The Complex Christ | Signs of Emergence

The Dead Console the Living?

I am reading through a manuscript for a friend which is partly a memoir of his growing up during 'the troubles' in Northern Ireland. As I've been doing so, I was reminded of a quote by the Irish journalist Jack Holland, who wrote that

"the tragedy of Northern Ireland is that it is now a society in which the dead console the living"

Thankfully, though I have to tread carefully as I'm way outside my area of expertise, I think this is changing, and the final withdrawal of British troops from there is cause for some celebration.

When the dead console the living, there is always an element of deathwish: in the final analysis, people chose death rather than forgiveness or grace, so that they might be re-united with those who have already fallen. And so the bitterness circles round. Breaking that cycle, drawing people from a place where they gain energy from what is living, rather than from what is dead, is difficult.

We see the cycle in the latest round of shootings in Manchester. Gunmen actually attacked a wake for another victim, killing a man. Death circling and taunting; bitterness driving by and corroding all it touches.

Christianity without resurrection would have been just this: consoling memories of a great man, unjustly murdered by an oppressive regime. An acidic religion this would have been; it is one that many seem to follow. Always harking back, always cursing the breakthrough of the new. Finding comfort in opposition, solace in hostility.

But, thankfully, we are not a death cult. The resurrection event, and the words 'forgive them father', demand that we don't find solace in the dead, but new life in resurrection. It's that resurrection hope that I pray continues to spread out in Northern Ireland, that resurrection hope I pray will really impact the lives of communities in Manchester - and beyond.

Technorati: Death Wish | Manchester | Northern Ireland | Resurrection

What A Friend We Have In Facebook | The Buddy of Christ

As I've recently posted, I'm enjoying using Facebook a lot. (Though for how long, with a big court case looming?)

One concern though: the nature of 'friendship'.

I'm not sure what the etiquette is regarding friendship requests, but one thing is certain: you have to decide early on on some sort of policy about who you are going to be 'friends' with. Taking the whole thing fairly lightly, I'm pretty free-for-all. There are lots of people on my list who aren't actually my friends, in the traditional sense. I've never met them. I probably never will. We have connected through this site... and that's about it.

My concern then is really how sites like Facebook might profoundly affect the nature of friendship. Encarta defines a 'friend' as

1. somebody who has a close personal relationship of mutual affection and trust with another
2. somebody who has a casual relationship with another, for example, a business acquaintance
3. somebody who is not an enemy
4. somebody who defends or supports a cause, group, or principle
5. somebody who supports a charity or institution by donating time or money

On Facebook we have a complete mix of these definitions. Some people I have close personal relationships with. Some are just 'not enemies'. Others are involved in mutual causes.

In an increasingly fragmented and atomized world, I wonder if we need a new word for my 'number 1s'. Something more than 'friendship'. I wonder if Facebook slightly cheapens all of these definitions, making it so easy to 'be friends', when true friendship is more difficult.

And I wonder too whether this impacts our other relationships, and, in turn draws more towards being a 'buddy of Christ', rather than part of a body, with all the blood and guts that entails.

Technorati: Buddy | Facebook | Friendship | Christ

Mission as Entrepreneurial Activity?

Ben has an excellent and honest post here outlining his doubts about the 'missional entrepreneur' that is in popular parlance.

I've posted a comment outlining some thoughts on how the role of the artist might help us imagine this in a new way.

Technorati: Ben Edson | Mission | Entrepreneur

Religion: Ignore God, It's About The Sacred

This month's Prospect carries an excellent short essay outlining some arguments against Hitchens, Dawkins et al: 'the evangelical atheists, shouting from their pulpits'.

The author, Roger Scruton, is surprised by 'the extent to which religion is caricatured by its current opponents, who see it as nothing more than a system of unfounded beliefs about the cosmos - beliefs, that, to the extent that they conflict with the scientific worldview, are heading straight for refutation.'

Refuted they might be, but going away, they ain't. And this is what really riles Dawkins and Hitchens. They get very wound up at having exposed the whole thing as a fiction, only for people to nod and go on believing it. Scruton, as others have, points to work that has shown how the sacred ('moments that stand outside time, in which the loneliness and anxiety of the human individual is confronted and overcome, through immersion in the group') is actually a hugely important part of what it is to be human.

