House)就成為首個獲得認定的酒吧,自那之後,又有約300間酒吧步其後塵。
保守黨議員布蘭登·里維斯(Brandon Lewis)是社區酒吧事務部長,他手下的辦公室負責推廣酒吧,保證它在英國人生活中佔據的特殊地位。他說,「我們想說,英國的酒吧在世界上是相當獨特 的,是一種非常傳統的存在。在許多社區里,它們都非常重要,這不僅是因為人們會在那裡聚會,而且還因為它是社區的籌款活動中心,是本地的足球俱樂部、舞蹈 班,是媽媽們上午喝咖啡的場所。」
去年3月,財政大臣喬治·奧斯本(George Osborne)改變想法,把每品脫啤酒的課稅減少了一便士,儘管如此,傳統的酒吧依然在以前所未有的幅度縮減。禁煙法使吸煙者遠離酒吧。超市裡降價銷售 的啤酒也在蠶食酒吧的生意。在倫敦,不斷上升的房地產價格已讓酒吧成了開發商趨之若鶩的目標。
不僅如此,在素以苦啤酒、黑啤酒和烈性黑啤出名的英國,也出現了文 化上的轉變,根據英國啤酒和酒吧協會(British Beer and Pub Association)的數據,相比十年前,英國人如今要少喝大約23%的啤酒。酒吧一直在設法通過其他飲料和擴充菜單品種的做法,來拉攏流失的顧客。
從另一個層面看,英國的酒吧危機也是瑪格麗特·撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)大力提倡放鬆行業管理遺留下來的影響。上世紀80年代,她領導的保守黨政府打破了啤 酒釀造商對酒吧近乎壟斷的地位。不過,獨立的大型公司取代了這些啤酒釀造商,自那之後,這些公司已吞併了全國超過半數的酒吧。這些「酒吧公司」常常擁有自 己的土地、能決定酒吧銷售哪些啤酒,可以收取高額的租金。一些酒吧公司通過借債斂地,現在則把地賣給出價最高的投標者,來變現房產。上個月提出的一項議案公開譴責了酒吧公司Punch Taverns的巨大利潤,稱這是「完全不可接受的」。
倡議團體真艾爾啤酒行動(Campaign for Real Ale)的尼爾·沃克(Neil Walker)說,「這些大型酒吧公司擁有大量物業,它們想賣掉其中的一些以快速獲利。」他說,許多酒吧已經被改成住宅或超市。
漢普斯特德的一個戰場就是老白熊酒吧(Old White Bear)。這是一棟美麗的、有着兩根煙囪的紅磚建築,過去的三個世紀里,它一直佔據着韋爾路上的這塊地盤。據說,彼得·奧圖(Peter O'Toole)在他狂野的青年時代時而會被拖出老白熊。顧客們說,在漢普斯特德出生的伊麗莎白·泰勒(Elizabeth Taylor)和在這裡有一處住所的理乍得·伯頓(Richard Burton)也是常客。
然而,當一群開發商通過馬恩島的一家公司買下老白熊時,有2000 人簽署了請願信來拯救它。老白熊被認定為有價值的社區財產,到目前為止,地方議會拒絕發放許可,不同意把它改造成一棟有六間卧室的建築。即便如此,它還是 在2月2日關門了。由於開發商已決意反擊,老白熊前途未卜。
酒吧的長期顧客蓋伊·溫蓋特(Guy Wingate)提到了漢普斯特德日漸凋敝的小酒館。他說,儘管村上還有其他酒吧,老白熊還是成了他所在的社區的中心。
「你徹底毀了它,我們要麼就像殭屍那樣,全都上街去遊盪, 要麼就待在家裡,彼此永不相見。」溫蓋特在口紅咖啡店(Cafe Rouge)抿着咖啡說道,這裡是手中鳥酒吧(Bird in Hand)的舊址。
本文最初發表於2014年2月16日。
翻譯:張薇

