From the Vicarage

Perhaps you have heard – the nation’s new polar research ship is to be named the RRS Sir David Attenborough rather than Boaty McBoatface, the frivolous suggestion of a former BBC radio presenter that the majority of those who took part in an online poll to name the vessel seized upon, and apparently would have preferred.

Beards are fashionable; two priests serving culturally mixed parishes in East London have grown beards; the Bishop of London has commended them for reaching out to the culture of the majority of their parishioners, pointing out that in some cultures a beard is seen as a mark of holiness. But not every newspaper that ran the story last month explained that his original article in the Church Times was a learned discussion of the Church’s changing attitudes to beards through the ages.

Dear Friends, You may have noticed that the world didn’t collide with another planet in 2012, although a couple of years before some websites had forecast that it would. Cleverly – and controversially – this turned out to be publicity for the film 2012, which tells a tale of how, microwaved by the sun, the Earth begins to disintegrate. A feast of special effects follows, and eventually a bunch of boffins who have foreseen these events build a modern Noah’s Ark and save the day.