He goes on to look in particular at the writings of René Girard, who works with a kind of inversion of Nietzche: religion is not the cause of violence, but the solution to it. The arguments are too involved to set out briefly here, and I would strongly encourage you to read it fully, (PDF here) but a Scruton summarizes his position:

"The experience of the sacred is not an irrational residue of primitive fears, nor is it a form of superstition that will one day be chased away by science. It is a solution to the accumulated aggression which lies in the heart of human communities."

The question this leaves me with is: once we have returned to the sacred, where is God, and what of the Christ event? Girard does touch on this, but what I am really looking forward to at Greenbelt this summer is hearing Peter Rollins talk on this very subject.

Connected post: Gift Exchange and Terror. Violence occurs when 'the gift' - an act of openness between the self and an-other - breaks down.

Technorati: Dawkins | Girard | Greenbelt | Prospect | Jesus | Rollins | Scruton

Scot McKnight Discusses Signs...

Over at JesusCreed.Org

Some good debate going on about leadership, what it means to be 'emergent', and whether the book is 'concrete' enough.

Thanks Scot.

Technorati: JesusCreed | Scot McKnight

Why I'm Loving Facebook | Dirty Networks

Having seen Ben and some others resign themselves to Facebook, I asked them why I should bother... do I really want another digital dimension to have to check/keep up? And with being a teacher, all social networking sites are slightly fraught with potential pitfalls. (Unlike an ex colleague, who I think is very unwise, I don't allow friendships with current students)

Well, having dipped my toe in anonymously for a while I decided to jump in properly, and, in fact, I love it. But perhaps not for the same 'hey isn't it great to hook up with my old grad school people again' reasons.

Firstly, I think Facebook have been very wise and seen the future more clearly than sites like MySpace. They've recently bought the Mozilla-connected start-up Parakey ("Give your computer the bird") whose whole premise is about bridging the gap between web and desktop. Watch out for Facebook really becoming an on-line desktop: contacts, photos, documents, events management. I've used it in small ways in this way and I think it's going to be huge.

Secondly, I love the fact that Facebook is 'dirty'. Well, it is for me anyway. Check my profile and you won't see a sterile list of Christian leaders. There are real people there. Who swear and post dumb things and chuck stuff around. Some I've worked with, some I've taught at High School. And I love the fact that they get to see the 'other side' of what I do right there on my profile, and others get to see the teaching side too. For me personally i've always found that they enrich one another, and provide great moments for conversation on all sides. Some of which doesn't have swearing or trrible grmr init ;-)

Technorati: Facebook | Parakey

Stones

If we could all
just stop throwing stones,
and stoop, knees bent
and write in the dust,

we'd see that the dust
was once stone -
grand, and hard, and proud, and tough -
now ground and dissolved
in grace and tears.

So... how much better
to be a grain of dirt
on that kind prophet’s hands
than a stone
in the cold, accusing Temple
of the pure.

Technorati: Dust | Stones

Soliton | Signs Book Launch

I'm very pleased to have been asked back to help facilitate the Soliton Sessions 07 in Ventura. If you're in that part of the world I can't recommend it highly enough; last summer's sessions really were one of the highlights of my year.

On the Friday night (10th August) we'll be doing a book launch event for the book. This will be open to everyone, not just those attending the Soliton, so do come down if you're around. It should be a great evening: food and drink, plus some readings, art and reflections.

Time: 6pm onwards
Location: Ventura Vineyard: 1956 Palma Drive, Suite A | Map
Contact: Greg: 805.701.0079

Facebook Event Link

Technorati: Book Launch | Vineyard | Soliton | Ventura

Keep Your Relationship Together: Remain in the Gift

My brother came back from visiting two friends (not pictured ;-) in France the other day. They had sold up, moved over there with their kids and bought a tiny run down farm in the countryside. They live on/off it at pretty subsistence level with a few cattle to fatten and growing their own veg.

They had told my brother how, about 18 months ago they were so strapped for cash that they took the decision to stop buying any gifts for birthdays or Christmases. They were reflecting now on how, with the hard work and tough life in a 'foreign' country, that financial decision pretty much led to their marriage breaking down. It destroyed any sense of celebration, removed any possibility for generosity, no matter how sacrificial that was.

They've re-instated the gift now, and are altogether a lot happier and healthier.