Saving an Endangered British Species: The Pub

February 21, 2014

The Old White Bear pub in London closed this month, and its future is uncertain.
Adam Ferguson for The New York Times
LONDON — One by one, the pubs are disappearing in Hampstead, a jewel-box village of cobbled lanes and Georgian homes that has become one of this city’s most fashionable neighborhoods. The Nags Head has become a realty office. The King of Bohemia is now a clothing shop. The Hare & Hounds has been replaced with an apartment building.
Changing economics and shifting tastes have claimed roughly one out of every five pubs during the last two decades in Britain, and things are growing worse. Since the 2008 financial crisis, 7,000 have shut, leaving some small communities confronting unthinkable: life without a “local,” as pubs are known.
And that has spurred the government into action. New legislation is letting people petition to have a pub designated an “asset of community value,” a status that provides a degree of protection from demolition and helps community groups buy pubs themselves, rather than seeing them get snatched up by real estate developers eager to convert them for other uses or tear them down. Since the Ivy House, a beloved local in south London, became the first to receive the designation last year, roughly 300 others have followed suit.
“The pub, we like to think, is relatively internationally unique, it’s a very traditional thing,” said Brandon Lewis, the Conservative member of Parliament who is the Community Pubs Minister, an office that underscores the special place pubs occupy in British life. “In many communities they are really important, not just because it’s where people come together, but it will be the focal point for fund-raising for the community, for the local football club, for the dance class, for the moms’ coffee morning.”
Still, the traditional pub is being squeezed as never before, even after George Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, reversed course last March and reduced the tax paid on every pint of beer, by a penny. Antismoking laws are keeping smokers away. Cut-price beer for sale at supermarkets is eating into business. In London, the upward spiral of real estate prices has made pubs attractive targets for developers.
And then there is a cultural shift on this isle of bitter, porter and stout: People in Britain are drinking about 23 percent less beer than a decade ago, according to the British Beer and Pub Association. Pubs have been trying to take up the slack with other beverages and expanded food menus.
On another level, Britain’s pub trouble is also an echo of the deregulatory fervor of Margaret Thatcher. In the 1980s, her Conservative government broke up the near monopoly that brewers held over pubs. But the breweries were replaced by large, independent companies that have since gobbled up a little over half of the nation’s pubs. These “pubcos” often own the land, determine what beer pubs can sell and can charge high rents. Some amassed their holdings by going into debt and are now selling to the highest bidder to capitalize on their real estate. A proposed parliamentary motion last month decried the profit margins of one pubco, Punch Taverns, calling them “wholly unacceptable.”
“Large pub companies own a lot of property, and there’s a temptation to sell some of those properties off for a quick monetary gain,” said Neil Walker of the Campaign for Real Ale, an advocacy group. Many pubs have been turned into residences or supermarkets, he said.
One battleground here in Hampstead is at the Old White Bear. A handsome, two-chimney building of red brick, the Bear has occupied its spot on Well Road for three centuries. Peter O’Toole, it is said, had to be carried out occasionally in his younger, wilder days. Elizabeth Taylor, who was born in Hampstead, and Richard Burton, who owned a home here, were also visitors, patrons say. Recent guests are said to include Boy George and Liam Gallagher.
But after the Old White Bear was bought by a group of developers through a company on the Isle of Man, 2,000 people signed a petition to save the pub. The Bear has been declared an asset of community value, and the local council has so far refused permission to turn it into a six-bedroom house. Even so, the pub closed on Feb. 2. With the developers determined to fight, the Bear’s future is uncertain.
Guy Wingate, a longtime patron, pointed to Hampstead’s fallen locals. While the village has other pubs, the Old White Bear, he said, had become the center of his community.
“You rip the heart out of that, and we’re either all going to wander the streets like zombies or stay indoors and not see each other ever again,” Mr. Wingate said over coffee at Cafe Rouge, which used to be the Bird in Hand.

2014年4月21日 星期一

Watch London's historic skylines change – in pictures

Watch London's historic skylines change – in pictures

Through fire and war, the skyline of London has morphed constantly over the centuries. As 230 towers prepare to trample into town, take a look back at an evolving city

Old London Bridge, c. 1630 by Claude Jongh.
Old London Bridge, c 1630 by Claude Jongh. Photograph: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy
An engraving of the Tower of London, 1647.
An engraving of the Tower of London, 1647. Photograph: Philip de Bay/Historical Picture Archive/Corbis
The Great Fire of London as seen from Southwark, 1666.
The Great Fire of London as seen from Southwark, 1666. Hulton Getty
A panoramic view of London, c.1670 by Wenceslaus Hollar.
A panoramic view of London, c.1670 by Wenceslaus Hollar. Photograph: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy
St Paul's Cathedral viewed from Southwark, across the River Thames, in 1859.
St Paul's Cathedral viewed from Southwark, across the River Thames, in 1859. Photograph: William England/Getty Images
Traffic on London Bridge over the river Thames in 1904. The bridge is full of pedestrians, horse drawn omnibuses and horse drawn carriages. Various wharfs and warehouses are visible on the left of the shot across the river.
Traffic on London Bridge over the river Thames in 1904. The bridge is full of pedestrians, horse drawn omnibuses and horse drawn carriages. Various wharfs and warehouses are visible on the left of the shot across the river. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
Four women have lunch in the roof garden on Adelaide House, overlooking the River Thames and Tower Bridge, circa 1934.
Four women have lunch in the roof garden on Adelaide House, overlooking the River Thames and Tower Bridge, c. 1934. Hulton Getty
Men unload esparto grass from barges at a wharf near Lambeth on the River Thames. The grass is used for making bank notes and stockings. Westminster Bridge, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the background, 1938.
Men unload esparto grass from barges at a wharf near Lambeth on the River Thames. The grass is used for making bank notes and stockings. Westminster Bridge, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the background, 1938. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
Cannon Street, looking toward St Paul's Cathedral,  virtually unscathed, after ceaseless German air raids, in 1942.
Cannon Street, looking toward St Paul's Cathedral, virtually unscathed, after ceaseless German air raids, in 1942. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
The Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, during the Festival of Britain.
The Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, during the Festival of Britain, 1951. Photograph: Jane Bown
Trafalgar Square in 1961, from left: National Gallery, St Martins-in-the-Fields, South Africa House, and The Strand .
Trafalgar Square in 1961, from left: National Gallery, St Martins-in-the-Fields, South Africa House, and The Strand . Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
Canary Wharf tower in London's Docklands in 2001 as seen from one of the new towers under construction.
Canary Wharf tower in London's Docklands in 2001 as seen from one of the new towers under construction. Photograph: Martin Godwin
An aerial view of London at sunrise, in June 2012, looking east towards the City with Canary Wharf in the distance.
An aerial view of London at sunrise, in June 2012, looking east towards the City with Canary Wharf in the distance. Photograph: High Level Photography/Rex Fea

2014年4月19日 星期六

Justin Welby: the hard-nosed realist holding together the Church of England


Justin Welby: the hard-nosed realist holding together the Church of England
The archbishop of Canterbury has had successes over female bishops and payday lenders, and is now trying to steer the church away from telling people how to behave
Justin Welby
Justin Welby: 'The church is not a place where good people go. It’s a place where bad people go to meet God. It’s a refuge for sinners.' Photograph: Heathcliff O'Malley/Rex
Justin Welby now looks like the best archbishop of Canterbury the Church of England could possibly have, but when he was appointed he was almost unknown, and had only been a diocesan bishop for nine months. What got him the job – after he had made the shortlist – was that he was the only candidate who did not deny or flinch from the internal research suggesting that the church would dwindle, on existing trends, from about one million committed members to 150,000 by 2050.
His first year in the job has been marked by tremendous energy and rather more physical and moral courage than is expected of an archbishop, but there is a tremendous sense of urgency underlying this display.
He has already had two notable successes, and one of them will last. He has led the church past the General Synod's traumatic failure to approve female bishops in 2012, so that it seems certain that some will be appointed next year; and in the summer he managed to get the whole country talking about loan sharks and thinking of the Church of England as an organisation more concerned with the evils of payday lending than of sex.
He denounced payday lenders as evil in the House of Lords. Within a day the Financial Times discovered that the church itself had an indirect investment in Wonga through a fund in which its pension fund invests. Welby was furious when he discovered this but in public, on the Today programme, simply and disarmingly admitted it was a mistake. The whole thing was an improvisation that did him a great deal of good. His bold statement that the church could instead invest in credit unions that would "compete Wonga out of existence" was never really tested. What got through was the unmistakable sincerity of his rage and pity for the victims of such lenders and his determination to do more than seems possible, even if it's much less than is needed.
He has not been able to heal the international schism over homosexuality, which has, if anything, grown worse in the last year. The archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, who was an enthusiastic backer of a law that makes it punishable with a jail sentence even to talk about gay marriage, said recently: "Women are not scarce, men are not scarce and God has made adequate arrangement for human sexuality, so anybody who is developing any extra sexual instinct or desire, I think such a person should attend to himself because there is something wrong."
Link to video: Justin Welby: Wonga investment should not have happened

