Author Archives: Tim Lenton

Writing a poem every day for Lent has proved difficult – which should not be surprising mathematically, as the sum total is roughly the same as I wrote in the whole of last year.

But it’s not just the maths. Some would say that writing a poem is an inspirational thing, triggered by a spur-of-the-moment insight or observation. Can you really write poems to order, one a day, like taking pills?

Obviously you can, in the sense that poems are just words on a page. You write them, and there they are. The real question is: are they any good, or are you just filling a quota, reaching a target, ticking off data, like Ofsted?

In the poetry league table, am I outstanding, good, requiring improvement, inadequate or – the latest worry – coasting? Count my words and you won’t have much idea. But is there another way?

The question of quality is a serious one, because it is difficult to settle. Counting is much easier, and so politicians and journalists prefer it. If there is an easy way of doing something, most of us prefer it, even if it does not give such useful results. The fact that it gives some results, and they can be counted, is what matters.

If we set targets, we can see if they have been met. If we create a league table, someone will be at the top and bottom. If we set tests, we can easily work out whether someone has passed or failed.

But it’s all a cheap trick, really. You can no more measure the quality of education by counting data than you can measure the quality of poetry by counting words. Education is much too complicated for that. It requires inspiration and insight, every day.

And yes, that is possible. Teachers and head teachers do it all the time. They would do it even better if we could get rid of all that counting.

I want to start by making a confession. I quite often watch Bargain Hunt on BBC 1. This is largely because it’s shown at lunchtime, when I settle down for my 12.30 sandwich and mug of tea, but I can quite see how some of you would regard this as no excuse. Still, there it is.

As a result I have learned that nearly all those vases, paintings, tables and toys that are lying around are in fact worth very little at all. I have also learned that if presenter Tim Wonnacott (currently stepping down after many years) takes a dislike to something wooden, he will describe it as “shedwork” – in other words, it was made in a shed by someone insignificant.

This has always struck me as unnecessarily judgmental. Surely something is either well made or not: whether it was made in a shed is irrelevant.

Who made it is also irrelevant, really, though the right name will often add many pounds to an item. It’s rather like those art forgeries that are impossible to tell from the original. If you can’t tell them from the original, surely they’re just as good, just as beautiful and just as worth hanging on your wall?

Why do we care so much about status?

At the theatre not long ago I heard a customer drawl smugly to a friend: “Not bad, considering they’re amateurs.” But surely either it’s well done or it isn’t. You may think the customer is being considerate in not applying the same criteria to amateurs as to professionals. I think he’s being condescending.

Allied to all this is the tendency to make judgments about a statement of national or world importance on the basis of who said it. Of course it’s important to understand that all politicians have axes to grind (sometimes pretty silly ones), but surely something is either true or it isn’t? We should not refuse to consider something on the grounds that it was said by someone on the right – or the left.

The difficult thing about voting on whether or not to leave the European Union, for example, is to work out what is the truth and what is not. We can’t do that by watching who is voting which way.

If someone knocks together a policy in a shed, it may be a very beautiful policy, or it may be rubbish. But the shed has nothing to do with it. The truth is what counts.

Two things you could say about Paul Durrant: he gave it everything, and he cared

I worked with him for many years, and I didn’t always agree with him. As news editor of the biggest selling regional morning newspaper in England, he knew what he wanted, and when that didn’t quite match the story the reporter brought in, the reporter had to go back and try again.

In my innocence, I felt that the reporter, having done the interviews and seen for himself or herself, might have more insight than the office-bound news editor. But I was probably wrong. Certainly the reporters in question stand behind him, praising him for his guidance, and for making them the stars they are today.

He produced top quality news stories. He was a master of the intro, and he understood how to motivate his staff to go that bit further. He would not tolerate laziness, but he could forgive someone who tried and kept on trying, even if they made mistakes. He spotted star quality and insisted that it was not wasted.

Outside the office he was relaxed and friendly and knew how to encourage people – a vital quality. By no means perfect himself – who is? – he understood imperfections in others, but he knew about the importance of keeping up standards. It was no accident that the Eastern Daily Press was such a fine newspaper when he was in the news editor’s chair.

Underlying it all was a warm person who was unafraid to put himself on the line. As a result, he was a gigantic figure. And yes, that’s a metaphor.

We will miss him.

Paul “Duzza” Durrant, died 10 February 2016.

If 52 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. So says Anatole France, and I’m sure you agree. However, if 52 million people say it, there is a good chance that it will be on the front page of most newspapers.

Democracy is a fine thing – or if not a fine thing, the best thing we’ve got to run a country. Dictators might do it more efficiently, but they tend to lack perspective. The trains run on time, but people go missing.

Sadly, however, the democratic process always delivers a government that many people would prefer was not governing. That is the way it works. For democracy to succeed, those who lose out have to be willing to accept it.

This can be extremely frustrating, particularly when the issues are crucial. And this why many people resort to marching, striking, random action – or, more frequently, joining an online pressure group, like Avaaz.