At Vaux we used to say about worship 'where there is no gift, there is no art.' I think one could also say 'where there is no gift, there is no relationship.' This is what a relationship is: the free exchange our ourselves with another. Not paid for, as in a work situation, not commodified, as in a shop or restaurant. Giving and receiving gifts is part of making this invisible 'gift' visible. Whether it be time taken out to be with someone, or unexpected flowers, or something more special, gift exchange increases the potentiality in any relationship.

Exploring this in one Vaux service, someone came up with the idea of 'Petrol Station Flowers': you're driving to someone's house empty-handed and run into the gas station to grab a limp bunch of cellophaned flowers... No real thought has gone into the gift, and that's reflected in the relationship.

We reflected on how often our worship is no more than 'petrol station flowers'. Running in at the last moment, giving something lame. The divine gifts we have received in grace are much more than this, and on all relational planes we move in we need to consider our own gift practice in response to this.

[Connected Post: 'Gift Exchange and Terror' - "violence only breaks out when the parity of [gift] exchanges is broken". Reflections on Bruce Chatwin and Konrad Lorenz discussing ritual gift exchanges and the roots of aggression and warfare.]

Technorati: Chatwin | Lorenz | Christmas Presents | Terrorism | Vaux

Alistair Campbell's Diaries | The Best Summary of Blair Years | US vs UK

In a review of Campbell's diaries, David Hare notes:

"The virtues of pride, aggression and solidarity forged in the heat of New Labour's difficult evolution proved pitifully inadequate to contain a neoconservative ally far more ruthless than itself... It was no longer enough to be on message. Sadly, for the lives of so many, it turns out you had to be right as well."

I think this is the best single summary of the Blair years I've read. I think history will eventually see him as an essentially good man who meant well but who found governing much, much harder than he could ever have imagined. Especially with a US administration that screwed him, and a media dragon that he thought he had tamed.

Technorati: Blair | Bush | Alistair Campbell

Dirty Dog | Allergies Rise with Cleanliness

So I'm having a drink the other night with this guy who works at the government's disease control centre - he specialises in TB and bio-terrorism threats - and he says "You want to have healthy kids? The best thing you can do is buy them a dog."

Apparently they bring such a lot of dirt into the house they do a brilliant job of increasing immunity.

Once again, paradoxically, it's sterile, pure lives end up killing you.

[Update: The Times has led this morning with a piece on the meteoric rise of allergies in the UK, citing cleanliness and animal exclusion as the problem:

"When animals, as happens in parts of Eastern Europe, continue to live in close proximity to humans so does the incidence of the common forms of allergy remain low. As the boundaries of the spick and span, spotless lifestyle spreads across Europe, so does the allergy become more frequent. It is likely that the adverse effects of an over hygienic lifestyle exert their influence on children when they are still at the toddler stage of childhood or younger."

Interestingly, it was better-off families who suffered most. Why? Perhaps because they have cleaners.

Human Reaction to Spotless Lifestyles ]

Technorati: Bio-terrorism |  Disease Control |  Dogs |  Allergies |  Health |  Times |  TB

Emergent, emerging, emergent? | Is Signs 'Just Another Emerging Church Book'?

No this isn't a lesson in Latin conjugation... but language and its evolving meanings are important.

With the release of the book, people have been wondering if this is just 'another emerging church book'. I'd like to answer that with an emphatic no!

Part of the reason for that is, I feel less and less confident about the use of the term 'emerging church' anyway; like verbal spun sugar it appears to mean something, but on closer analysis, appears to shapeshift into anything you like.

Two points to make: firstly, when I wrote the original version - 'The Complex Christ' - back in 2003/4, I had never heard of the umbrella organization 'Emergent'. I think what Emergent is trying to do is, in many ways, fantastic, but my use of the term 'emergent' (lower case) in the book actually refers to the science of emergence/complexity/self-organzation.

Secondly, then, the book is not about the emerging church, but it is about how the church could 'emerge' - it is, as the opening sentence says, a book about change. I strongly believe that all arms of the church need to change - to listen to and adapt themselves to meet the challenges of their local situations. The thesis of the book is that this is what we see God doing in the incarnation, and that 'theomorphosis' gives us an archetype for how we too might change.