'An executive type'

Only a tiny minority of members of the Church of England would say things like that, although some would only regret Okoh's lack of ambiguity. Welby might have been one of them 15 years ago but he has changed since then, and he understands that the country has changed too. He will not be able to hold on to the Nigerians, or the Church of Uganda, another enthusiastic backer of homophobic laws. But he is making strenuous efforts to hold together as much as possible of the remains of the Anglican Communion, although there is no longer any pretence that this is a coherent body with discipline and doctrines of its own. One of Welby's closest advisers dismissed that idea as "a Roman Catholic fantasy".
That's only one of the sacred cows he has been slaughtering. In many respects, he has behaved like a business executive, with, in private, a remarkably hard-nosed realism no matter how uplifting he has been in public. "He's definitely an executive type," says one senior colleague. "He thinks in those terms. He operates in those terms. He's willing to make quite big moves."
The most obvious example of this dynamism was his recovery from the synod's fiasco over female bishops in 2012, when legislation that would have made it possible to choose women as bishops was blocked by a rump of conservative evangelical lay people, elected through an arcane system of committees that ensured they were wholly unrepresentative. Welby's reaction was threefold. First, he co-opted a number of senior women on to the committees previously reserved for bishops, so that they had access to real power. He pushed the synod into drastically shortening its timetable for legislation, so the mistaken vote could be undone in two years instead of five. And he set up a process of reconciliation and informal face-to-face negotiations between supporters and opponents.
None of this might have worked without the shock and revulsion felt in the wider church – and in parliament – at the failure of the earlier legislation. But this reaction would not on its own have shaken the defences of the conservatives, who were still resisting last summer. Only the personal and institutional pressure that Welby applied had that effect, and by February this year the opponents had accepted a much worse deal than they had earlier rejected, yet seemed happier about it. This was not entirely because accepting inevitable defeat meant they could continue to wrangle about gay clergy for the foreseeable future.
When first chosen, it seemed the most notable thing about Welby was that he had been a successful businessman: a man who understood money and could chastise bankers in their own language. But looking back after his first year, the most notable thing is less his civilian job than his formation in the peculiarly English upper-class Christianity of Eton, Cambridge and Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB). These are the places where Christianity is still part of the culture in a way that just isn't true elsewhere.
Welby's background was a startling mixture of privilege and insecurity. On his mother's side he was descended from five generations of colonial administrators. She had been a secretary to Winston Churchill; among her close relatives were Lord Portal, who ran the RAF, and RA Butler. His stepfather was a distinguished theologian. But his father, who soon divorced his mother, had only appeared to be an Englishman called Gavin Welby. In fact – unknown to his English family – he was born in a Jewish-German immigrant family called Weiler, made his first fortune bootlegging in New York during prohibition, and died an alcoholic who had left the last two years of Welby's school fees at Eton unpaid.
Justin Welby Christmas sermon Welby delivers his Christmas Day sermon at Canterbury cathedral last year. Photograph: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images Gavin Welby was a figure of enormous charm and energy, but entirely unreliable and mysterious even to those closest to him. At Eton Welby was not among the fashionable boys. He was much later described by his housemaster with wonderful condescension as "a model boy, though quite undistinguished". He was not a Christian then: he had had the conventional upper-class socialisation of tedious hymns and meaningless sermons, which normally functions as a vaccine against religious fervour. But at Cambridge he was converted by an extraordinary group of earnest upper-class evangelicals, who now, 30 years later, have taken over the Church of England.
The group that later became the core of the HTB movement was, from the outside, quite ludicrously posh. Five of them, for example, were called Nicky and four of those had been to Eton. They came out of a culture of clean-living, rugger-playing manliness that seemed little changed since the first world war – in one sermon preached at HTB in this century, the subject of oral sex was dismissed with the words "Chuck it, men!" In fact, though, this had been a deliberate anachronism planted in the 1950s and operating through summer camps that recruited through the public-school network.
And just as their tradition was a little bit phoney, so was their place at the heart of the establishment. Three of the core group (Nicky Gumbel, who more or less invented the Alpha course, Ken Costa, who became a fantastically rich banker, and Welby himself) were partly Jewish, though Welby did not then know his father's real identity. They had the self-assurance to appear absurd, with their earnestness and the tracts they handed out, but not, perhaps, the self-assurance to suppose they deserved all their privilege.
Enthusiastic Christianity was certainly not in the mainstream at Eton. The ungenial contempt of more secular Etonians is nicely captured by an entry in Alan Clark's diaries about Michael Alison, a Tory politician who was also a churchwarden at HTB: "Saintly but useless. You need someone with guile, patience, an easy, fluent manner of concealing the truth but drawing it from others in that job. It is extraordinary how from time to time one does get people who have been through Brigade school, taken their commission and served, seen all human depravity as only one can at Eton … and yet go all naive and Godwatch."
In fact, the form of Christianity to which Welby was converted as an undergraduate did emphasise the worthlessness of unredeemed humanity. It wasn't really naive at all. "Guile, patience, and an easy, fluent manner" distinguish Etonian Christians as much as Etonian pagans. It's just that the Christians want to tell you the truth as well.

