A Vast Improvement

If you have been reading my blog, you'll realise that I had a rather unfortunate birthday. I am very good at offering my troubles up after the event, but haven't quite reached the stage where I can cheerfully embrace a bad day as a gift from God and a superb opportunity to get some poor soul out of Purgatory. I'm working on it...

Whenever I feel a little low, I get the urge to do something with my hair. I also get the urge to do something with my hair when I'm feeling particularly cheerful, so you can't read too much into it. Yesterday was a better day than my birthday, but fairly stressful as I had to spend a fair bit of time dealing with the fallout from the previous day. This morning was pretty much back to a normal Saturday for me, but, when I happened to notice the relative lack of activity in the hairdressers (the one next to the shop where I was buying more catfood for Sylvester to throw up again over my computer), I decided that I needed to do something to my hair... or rather, I needed someone else to do it for me...

I think my hairdresser must have been in-training. I like trainee hairdressers: they are a lot more careful, and also far less sure that they know exactly what style and colour would suit madam (and so they are far more likely to listen to what you have to say on the matter!) Anyway, the mentor came over and had a look at my hair, and then the three of us had an in-depth discussion of how golden-yellow-straw was not acceptable as a hair colour, and so it would be avoided by various means (lots of bleach) with a graduated application to blend the shades...

They had a new manicurist who offered a free manicure and polish while I was waiting for the colour to develop (I have to go and remove the nailvarnish from my fingers in a minute, but she meant well) and then a very junior trainee washed the gunk off my head. Then back to the first trainee. I tried to keep my eyes closed at this point - when wet, my hair looks a ghastly shade of yellow at the best of times - but my hairdresser wanted reassurance, so I tried not to grimace at my reflection. She did, however, cut superbly, and when my hair was dried I was very pleased with the overall result.

I still hate having my picture taken though, so I'm afraid that you'll just have to imagine what it looks like...

More Blogs To Read...

I found Leticia's profile when I checked some of my comments. Leticia is one of those uber-bloggers: she has two blogs of her own (both current!) and she shares authorship on Mount Carmel Bloggers.

She also has the great fortune to share a birthday with me, so pop over to Cause of our Joy to say hello... or perhaps you'd prefer Causa Nostrae Laetitiae !

Petition To Protect The Unborn

I hadn't realised that the unborn child has no legal status at all, unless after a crime it is born and then dies. I mean, I did know that millions are aborted without so much as a by-your-leave, but this refers to an attack on a pregnant woman which results in her unborn child dying.

Anyway, there is an e-petition calling for the legal recognition of unborn children, and legal redress against their being killed or injured.

The case is being championed by Michael Dwyer of Birmingham, whose seven-months pregnant partner Sarah Hunt was knocked down and killed by a car has launched an online petition to get "justice for Connor", his unborn son. He hopes to achieve a new law which would allow crimes against unborn children to be prosecuted.

You can read Michael's story HERE, and sign the petition HERE.

Twitch of the mantilla to Catholic Action UK.

No, I'm Not...

76%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I Got One Present I Wanted (Sort Of) !

I was delighted to note that the Motu Proprio is out - even if it is only to the Bishops at the moment. But it's out, it's going to be on general release soon, and there is a date from which it will be effective.

I was also touched to see that Ma Beck has iced a cake especially for me (hopefully little Mary Elizabeth will get to sample some of it (even if it is just having an enthusiastic lick of the balloons) and Newhousenewjob has made insulting references to my advancing years...

(Un)Happy Birthday...

I am not a happy bunny. I want sympathy. Lots of it...

First things first... it's my (*ahem*)th birthday, and I was due to go and work at a school to do some supply teaching. This could be considered good news, apart from the fact that the Agency seemed to think I'd need something along the lines of body armour, as the school was what they referred to as "challenging." I would quite have liked to turn down the work (I mean, why work on your birthday if you don't have to), but Summer is a thin time of year for supply, and there's no work at all during the holidays which are rapidly approaching...

I went to check my emails, and found that the cat had been sick on the keyboard... and the computer was making very strange noises. I cleaned the keyboard, checked the cat, but couldn't check my emails as the keyboard didn't work any more.

The school actually had a nice feel to it. ...unfortunately, I guess my day really got off to a bad start when I accidentally wrote on the interactive whiteboard with a normal whiteboard pen... (in my defence, someone had taped some notices up on it with sellotape, covering the word "Promethean") With a sinking feeling I tried to find a technician or science teacher so that I could confess my heinous crime. Luckily it had been a proper dry-wipe whiteboard marker, and the application of ethanol with cotton wool succeeded in restoring the board to its original state.

I did manage to avert a water-bomb incident (threatening children in a non-Catholic school isn't half as much fun as in a Catholic one... hellfire for all eternity just doesn't cut it!) and the rest of the day went reasonably well. Until the end of the last period.

Another teacher came in and informed me that she had come to relieve me, and that I should go down to reception. Cover teachers don't normally get covered, so I was a little confused. I also spent three minutes trying to work out what rules or regulations I had unwittingly infringed...

Reception directed me to some workmen, who were shuffling their feet and looking slightly guilty. They asked me to walk over to my car, as they had had a little accident, and they needed my details...

They had been cutting the grass on a verge outside the school, and a stone had been thrown up, and, you guessed it, smashed my driver window. The particular model of car isn't common, so Autoglass didn't have the glass in stock, but a perspex one could be fitted temporarily, if I could drive over to the nearest centre before someone or other went home...

I know, I know... "offer it up" !!

I've Decided...

...it may well be a time-saving device, but Bloglines takes all the fun out of blogging. I've got litttle incentive to go back and read some of the less "immediate" stories, and that is when I did most of my commenting. Re-reading comments and posts when there were no updates also got me thinking a bit more.

...and instead of checking the blogs at set intervals, I find myself clicking every time there's a little red dot, to find out exactly who has updated their blogs, and why.

Water Sports...

My journey home was a little interesting... the rain started some time in the afternoon, and got progressively worse as I drove home. I have to admit that the sensation of aquaplaning while on the Dartford Suspension Bridge in a high wind is not something I'd care to repeat in a hurry...

Ladies Who Lunch...

I had a really lovely afternoon again. This time I went to visit my old friend Newhousenewjob for a late lunch. I hadn't seen the new house, so that was enjoyable, and the new job seemed to be very flexible with regard to hours of work, which, given how much we had to catch up on, was probably just as well.

Neither of us likes having photos taken, and so we contented ourselves with snapping away at the delicious lunch which Newhousenewjob had prepared.

I got to sample the yoghurt cake recommended on Newhouse's blog, and, on my remarking that tomorrow was my birthday, she insisted I take some home... something for which I needed very little in the way of arm-twisting. My friend also lamented the fact that I hadn't mentioned the impending birthday (though I was able to point out that I had blogged about it... in passing...) which meant that she had no candles for the cake. I promised that I would rectify the situation as soon as I got home...

Should We Bother To Listen To The Public?

I kid you not... that was one of the questions asked at the end of the HFEA consultation meeting this evening. Ok, I simplified it a bit for the purposes of making a catchy post heading, but not much.

The majority of the audience seemed to be very much opposed to the idea of allowing the creation of human-animal hybrids and chimeras. Josephine Quintavalle spoke well, and she was actually backed up by John Cornwell, something I hadn't expected from a writer for The Tablet. The token clergyman, Anglican, did his best to sit on the fence. If he doesn't get down soon he'll get splinters where the sun don't shine. The two Science types kept banging on about how the human-animal hybrids were absolutely essential for working out the basic processes involved in cell development and differentiation, that this would be essential for working out therapies, and that the hybrid embryos would never be allowed to go to term, so the public was worrying unnecessarily.

My inward response* to this was that cell processes, at a basic level, are pretty much the same whichever mammal you use, so why not use mammals and leave human embryos out of it (if all you want to do is study the processes), that therapies involving adult and placental stem cells would be far less controversial ethically, and so more research should be done on them, and finally, that it's all very well to say that the hybrids would never be allowed to go to term, but we used to believe that cloned animals would never be allowed to go to term... and yet, somehow, we ended up with Dolly the sheep.

*I did try to make these responses out loud, but wasn't picked to get given a microphone.

The ethical considerations were not really dealt with. I came in late, to find that several people were contesting that embryos were not human beings, and therefore were not worthy of being treated with dignity. Comments were made to the effect that those who were ill with progressive diseases like Parkinson's, or people with relatives suffering from such diseases would have a very different idea about treatments which needed to be developed using embryo research. The chap from The Tablet actually warned about ends-justifying-means, and said that this led to the slippery slope. A particularly vociferous scientist challenged him to state where the slippery slope actually led... and I was pleased to hear him respond "the death camps." It is so true: the doctors in Nazi Germany justified their research on "sub-humans" because they hoped to get cures for diseases and such like.

And before you have a pop at me in the combox for equating such scientific endeavours with the Nazi death camps, and telling me that I'd feel differently if someone close to me had a debilitating and progressive disease, I would just like to point out that my mother is German, my grandfather has Alzheimer's Disease, and my grandmother had Parkinson's Disease. I have also worked in a laboratory with fellow scientists who believed that embryos were just sources of cellular tissue, and I know how easy it is for scientists to push the envelope that little bit further just to see "what would happen if..."

Although the ethical issues were not dealt with as fully as they might have been, I got the distinct impression that the majority of people present were unhappy with the idea of hybrids and chimeras. However, I was also confirmed in my opinion that the HFEA considered the meeting to be little more than a PR exercise: the question about whether the public should be consulted on matters of scientific research implied that the public were the great unwashed, and could not possibly understand matters of such scientific complexity, so the decisions should be left to the scientists. I shall watch carefully to see the final outcome of the consultation. I fully expect the opinion of the HFEA to be firmly in favour of allowing the creation of human-animal hybrids.

But then, I'm cynical like that.

If you want to try and prove me wrong, the online consultation is still running, so please take some time to fill in the form HERE.

See, I Told You The Motu Proprio Was Out Today !

Well, I was right, wasn't I? It is not my fault that there was another Motu Proprio around! No-one mentioned this possibility...

*sigh*

However, the German Language source, Kathnet, thinks that the real one is going to be released on 6th July.

That means the Veuve has a little extra chilling time...

Time...

I love blogging. I simply adore clicking on my various groups of favourites and watching ten blogs open in tabs, and then browsing through each blog to see what's going on... or not.

It was getting to be a little time-consuming: I had to choose between reading every blog which I considered to be vaguely entertaining (and following up on promising links), and writing up my own blog posts. So, naturally, there were some blogs I checked more than others...

...And then I was encouraged to use Bloglines. Bloglines checks all your favourite blogs for you, and lets you know when they've been updated. You can read the updates without even visiting the blog. There's even a little blue doobrey-whatsit alert thingy which sits at the bottom of the browser: it develops an attack of measles when something new is up (well, ok, I shall stop exaggerating... it gets a red spot!)

It certainly saves time. But now I find myself looking at the blue alert, and I realise that there's no point clicking on the blogs, because there's nobody home... *sniff* My clicking finger is getting withdrawal symptoms...

...Oh well, I shall just have to go and play on Facebook !

I'm Not Entirely Certain About This...

You Are Merlot

Smooth, confident, and popular - you're the type most likely to order wine for the whole group. You seem to breeze through life on your intuition and wit. And no one seems to mind! You're comfortable in any social situation you find yourself in, and you never feel outclassed. And while you live a charmed life, you never let it go to your head. You are truly down to earth and a great friend. Deep down you are: Balanced and mature Your partying style: Surprisingly wild... when you let loose, you really let loose Your company is enjoyed best with: Some greasy pizza

What Kind of Wine Are You?

Actually I think I go better with a steak and chips. Or roast duck and frites...

Twitch of the mantilla to A Thorn in the Pew.

Miles Jesu Martyrs Walk

I didn't manage to go to this, but I'm delighted to read that it went well. The chaps from Miles Jesu are really great, and two of the speakers, Joanna Bogle and Fr. Nicholas Schofield, are known to me, and they are excellent.

Jay has a post with some pretty good photos. Fr. Nicholas posted the text of the talk he gave, along with a more general post (which has a photo of three bloggers!) Jackie (Catholic Mom of 10) has several photo posts, but no main post with information to link to, so I guess I need to do a general link to the whole blog so that you can browse through the pictures at will!!

How About This For A Caption Competition?

Definitely inspired. Twitch of the mantilla to the Cannonball.

This Is PAINFUL !

Ok, now I am really getting twitchy... apparently Tuesdays are good for Vatican announcements. Thursdays are good too, but Tuesdays are better. I have this from a good authority. If he's got it wrong, then he'll be typing his own letters for a while, while I sulk.

Speculation is rife that the Holy Father will release the Motu Proprio before he went on holiday. His holiday is scheduled for 9th July. There are two Tuesdays between now and 9th July...

...and I see that Fr. Zuhlsdorf thinks that the document is being printed ! I don't quite understand how a document can be signed before it is printed, and I thought it had been signed already, but maybe they do things differently at the Vatican...

However, I think I shall have to buy another bottle of Veuve Cliquot, and an ice bucket. Just in case...

Progress?

Heheheheh... I may actually have achieved something. After my latest post on the destruction of a Marian shrine in China, surprise, surprise... my blog appears to have been blocked in China.

It is possible that it's just a blip, but, according to Sitemeter, I haven't had any visits from China lately...

Check out your own site HERE.

Caution !

It would appear that this blog is rated PG ! Mantilla twitched in Orthometer's direction.