These pressure groups gather thousands if not millions of signatures for petitions that aim to bypass the normal democratic system and “shame” politicians into giving them what they want.

If big business behaves like this, it is clearly a bad thing. But if people like you and I do it, surely that’s just having our say in a reasonable way?

No, it’s the same thing. Only the voices are different.

But surely we’re right, and they’re wrong?

We like to think we’re right, of course, and sometimes we are. The trouble with online pressure groups is the assumption that they are always backing the right horse.

But often petitions are created that attract huge numbers of votes when the organisers, let alone those who sign, have no expertise whatsoever in the subject at hand. Key phrases are enough to get people to sign, rather in the way that when a friend on Facebook asks you to “like” their page, most people barely hesitate, let alone look at it.

What are these phrases? “Climate change” is an obvious one (ignoring the fact that no-one says the climate isn’t changing); “genetically engineering of crops” is another; so are “a free NHS” and “lower speed limits”. There are many others.

This week some whales got beached and died in eastern England. Someone scrawled “Man’s fault” on one of them, and I can’t help thinking that he or she is typical of those who sign online petitions. A whale has died; so somehow it must be our fault, or the fault of some huge corporation somewhere, or genetically modified sea water.

We have a right to protest, and I am certainly not saying that everyone who signs online petitions does so irresponsibly. But while we have a right to protest, we also have a duty not to sign just anything that is put before us, simply because it sounds right; not to march before we understand (in detail) why; and not to strike against the public without checking to see if there is a more effective way of hurting whoever is actually in the wrong.

Democracy is a fine thing – but it needs a bit of thought. In general, crowds don’t do much thinking.

There may not have been much about the Lord’s Prayer in cinemas over the Christmas period, but at least there was Star Wars.

And if you happen to live in my neck of the woods, there was a bonus: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the local theatre.

One of these productions is of course almost explicitly Christian, though it is hard to know how many of our secularised children actually realise it. Perhaps more than we think: children are pretty sharp, and tend to find out things.

Of course there is not a great deal about lions and witches in the Bible. One strains to think of even a single reference to wardrobes. But the story that C S Lewis wrote is the same story of Christianity in different words: the power of light over darkness; self-sacrifice; forgiveness; love; even resurrection.

But what about Star Wars? Not quite the same clear reflection there, perhaps, but it arouses in us very similar reactions. In the SW universe there is good and evil, and the evil appears overwhelming, just as it does in Narnia.

There is also something hidden that makes all the difference. In Lewis’ story it is the reappearance of Aslan at a critical moment. In Star Wars, the title says it: The Force Awakens. The moment that sends a shiver up the spine is the moment when this is revealed, and the Force makes its choice (I would like to be more explicit, but you may not have seen it yet).

There are those who would identify the Force with the power of the Holy Spirit. You could also argue that it is the light entering the world, and the darkness being unable to overcome it. Take your choice. Either or both.

What is undeniable is that people leave both productions uplifted, having seen light overcome darkness. There’s no real reason people should want to see light defeat darkness unless we are created that way – and stories like this dig it out of us.

You have to feel sorry for the early church. As well as having to do business without the benefits of risk assessment and health and safety policies, they also had to manage without parochial church councils – all things that the Church of England takes for granted.

I was reminded all too forcibly of this when I received my (or someone else’s) copy of PCC News, the “newspaper for all PCC members to help support your church”. Newspapers are another thing the early church missed out on, by the way. Not to mention parish magazines.

The Church of England has it very easy really. It has Gift Aid, for instance, and we all know what fun that is – especially those who are unfortunate enough to be church treasurers. Judas would never have betrayed Jesus if he’d had Gift Aid. He would simply have run away.

The front page of PCC News this month is all about finding grants, which as we all know is literally hours – possibly days – of fun. And when you’ve found them, you have to bid for them, if you don’t have a nervous breakdown first. I tried to imagine James and John tackling this, but couldn’t. Matthew, perhaps.

It is hard to say what the most exhilarating part of being a Christian in the 21^st century is, compared to the first century AD. Glancing at the headlines in PCC News, I suppose it may be “Authorised Lay Ministry: Volunteer’s and Employer’s Liability Insurance”, which would certainly tempt the average fisherman away from his boat and into discipleship like a shot.

Or maybe it’s the helpful “Flow chart: How to obtain faculty approval”. If only that had been around shortly after the Resurrection, things would have gone much more smoothly, and Christianity might have become really big.

And how much easier it would have been to arrange things like the feeding of the five thousand, walking on the water, the Transfiguration, the raising of Lazarus, the wedding at Cana and the Last Supper (bearing in mind the alcohol involved in these last two) – and indeed Christmas itself – if the key players had had access to an article on “Keeping the right side of the law when holding events”.

When you think about it, it’s amazing Christianity ever got off the ground, which brings me to the Ascension. They were lucky to get away with that.