Christian rebels

For a man with a well-deserved reputation for honesty and straight dealing, Welby has said some staggeringly untrue things – most famously when he told Giles Fraser that he was "one of the thicker bishops in the Church of England". He has an unforced relish in things of the mind – he loves the efflorescence of Nigerian English for its own sake – but he is not an intellectual. He doesn't build systems – he looks for what works.
Justin Welby South Sudan Welby during a two-day visit to South Sudan. Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images But self-deprecation of that sort doesn't count as dishonesty when no one (at least no one in the club) is meant to take it seriously, and it is in any case flattering to all the other bishops.
The young Cambridge Christians, so outwardly conventional, were in one respect rebels against everything they had been taught. They embraced wholeheartedly the charismatic revival – talking in tongues, miraculous healing, fainting in the spirit, and even prophecies – all things anathema to the older Calvinist tradition that was then dominant among Cambridge evangelicals. Their teacher in this was a bear-like Californian, John Wimber, who had been the drummer for the Righteous Brothers, and founded the immensely successful Vineyard group of charismatic churches. Quite a number of people brought up in the emotional straitjackets of the English upper classes found blessed relief in the permission the Holy Spirit gave them to weep or laugh and gibber and faint in public. In the mid-1990s, when the movement's influence on HTB was at its height, I visited a Chelsea church run by Nicky Lee, one of the men who converted Welby at Cambridge, and when the Holy Spirit started knocking people down, I'd hear the distinct rattle of pearls when the young women fainted to the floor.
This current of life-giving absurdity electrified them and gave those earnest young prigs the means to change over the years, even after they had become successful. The Holy Spirit gave them permission to be weird, and to navigate the collapse of traditional Christianity, which left an earlier generation of evangelicals stranded in reactionary nostalgia.
Asked what he had learned since his conversion, Welby said: "The longer you go on, the more I realise the infinite and amazing and wonderful diversity of human beings and what they do. Grace is at the heart of Christian faith and not law. The church isn't principally about rules. It's about a relationship with Jesus Christ, and he shapes people's behaviour. The street pastors, helping people at 3am on a Saturday morning who are drunk out of their minds, are not going to give them a lecture about drink. They're just going to help them to get home. The church is not a place where good people go. It's a place where bad people go to meet God. It's a refuge for sinners."
When Welby left Cambridge he dithered for a bit and then found a job working for a French oil company, Elf Aquitaine. More importantly, he married Caroline Eaton, a classics student at Cambridge, whose sister was for a while the vicar's secretary at HTB: the networks remained incredibly tight. In their summer holidays the couple went Bible smuggling together behind the iron curtain. Caroline Welby still accompanies him on some foreign trips, most recently a harrowing journey through the war zones of South Sudan and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. On that trip, as he later told the synod, they walked through a Sudanese town where 3,000 people had recently been killed. The bodies of 22 people from the cathedral staff – murdered and, if women, raped as well – were waiting for the archbishop to bury them in a mass grave. Yet he keeps going back. He doesn't flinch.

From oil man to vicar

This life is an enormous distance from the future he had when he was an oil man in Paris – though that is where his visits to Nigeria started. The newly married couple lived in France for five years. Their first child, Johanna, was born there. When she was seven months old he was promoted to a job in London, but on the journey in the car with Caroline they crashed. Johanna was thrown clear in her carrycot and died in hospital three days later. The Welbys went on to have five more children but the experience of bereavement stayed with them. Welby's unofficial and very evangelical biographer claims that Caroline Welby's immediate reaction after the crash was that "maybe somehow she was at fault for not praying hard enough before the journey".
This shows the way in which God appeared to the young people of HTB as a permanent presence and companion, with opinions on everything – an omnipotence somewhere between a father and a nanny. Later, visiting a Vineyard church in California, they came to a more balanced view. It is a very notable feature of Welby's Christianity that much of it has been formed outside the Church of England, both in the charismatic evangelical Vineyard network, and later through contacts with Roman Catholics: he has invited a Catholic community to live and pray full-time in Lambeth Palace.
Link to video: Justin Welby 'astonished' by archbishop of Canterbury appointment
After a year in London working for Elf Aquitaine, Welby was headhunted by Enterprise Oil, a company formed to exploit the privatisation of British Gas's North Sea assets. In the five years he worked there as treasurer, it grew to be one of the 30 largest companies on the stock exchange. By that stage, his salary was more than £100,000 a year. He threw it all in to become a vicar, and not even a fashionable one.
He trained in Durham, rather than one of the Oxbridge seminaries, then spent 15 years serving the Coventry diocese. His energy, intelligence and experience marked him out for promotion even in an organisation as sclerotic and short-sighted as the Church of England can be. Coventry cathedral, because of its destruction by the Luftwaffe in the second world war, has specialised in teaching and practising reconciliation, and Welby was drawn into this work early on. He travelled almost everywhere where Christians were killing or being killed – he has made 70 visits to the dangerous regions of Nigeria, and in 2003 made an overland dash to Baghdad from Jordan in company with Andrew White, another HTB figure who became the Anglican vicar of Baghdad. Several times he texted Caroline because he thought he might imminently be killed.