So the book is for all Christians who feel the divine itch of dissatisfaction with their church - Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal, Alternative... I've had some wonderful feedback from all corners. It offers no 'off the shelf' solution for what the perfect church should look like, but rather some DNA code to take and evolve into some wonderful beast totally suited to the local environment the reader may find themselves in, whether that be South London, South Bronx or South Africa.

In other words, it's for you, so click the link and purchase now ;-)

 

Technorati: Signs of Emergence | Emergent | Kester Brewin

More Papal Bull... "If It's Not Catholic, It's Not A Proper Church"

The Times reports today that "The Vatican has described the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as “not proper Churches” in a document issued with the full authority of the Pope."

"The Orthodox church suffers from a wound because it does not recognise the primacy of the Pope. The wound is even more profound in Protestant denominations, and it is difficult to see how the title of ‘Church’ could possibly be attributed to them.”

Great work. Really nice. It's difficult to see how the title of 'Christian' could possibly be attributed...

Technorati: Pope | Ratzinger | Catholic | Orthodox | Protestant | Division

Wikiklesia: Voices from the Virtual World

I am really pleased to have been able to contribute a chapter to a great new book: 'Voices from the Virtual World'. It's been put together under the umbrella of 'Wikiklesia', which is a collaborative publishing project.

"Voices of the Virtual World explores the growing influence of technology on the global Christian church. In this premier volume, we hear from more than forty voices, including technologists and theologians, entrepreneurs and pastors… from a progressive Episcopalian techno-monk to a leading Mennonite professor… 'Voices' is a far reaching exploration of spiritual journey contextualized within a culture of increasingly immersive technology."

"Conceived and established in May 2007, the Wikiklesia Project is an experiment in on-line collaborative publishing. The format is virtual, self-organizing, participatory - from purpose to publication in just a few weeks. All proceeds from the Wikiklesia Project will be contributed to the Not For Sale campaign."

 

My chapter is entitled 'Text/Audio/Video: Probing the Dark Glass'. Our journey from birth to adulthood takes from video (we see first) to audio (we learn to speak) throught to text (we learn to read). Paradoxically, our technological path has started with text (printing) moved on to audio (sound recording / pod-casting) and finally on to video (video calls, HD video streaming). How do these two different paths impact our rendering of faith? Go buy a copy from 23rd July, and find out. Don't worry, there's a host of great people to read other than me ;-)

More info from Wikiklesia.

Technorati: Wikiklesia | Dark Glass | Kester Brewin

Is The Emerging Church Hopelessly Utopian? [3]

Hopelessly Utopian [1]

Hopelessly Utopian [2]

Thanks for the comments on the above posts. In response to Cheryl and Becky, yes, of course every church movement has felt 'no one else has ever felt this way before'. And it's actually important to recognise that, as Gray does in Black Mass, suggesting that 'the utopian instinct in modern politics, which has itself presented itself in secular and often explicitly anti-religious form, must be understood as a kind of sublimated religious impulse.' Gray, as I've written, goes on to say that we need to move beyond any grand visions, any utopian ideals, but the point I think he misses is within his own words: utopian dreams are part of what it is to be human. They are part of the divine ache within each of us.

So, if the Emerging Church is hopelessly utopian, that's partly because it's hopelessly human, and hopelessly divine. We couldn't be any other way.

Trouble is, these grand visions often lead to states/power structures enforcing their own purity codes on others, and, in church parallels, people getting hurt and religious warfare/bigotry breaking out. Which is why Jay Winter argues for us to go after 'minor utopias', "a modest strand of visionary thought that sketch out a world very different from the one we live in, but from which not all social conflict or all oppression has been eliminated."

Because, as I've written in the book, I believe the Emerging Church needs to be a 'dirty' church, having a 'minor utopian' vision will hopefully allow us to avoid some of the pitfalls of sterile religion, and avoid becoming a fully denominated, bounded group.

So what might this look like?

I'm really glad Nic brought up the concept of TAZs in the comments on the first post. The article describes these Temporary Autonomous Zones as "like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State, a guerilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it."

In other words, as the article continues, TAZ is, in the ancient sense, 'festive': "it envisions an intensification of everyday life, or as the Surrealists might have said, life's penetration by the Marvelous [...] It lies at the intersection of many forces, like some pagan power-spot at the junction of mysterious ley-lines, visible to the adept in seemingly unrelated bits of terrain, landscape, flows of air, water, animals. [...] The patterns of force which bring the TAZ into being have something in common with those chaotic "Strange Attractors" which exist, so to speak, between the dimensions."

