Tis The Season

[Sweder]

Christmas is coming
Sweder's getting fat
Please put a penny
In the Old Man's hat

Another superlative outing this morning. Despite the extreme cold (OK Suzie, minus three is extreme cold to us!) I opted for shorts. On days like these even the wind stays in bed. The sun was up by the time I stopped pfaffing about, but it was clear as the bright blue sky that hard though it tried to shine it would make no impression on the frozen ground.

It's a shame when your track du jour pops up so early in a run, but that's how it was today. Listening to Planet Rock as I got the legs going, enjoying AC's banter, I was dismayed to hear the vibrant thrumming intro to LA Woman so soon. That wonderful driving beat got me galloping rather sooner than I'd planned. I confess I loved every frozen step, allowing the cadence of the music to flow through my legs, leaving me a grinning bystander as we chugged up the slopes. I lost interest in the music after that, though Van Halen's Hot For Teacher got me driving hard up the approach to Blackcap, probably a quickest-ever ascent for me.

Thoughts drifted to yesterday's radio interview with new Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg. Clegg, a man who has enlisted the help of no less an icon than Brian Eno as an advisor on youth policy, had boldy declared his atheism to the nation, sparking a trail of debate amongst the chattering (phone-in) classes. I'm happy to have leaders who don't have/ listen to voices, even if some are allegedly of the Almighty. Years of Bush and Blair claiming to serve a higher purpose and being happy to be judged by God for their actions have done little for global stability or religious harmony. The very nature of some faiths appears to be simply Global Domination, a sort of God-driven communism; there's bound to be trouble. As one comedian observed recently, if the leaders of all the world's religions should perish on the same day and find themselves before the one true God, one of them is going to be laughing his ass off. In my view Dichotomic dogma shares a carriage with poverty, starvation and opression on the runaway train of world suffering.

What's this? Religion and politics? For shame, Sweder; 'tis Christmas.
What on Earth do such matters have to do with Christmas?

Happy Humbug.