Realism

From Coventry he moved to become the dean of Liverpool cathedral, a building emblematic of the Church of England's troubles: it stands gigantic, architecturally remarkable, largely empty and almost broke in an indifferent and rather hostile city. He sorted the finances within the first three years. Cathedral attendance went up, as attendance in almost all cathedrals has done in the past 10 years. He had the bells play John Lennon's anti-theist song Imagine as part of an arts festival, which shocked some people but helped to restore the sense that the cathedral was connected to the city's imagination.
When he was promoted to be bishop of Durham, one of the church's most senior posts, few were surprised. But his approach was astonishingly effective and free of pretension. At the time he said: "The longer I go on with this, the more I realise that the Church of England is not an organisation in any recognisable sense. Because bishops are dressed up in funny clothes, with funny hats and special sticks, it's assumed that if they say to a bunch of parish clergy: 'Do something,' they will do it. But that's not how it works and never has been."
Within months he had circulated a document in the diocese saying that without realism about finances the whole thing would collapse within 15 years. He urged, and put through, a reform of the funding system in which parishes were allowed to decide for themselves what they could afford to pay the central authorities, instead of being assessed. On the other hand, they would be expected to pay what they had honestly promised. Currently, 40% of them do not.
This kind of realism has carried through to his time in Canterbury. He works there in small groups of no more than six or seven, which debate decisions thoroughly before they are taken. He quickly culled the old guard at Lambeth and appointed an eclectic team, including, Jo Bailey Wells as his chaplain, who had been working with her husband in the US for eight years when chosen. He is by nature impetuous says one well-placed observer, and this way of working is a deliberate check on his temperament. But once decisions are taken, they are driven through effectively. One of these groups is planning a huge cull of ecclesiastical regulations. The aim is to make it much easier to plant new churches, reopen old ones, and close down those that can no longer be sustained. "That sort of thing needs to change very dramatically," he says.
He really does believe in the possibility of church growth, even though he is realistic about the fact of decline and the danger, on present trends, of complete collapse. Asked about the thesis that religion is now a toxic brand, especially to the young, he says: "A lot depends on how you ask the question. We've got a lot of churches with loads of young people, but I half accept the premise … there is an element of toxicity in the brand with some people. What's absolutely essential is to demonstrate and talk about the love and goodness of Christ and how he reaches out to people, rather than telling people how to behave."
The trouble is that most of his church still supposes that telling people how to behave is the best part of Christianity and telling other Christians how to behave is quite the most enjoyable part. The schism over homosexuality looks impossible to heal. HTB used to be implacably opposed, as it once was opposed to divorce, but now has moved to a position of pained silence. Welby himself was profoundly shocked by the reaction to his opposition to gay marriage in the House of Lords. Now he says that the fight is over: "The church has reacted by fully accepting that it's the law, and should react on Saturday by continuing to demonstrate, in word and action, the love of Christ for every human being."
But in Africa the movement has been sharply the other way. People around the archbishop are horrified by reports that two suspected gay men have been burned alive by mobs in Uganda who were celebrating the passage of an anti-gay law enthusiastically supported by the Ugandan Anglican church. But there is no pressure that he can apply that does not risk being dismissed as neocolonial interference.
The African opponents of gay people have coalesced into an alternative version of the Anglican Communion, called Gafcon. This has close connections with parts of the HTB movement that are planning to split from the Church of England formally if it moves towards open recognition of gay relationships. Welby himself spoke to the Gafcon primates before their most recent meeting, but did not attend it. He assured them of his admiration for their courage and that he had listened carefully to their view on sexuality.
In its studied absence of guile, this was reminiscent of De Gaulle telling the Algerian settlers that he had heard them – which they, to their cost, misunderstood as saying he had joined their side. Welby has not joined either side in the debate quite yet. Some clergy will undoubtedly marry their same-sex partners, despite the orders from bishops – among them Welby – that they refrain from doing so. But the discipline in those cases will be a matter for the individual bishops. The archbishop has positioned himself a little above the fray. This is characteristically diplomatic and realistic, as no one knows whether there are in fact legal ways to punish vicars who marry legally.
But it is also part of his belief that Christians ought to be able to "disagree well together".
The job of archbishop of Canterbury is of course impossible. Welby sleeps six hours a night (if that), he travels relentlessly, and his diary is crammed: for this article he could talk for 10 minutes on the telephone, booked 10 days in advance. No one I spoke to who had worked with him did not trust him, but no one felt they knew him, either. He is in the establishment now, but not on its side, despite his privileged background – or perhaps because of it. His commitment to the poor and to the victims of loan sharking made a huge impression in Durham. But perhaps he is not so very far from his roots after all.
This mild man is oddly reminiscent of General Conyers, a character created by the rather more conventional Etonian Anthony Powell: "He was a man who gave the impression, rightly or wrongly, that he would stop at nothing. If he decided to kill you, he would kill you; if he thought it sufficient to knock you down, he would knock you down: if a mere reprimand was all required, he would confine himself to a reprimand. In addition to this, he patently maintained a good-humoured, well-mannered awareness of the inherent failings of human nature: the ultimate futility of all human effort."
Except, of course, that archbishops do not nowadays kill anyone, and Welby is sure that human effort is not in fact ultimately futile, because God notices and pities it.
• This article was amended on 18 April 2014. The earlier version said Justin Welby's first parish was a working-class suburb of Coventry, and that he remained based in the city for 10 years. His first parish was within the Coventry diocese, but in Nuneaton.

2014年4月17日 星期四

We are a Christian nation in name only


'While nearly six out of 10 Brits declared themselves to be Christians at the last census, the numbers are in steep decline. Many are rather passive believers: only one in 10 of us attends church each week, and polls suggest just 31% believe in Jesus's resurrection. We are a Christian nation in name only' (via Comment is free)
Owen Jones: I welcome the debate about the church that David Cameron has prompted, but it's time we embraced disestablishment
THE GUARDIAN|由 OWEN JONES 上傳

NKorea complains over barber's Kim Jong Un poster



NKorea complains over barber's Kim Jong Un poster
Associated Press 
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
.
View gallery
  • .
  • .
  • .
  • .
LONDON (AP) — North Korea has made a diplomatic appeal to the British government to get a London salon out of its hair.
The country's diplomats have complained to the Foreign Office about a hairdressing salon that put up a poster poking fun at distinctively coiffed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The Foreign Office confirmed Wednesday it had received a letter from the North Korean embassy objecting to the poster, and was considering its response.
The Evening Standard newspaper reported the letter urged Britain to take "necessary action to stop the provocation."
Staff at M&M Hair Academy say they were visited by diplomats from the embassy after putting up a poster last week featuring a picture of Kim — who sports a distinctive short-back-and-sides 'do — and the slogan "Bad Hair Day?"
The poster was advertising a 15 percent discount on men's cuts during April.
Barber Karim Nabbach said the salon was inspired by media rumors that North Korean men had been instructed to emulate the leader's hairstyle.
He said staff refused the diplomats' request to remove the poster and had reported the incident to police.
"We haven't had any trouble since then. If anything, the poster has become a tourist attraction," he said Tuesday — but by Wednesday afternoon the salon was shut and the poster was not visible in the window. The salon's phone rang unanswered.
Police said they had spoken to both parties and determined no crime had been committed.
The embassy didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

北韓男子被勒令劃一要剪領袖金正恩髮型後,英國倫敦一間理髮店決定以此做噱頭,在店門貼上金正恩海報(圖),大字標題「髮型很差?男士4月剪髮85折」作招徠,結果惹來北韓大使館職員多番上門,要求除下「對領導人不敬」的海報。
兩名北韓使館職員上周五到M&M理髮店要求除下海報,店主拒絕,強調「這裏不是北韓,而是英國,我們有民主,請你離開」,北韓人拍照後離開。店主擔心北韓特工會對他不利,馬上除下海報,但市民投訴這有違民主,於是再張貼金正恩海報。北韓人再臨門,店主又除下海報,但在居民反對下又再貼上。店主最後擔心人身安全,惟有到警署備案,警方接觸雙方後指事件無人犯法。
法新社 

in (or out of) someone's hair

• informal Annoying (or ceasing to annoy) someone:they sent him to America, just to get him out of their hair
MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES
  • I've really enjoyed working on the piece, but I'm very, very glad to get it out of my hair, at least temporarily…
  • I was sort of glad to get these guys out of my hair for a few hours, a day or two.
  • Her parents were probably more than glad to get her out of their hair.

2014年4月12日 星期六

The Big Society , Is David Cameron continuing Jesus's work?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Society
The Big Society was the flagship policy idea of the 2010 UK Conservative Party general election manifesto. It now forms part of the legislative programme of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement.[1] The stated aim is to create a climate that empowers local people and communities, building a "big society" that will take power away from politicians and give it to people.[2]While some have responded to the policy favourably, its aims have been queried and disputed by other commentators.

Background[edit]

The idea was launched in the 2010 Conservative manifesto and described by The Times as "an impressive attempt to reframe the role of government and unleash entrepreneurial spirit".[3] Nat Wei, one of the founders of the Teach First charity, was appointed by David Cameron to advise the government on the Big Society programme. The plans include setting up a Big Society Bank and introducing anational citizen service.[4] The stated priorities are:
  1. Give communities more powers (localism and devolution)
  2. Encourage people to take an active role in their communities (volunteerism)
  3. Transfer power from central to local government
  4. Support co-opsmutualscharities and social enterprises
  5. Publish government data (open/transparent government)
It is supported by a Big Society Network, which says it "exists to generate, develop and showcase new ideas to help people to come together in their neighbourhoods to do good things."[5]







Is David Cameron continuing Jesus's work?


David Cameron has suggested Jesus invented the 'big society'. Do Conservative policies tally with His teachings? Share your views in our open thread

James Walsh


David Cameron: continuing God's work?
David Cameron: continuing God's work? Photograph: PA
David Cameron has claimed in an interview that “Jesus invented the Big Society 2,000 years ago”. The Conservative leader added: “I just want to see more of it.”
Cameron isn't the first political leader to claim divine inspiration. But aspects of Conservative ideology would seem to clash with some of Jesus's pronouncements in the New Testament. Can you serve God and money? Is it easy for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? Jesus was reasonably clear on these points.
As for the big society, he may be recalling the famous quote from his political inspiration, Margaret Thatcher, who once said: "Nobody would remember the Good Samaritan if he had only good intentions. He had money as well."
Is it reasonable for Cameron to claim to be continuing Jesus's work? Or is this a profound misreading of the Bible's teachings? Share your views in the comments thread below.