I don't think it's too far to push the TAZ concept to say that Jesus was involved in TAZing. The incarnation event was 'life's penetration by the Marvelous', which existed in festival for a while before the authorities radared it and tried to crush it. Jesus' miracles can be seen in the same way: foretastes of another world, TAZs breaking through, complex, strange, without fixed dimensions.

I believe, as John L pushed towards in his comments, that the Emerging Church will not be hopelessly utopian if it follows Jesus' TAZ vision. Never institutionalising, never forming solidly, always festive, always uprising, always liberating, always slipping away, Trickster-style before the authorities can crush it. But, as John rightly points out, this will take a totally different sort of leadership, and membership. One that resists trying to permanently inhabit the spaces that should only be TAZs. Permanent spaces have to be state-sanctioned; they are not penetrated by the Marvelous.

Of course, 'utopia' means 'no place'. If we are dreaming of 'winning', and turning everyone on to our way of thinking, we are trying to create permanent, pure places that will divide and oppress. If, on the other hand, we are about more modest, local visions, about creating festive TAZs, then these temporal, radical 'non places' are, by that definition, utopian.

So, is the Emerging Church hopelessly utopian? In many senses, I hope so. The utopian instinct is part of our divine humanity for things to change - and thank God for hopelessly utopian figures like William Wilberforce - but we must temper this desire with our also very human instinct to grab power. If we can find that middle way then I, for one, am in.

Technorati: Black Mass | Festival | Jay Winter | John Gray | TAZ

Is The Emerging Church Hopelessly Utopian? [2]

In the previous post, I outlined John Gray's recent conclusion that, post-Iraq (and thus, essentially, post Neo-con), post-Communism, post-Marxism, post-Nazism, the grand utopian ideas of the 20th Century had proved themselves failures, and that we should all give up on grand political visions. I paralleled that with some of the disenchantment I've seen expressed about the 'emerging church' movement.

Commenting on that, Matt says:

"With a few exceptions, the utopias of the c20th were of an all-encompassing top-down nature, rather than the organic communities of the c19."

I think this is pretty spot on, and actually lines up nicely with the later sections of the Prospect article on utopias, where the writer points out that:

"During the 19th Century, many utopians tried to create perfect societies in small settlements, often in the 'new world' of the US. [...] The real harm came in the 20th Century, when utopians abandoned the idea of withdrawing from the world and instead attempted to remake it."

I think this model is actually helpful. We can see two visions of the emerging church through it: the 'withdrawal' model (no giggling, please ;-) or the 're-making' model. Both have been seen to fail in history. The withdrawal model because the very act of attempting to create a pure society carries within it its own destruction, especially when disillusionment with the leader comes (which it always does). The re-making model fails because it is essentially futile. We can't bring heaven to the whole earth yet. Energy saps, and people drift away.

So what's the way forward? Do we admit the EC vision has been hopelessly utopian, and give up?

The Prospect article continues with a review of another book - Jay Winter's Dreams of Peace and Freedom (subtitle: Utopian Moments in the 20th Century) - which I think offers us some direction. Winter wants to 'resurrect a more modest strand of visionary thought, what he calls "minor utopias" [...] He describes these as visions of partial transformation that "sketch out a world very different from the one we live in, but from which not all social conflict or all oppression has been eliminated"'

So one way forward is for us to think of the emerging church in terms of such a 'minor utopia'. In other words, we retain the powerful vision, but are more realistic about the bounds and reach of that vision. It's always going to be partial transformation, and dirt is always going to remain.

As I outline in the book, the characters that help us to remain involved in 'dirt' are the Tricksters, and thus, if the Emerging Church is going to pull back from the 'hopelessly utopian' place, it must keep in touch with its tricksters; it must avoid trying to harden boundaries and purify its ground. In other speak, I think that means it needs to pro-actively avoid 'denominating' - moving towards a settled, denominated state. (See earlier post on this.)

Some ideas about how we might practically do that, I'll try to cover in the next post.

Technorati: Black Mass | Jay Winter | Nazism | Neocon | Politics | Denomination | Utopia

Is The Emerging Church Hopelessly Utopian? [1]

In this month's Prospect, Anthony Dworkin explores the idea of utopias. Utopian ideas have been a disaster in the twentieth century: Nazism, Marxism, Communism... and we can go further back in history to see their failures in both political and religious manifestations.

In the 19th Century many utopians tried to create perfect societies in their small settlements, often in the 'New World.' Utopian visions are about creating utter harmony, and are thus about cleansing and getting rid of 'dirt'. In the 20th Century, the mistake appears to have been to try to force these visions onto the world at large, and the 'ethnic cleansing' that so violently broke out as a result. Bush and Blair's campaign to 'rid the world of evil' can really be seen as the last hurrah of this ideology.

Dworkin discusses John Gray's book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, which argues that after the horrors of the 20th Century and the Iraq/neo-con debacle, liberal society should lean towards abandoning all political idealism.

I myself can see some parallels here in the church. We've seen so much, seen so many projects with such great hopes flounder, so many prophecies of impending revival fall flat, that we're just prepared to give up on any grand vision at all. And the corollary of that is: we stop pushing the dirt away at all. We abandon any difference/distinction from the society we are in.

Having spoken to many people over the years about the Emerging Church, I've heard people get really excited that 'finally this is what we've always been looking for'... and then, more recently, say 'I just don't care and I want to jack the whole thing in.'

So is the Emerging Church conversation just another hopeless utopia? Should we just abandon any grand vision and admit that it'll probably just end up hurting people?

I'll try to answer that in the next post.

Technorati: Black Mass | Blair | Dworkin | Marxism | Nazism | Politics | Prospect | Bush | Utopia

Thank God

Alan Johnson released.

Technorati: Johnson | Alan

UK Floods Are God's Attempt to Wash Away Homosexuals?

You may not have picked up on this Stateside - unless you've been trying to follow coverage of Wimbledon - but it's been raining here in the UK. A lot. Every day for weeks.

There have been floods, and some people have died. In one tragic incident a man got his foot stuck in a drain and, despite a 4 hour attempt to free him, the waters rose and he drowned. A school boy was swept away by a river. Neither of them were gay.

The Bishop of Carlisle, Graham Dow, commented on Sunday that the floods were "a direct consequence of mankind’s lack of respect for each other, for the planet and for God."

This much I would actually agree with. Proper respect for one another and the environment would have meant our weather patterns were not altered and these freak weather events would not be happening with such frequency or ferocity.

What I find disappointing is Dow's linking of this to judgement. He goes on:

“This is a strong and definite judgment because the world has been arrogant in going its own way. We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as environmental damage. We are in serious moral trouble because every type of lifestyle is now regarded as legitimate. In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as ’the beast’, which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want. The sexual orientation regulations (which give greater rights to gays) are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God’s judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance."

I'm afraid I simply don't buy the line that God sends disasters which kill indiscriminately in order to force particular people to change their behaviour. It's an angry, violent image of God that I just don't believe holds up with the pattern we see Christ living out.

Plus it's one that puts people right off faith - see blog reaction here and here. "Thank God for nutters" "Ha ha ha I tell you they really are clutching at straws to try and make people believe in their ridiculous heirarchal one male god story telling Xtian bullshit" The Independent even compares him with a suicide bomber.

Nice work Graham. Really helped out here.

Technorati: Anglican | Bishop | Dow | Floods | Gay | Homosexuality | Judgement | UK

iPhone Launches Mass Transit Revival

Is there anything this thing can't do? Apparently now we'll all be taking the train so we can get more time playing with it... If only ;-)

Technorati: Apple | Environment | iPhone | Mass Transit

Tales of Two Buildings::Two Cities::The Divine Vision

Mika Brzezinski recently refused to lead with a story about P@&i$ Hi%ton over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In a similar vein, Wired reported in 'A Tale of Two Cities' that a trawl of the web revealed more interest in the iPhone than the recent triple-attempted bombing on London and Glasgow.

Celebrity::Security::Gossip::War :: These are all the hallmarks found branded on the urban belly. We'd be foolish to try to pare them. London wouldn't expect us to stop and stare in the face of car bombs. Crowds and spectacles, criminality and terrorism. Londinium's clay has been trodden on and burnt by them for millennia. It's a wise and rooted place.

On Thursday and Friday I was fortunate enough to see the resurrection of two of the city's iconic buildings: