8 October 2015 (Thursday) - Poor Rolo

In theory the Northern Lights were visible from home. In practice it was too cloudy to see anything.

This morning over brekkie I watched a new show I'd recorded. "Bubble Gum" is about a young girl struggling whith life having had it effectively stuffed up by religion. It is a comedy but I recognised several themes from it; having (in retrospect) had by own youth blighted by crackpot religion... if one can call the Methodist church "crackpot".

And talking of my own youthful experiences of religion, as I drove to work the radio was telling the news of Bishop Peter. When I was in my most religious phase in the early 1980s Bishop of Lewis was effectively the chap to whom everyone in the local churches aspired and deferred. In the circles in which I moved at the time there was more than a bit of hero worship about the chap.
In the 1990s it was reported that he'd interfered with a young monk. Yesterday he went to prison for interfering with several young monks and with a child. Whilst the monks were of age (if arguably vunerable), the child on whom he performed indecent acts was only twelve years old.
Whilst that is inexcusable, it actually happened in 1978. On the one hand it made me sit up and think. I was fourteen at the time. I could possibly have been one of his victims. On the other hand I am now fifty-one. Why has this taken so long to come to the attention of the legal process?
As I say, the bishop went to prison yesterday. He's now eighty-three years old. He must serve at least sixteen months of his sentence inside prison and the rest of the sentence will be on probation in the community *if* he survives the time in prison. Like many others I doubt he will.
It is frankly cruel sending a man of his age to prison. if we are going to punish someone for an offence which took place so long ago, then let's just execute him and be done with it. That would be far more humane than the slow death which prison will bring him.

Great issue was made of today being National Poetry Day. Have I ever mentioned that my daughter is a published poet? Back in the days before she and organised secondary education had their final bust-up she won a competition, had a poem published, and met the (at the time) Poet Laureate.
For myself I've often found poetry to be either ridiculous or pretentious. The morning's thought for the Day was in poem form today; I have no idea whether or not it was a good poem as it totally failed to grip my attention.

The morning news also had something which made me sit up and pay attention. The pundits were talking of a revolutionary new blood test which can tell whether or not someone's chest pains are due to a heart attack. It has been suggested that the likes of me start measuring Troponin levels.
I've actually been doing that for years....

Once at work I did some troponin assays, and spent much ot the day thinking and worrying about my smallest grand-dog. Little Rolo was due to go to the vets today for the removal of his "flowers and frolics". Poor little thing. Fortunately for my nerves Cheryl sent me updates throughout the day.

I went home via the Cheapo-Bargains shop to get some tennis balls. I had this idea that we might play "fetch" with my dog on our walk this evening. As we walked I remembered why I gave up playing "fetch" with "Furry Face TM". I threw the ball once; he chased the ball then refused to give it up. He carried it for several hundred yards then randomly dropped it. I threw it again for him. He chased after it and carried it again. He then got *very* possessive of his ball when we met other dogs, and then every time I threw it he just chased the ball but didn't pick it up again.
And to add insult to injury the throwing of the ball has upset my tennis elbow...

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