simont | General update

Back at work today, after two days of a cold. Except that when I came in this morning I had a horrifying sneezing fit which made it quite difficult to drive: I hope that's hayfever (for which this is roughly my peak season) rather than the remaining cold, in which case it should go away now I'm in the air-conditioned office. If it's the cold I might have to go home again, and I was getting restless.

Being off work with a mild cold is terrible for guilt, because I sit on the sofa, do nothing, and feel fine, making me feel bad that I'm at home. Fortunately (ish), at one point I ran out of food and had to go out shopping, and then I felt headachey and dizzy and that reminded me that I really was ill; but it's difficult to remember that when you're sitting on a comfy sofa and feeling OK.

In other news … the other day mpinna sent me a draft of the puzzle he's working on for my collection, which is worryingly good fun; I can tell it's a good one when my code review goes slowly because I keep stopping for just one more go. Then I sent back a mail which said ‘I'll be happy to accept this into the collection provided the following corrections are made’, which made me feel worryingly like a PhD examiner. Perhaps I should award a qualification for successfully submitting a puzzle. Puzzle Developer, or PzD for short :-)

At the weekend I watched cjwatson and ghoti get married, which was nice. The wedding was disturbingly Catholic; the congregation kept being expected to mutter ‘amen’ and ‘and also with you’ and similar miscellaneous stuff at various points, and in the absence of the usual cheat sheet I had absolutely no idea when it was appropriate to do any of this. Then they said the Hail Mary, of which I know virtually nothing beyond a vague feeling that I can guess the first two words. Then the Lord's Prayer showed up and I thought ‘thank goodness, something I do know’. Except that I didn't even know that, it turned out, because their version was two lines shorter than the one I knew. All of which, I think, conclusively demonstrates me to be a Protestant atheist.

Still, that wasn't a big problem. And there was a silly photo session, a mead-enabled reception, caterers who had specially provided gluten-free food for me (and a terrifying quantity of it too!), and all the usual good stuff. At one point my umbrella became filled with confetti, which was odd.

Anyway. Now I need to wade through a rather scary quantity of e-mail backlog from the two days I've been off work.

Threaded | Flat

Mmm; I kept having to distract myself from getting apoplexy at the sheer Catholicism of it by trying to see if I could stillr ead music enough to recognise the hymn tunes (I can). I had an earworm of 'White Christmas' for two days though, because one of them reminded me of it..

The doxology (the 'thine is the power' bit) is usually included in Catholic services these days, so that shouldn't be a way to distinguish Catholic from Protestant atheists any more.

Damn, dude - I didn't see you there! :/

Being unable to read music myself, I was not expecting to hear the tune of the german national anthem, and therefore had unexpectedly to suddenly restrain myself from singing “Coughs and sneezes cause diseases, Stop them with your hankerchief!” I blame Tony Hancock.

Betrand Russell had a theory on Protestant and Catholic atheists. The idea was that a Catholic atheist was an intellectual rebel, breaking away from his firmly established tradition to think freely. The Protestant atheist wasn't - to them, atheism was merely Protestantism taken to its logical extreme.

"And also with you" confused the hell out of me too. It's Modern for "and with thy spirit."

I suspect the congregation was full of atheists muttering about it being too Catholic, and Anglicans muttering about it being not Catholic enough.

Mmmm, in RC churches I've been to here the Lord's Prayer runs out too early, but the last couple of lines appear later in the Mass.

IME the missalette at RC church seats is very non-obvious to people who might actually need it: it jumps around all over in a very poorly explained way, such that I just shrug and give up. No wonder people aren't converting to RC'ness - the uninitiated wouldn't stand a chance.

Then they said the Hail Mary, of which I know virtually nothing beyond a vague feeling that I can guess the first two words.

Ave Maria…

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject