award! award!

It's not quite a Golden Cleric, but to some amusement, the Valley of Angels team sidled out of the Bangor Business Awards on Monday night past as recipients of the Best Creative Industries Award.

There's a bit of explaining required here. The inaugural Valley of Angels festival took place in Bangor, Co. Down, at the start of May. There's a lovely website which can explain a lot more about it in particular, and is worth your time for the music videos alone. But then I would say that, as I put them together,

The festival, conceived by audio overlord Les Hume (of EMS Audio and Dawson's Music, both in Bangor) was hauled into shape in as little as two months. For us (that is, Box42) Andrew and myself got stuck in as well to try and cover as much promotional and technical ground as possible. The resulting weekend went well, and all were very pleased.

However, it was only as yer man off the radio was reading out the judge's (admittedly blown-up) comments at the awards on Monday night that I really sat back and realised just how much had been achieved in the first year. For a start, this wasn't just a music festival - we had arts (the Firsty? Pop-Up Exhibition), schools involved (colour-in competition!) massive engagement from local churches (including Psalmody and the set-piece closing event, where Iain Archer, Captain Cameron et al sent spine-tingling waves throughout the unique, epic confines of Bangor Parish). Not to mention the ice-cream eating contest, or the guided tours, or the visit to the Avalon guitar factory, and so on and so on...

Turns out, we did ok. And more importantly, Bangor seems to want more. It'll be great to see where the Valley of Angels goes next.

at first he died... now, he dead!

Reginald D. Hunter was on BBC Breakfast this morning. He funny.

death and dying: terry pratchett's choosing to die

Across the media this morning, folks are talking, writing and blogging reactions to Sir Terry Pratchett's documentary which aired on BBC2 last night (Monday 13th June.) However, I feel like adding my insignificant two cents, as it is a subject which has always had a profound effect.

Sir Terry, himself suffering the onset of Alzheimer's disease, is personally conflicted. On one hand, he is in favour of the legalisation of assisted suicide in the UK. On the other, on travelling to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, he does not see it as a black and white issue.

Terry Pratchett is to me, as to many, a literary and creative hero and inspiration, and this was an compelling piece of film making. Really, you might ask? Well, for example, I believe this could have been a very one sided programme. But rather, I felt that, although he himself clearly had an agenda in making it, the documentary gave a strong voice to both sides of the debate around the morality of assisted suicide. Sir Terry spoke about the horrors of covering suicide as a journalist, and how repulsive he had found it; how he would not wish such an ending on anyone. His PA, Rob, clearly expressed how difficult he found the idea; though loyal to his employer and friend, he came across as strongly opposed to the notion, voicing a clear moral opposition, and from a secular standpoint.

And yet Sir Terry was, himself, exploring and considering his own desire to choose how he should die. Clearly fearful of the loss of his capacity to communicate in particular, he expressed his wish to set and predestine his death. He met others in similar situations; in particular, the charismatic and gentlemanly Peter Smedley, whose death it was which was aired at the climax of last night's programme. In his seventies and beginning to suffer the severe onset of motor neurone disease, he had chosen to complete the Dignitas procedure: we watched as he was examined over the course of a week to ensure that he was capable of making such a decision for himself; as he was asked, repeatedly, if he was sure that he did not want to leave and go back home; and, at the last, as he was allowed to take the two 'medicines' required, and slowly slipped off into a deep sleep as his body was prevented from respirating by the concoction. It was

I don't wish to spend time giving a full airing to both sides of the debate; much of the BBC's airtime on radio and television this AM is dedicated to that, and I commend them for it. (Even Stephen Nolan is currently presenting what is actually a balanced debate on the subject, which must be a first for him.)

But from my own perspective, I struggle greatly with assisted suicide. Dignitas's founder was convinced by the UN Convention on Human Rights that people do indeed deserve to choose how they die: after all, that charter enshrines Article 8: The Right To Self-Determination into law. I then realise that my personal faith contradicts this: in one sense, I have no conflict over the issue, as I do not believe that the moment at which I die is my decision to make, but rather that of the God who made me. And yet even in that, it is not a simple, harsh point to be made.

Most of us have met or know someone who passed away, seemingly confident that they were 'ready to die'. At the funeral of the grandmother of a close friend a few years ago, it was clearly articulated that she had felt she was ready to die for years, as she had suffered a lot of physical pain and exhaustion in later life. Our response to this is one of appreciation: we do not question her statement. And yet we would not offer her the opportunity to decide to do just that prematurely.

There was a fascinating moment last night when Terry Pratchett spoke to a doctor, who was employed by Dignitas to assess the mental capability of clients to make their own decisions. If she had said no, for example, Peter Smedley would not have been allowed to access the toxins required to kill himself. This is reasonably common practice across Western Europe, where in many countries assisted suicide is legal in certain situations. And yet this same doctor articulated that she could never actually administer a lethal dose herself, and that she would be completely morally opposed to it.

Rob, Sir Terry's assistant, kept coming back to his point that as clients at Dignitas had to be mentally and physically capable of kiling themselves, they were therefore all in situations where they usually had many years left to live. Surely, he insisted, did they not want to live those years? When Andrew, a 42 year old man with heavy MS, spoke the day he died of still wanting to explore parts of Zurich, where he had only just arrived, Rob blurted out, "Well, let's go then! Let's go see these places tomorrow," Andrew merely shook his head, resigned to the decision he had made to take his own life instead.

I fear death. I don't think I fear anything as much. That may sound hypocritical from someone who increasingly bangs on about a God so much, but it is nonetheless true. And of all the possibilities for my later years (assuming that I get that far) I don't believe I fear anything more that a death plagued by Alzheimer's, dementia or similar. I feel I would rather be physically incapacitated, but still have my mind, than the other way around. And so I appreciate greatly that a relief, any relief, even the starkest, from this is so tempting for someone in Sir Terry's situation, or in that of any of those featured last night. And yet I know that regardless, with or without faith, I thoroughly believe that we should squeeze as much out of this life as possible. But I cannot currently imagine ever saying I would be 'ready to die'.

And I fear greatly for some of those who would. It was very telling, as Rob told us in last night's show, that according to Wikipedia,

'21% of people receiving assisted dying in Dignitas do not have a terminal or progressive illness, but rather "weariness of life".'

Having known some who have attempted to take their own lives in the past, and often the regret they express afterwards, or the battles with depression others have faced, I am terrified of this possibility being available to anyone.

I fear that this is a debate which is growing. I have some confidence that, certainly in my lifetime, some form at least of assisted suicide will be legalised in the UK. I do not know how I will face it if I ever encounter it amongst anyone I know. I am 99.5% against, for moral, spiritual and practical reasons. And yet that 0.5% of pain remains, as my heart goes out to those faced with the possibility of ending their own suffering. We owe it to ourselves to deal with dying better.

In truth, if you or I am opposed to assisted suicide so strongly, we need to make our case: not in words or statements or even articles of religion, but in comforting, in dedication, and in sympathy for those how suffer. How far we are, as a society, from being able to do that, I can only begin to imagine. The vulnerable and the suffering need a reason to keep living, and only we, their fellow humans, can show it to them.

---

and the rains came

A couple of weekends ago, a bunch of lads went for a stroll up some big hills in Co. Down. What ensued was an awful lot of being battered and drenched by the elements. But surprisingly, spirits were high throughout the day, night and following morning until we strolled back down again.

Anyway, one of the minor miracles involved was that we managed to navigate our way up and down a new route, despite visibility dropping to... well, very little in places. It's also hard to keep an eye on a (non-existent) horizon when you're struggling just to stay on your feet. So, for the benefit of the other gents, I took a moment the next day to sketch out the route we took. (Original map courtesy of HM The Queen and suchlike, reproduced without permission because she surely wouldn't mind.)



Mr Jonathan Kirk compiled a small Facebook photo album, but you may need to befriend him in order to see it.

rod liddle and smug humanists

Whilst no saint himself, I greatly enjoyed Rod Liddle's column in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago.

On the morning after the apolocalypse was predicted to have occurred, Rod's commented on the events surrounding Harold Camping's failed prediction of armageddon. He may have made a couple of disputable points, which are only to be expected: "Yesterday was supposedly the date of the Rapture... according to millions of born-again Christians across the globe..." Errr, no actually, just a highly misled old man from the States and his - albeit large - band of followers. However, his tempered vitriol is reserved for those who sneer from the other side of faith's Great Divide.

I've taken the liberty of transcribing a large portion of his column: obviously, none of it is my own.


Armageddon and smug humanists: as awful as each other

"It will be a slight disappointment to me if yesterday wasn't actually the end of the world, frankly. It would at least wipe the smile off the faces of those jeering humanists who are busy organising ironic pre-Rapture parties. I suppose schadenfreude and spite are poor reasons to yearn for the utter and complete destruction of mankind, but I cannot help myself. I want to watch the look on Dawkins's face when a giant hand comes down and pokes him in the eye, booming, 'Bad call, science boy.'

"There is something insufferably arrogant and aloof about humanism, its presumption that we represent the bes that there is to offer, that there is nothing more powerful than us. Most of the humanists holding parties over the weekend probably still have the trestle tables left over from their hilariously ironic Not The Royal Wedding street parties, and probably some fo the food too (hummus, I would guess... and organic pitta bread.)

"Dig beneath the surface and you'll find that a fair few of the also believe the end of the world is coming, maybe 30 years or so in the future, the consequence of another foreseen Rature, global warming, with its terrible herald of forlorn-looking polar bears marooned on melting icebergs. Floods, famine, pestilence, drought - the prophecies of the global warming movement's militant wing all have an agreeably biblical ring about them, don't you think?

"One way or another there is something inside many of us that yearns for annihilation and is convinced that it is indeed coming very soon, if only the ignorant masses would listen. I suppose it is a form of narcissism, that we have been singled out for special treatment either because of our own piety, in the case of the evangelical Christians, or the ignorance of others, in the case of the global warming millennialists."

Indeed.