God III, The Fisking

Faithful Reader, for the last few days I have had quite some feedback on my post God and Spider Dunstan, a whimsical musing on the subject of God resulting from my interaction with believers over the last few weeks.

One among your number even saw fit to pen me a riposte detailing my errors and general waywardness in the form of a fisking. Said correspondent being a little reclusive, I have agreed to allow them to retain their anonymity and shall refer to them only as ‘Withburga’. As I am sure you all know, St Withburga was a virgin Benedictine nun who established a nunnery after her father died in battle. She is not the patron saint of fast food, although she ought to be.

God II - The Sequel

There was much comment on my last post, both on facebook and by email, on the topic of devout atheism and whether or not it might be an oxymoron. Sadly, nobody commented on the blog itself. Yes, that is a hint.

Definitions being important and on the off chance that Boxsell is reading this, I’ll start by explaining that an oxymoron is not a stupid person hyperventilating, but is in fact an apparently self-contradictory statement. It’s often used as a sort of literary device - “cruel to be kind” is a well known example - and the oxymoron is often used for humorous effect - Oscar Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” leaps to mind - but the word oxymoron has, in recent times, come to be more often associated with accidental incongruity. The old standby being “Military Intelligence”, but Donald Trump noting that “although the budget was unlimited I exceeded it” also seems to work.

God and Spider Dunstan.

For the last several weeks I have been accommodated at the expense of the Australian government in a setting that has allowed me to have regular conversations with persons of a religious bent. Actual priests, ministers and reverends as well as some well-meaning if somewhat pious chaps who choose to adopt the appellation “lay” as they are without official registration in their respective churches.

I am always fond of chatting with someone that disagrees with me on a topic that interests me. It's always possible that I might be wrong and it's usually the case that even if I am not corrected, I am given something to think about. As a devout atheist, I find religion endlessly fascinating and these conversations, while they have not for some time provided me with any additional existential enlightenment, do often cast additional light on the nature of religions, religiosity and its devotees.

Three Things

Hello Faithful Blog Readers

There are three big news items today. The least important is the shenanigans going on in Europe. The most honest analysis of Brexit that I have seen is James Altucher's article on Linkedin that you can find here. As usual, James is pretty much spot-on in his whimsical, off-hand assessment.

The second piece of news is that Double Time has finally been published on Amazon. This gives everyone a chance to go and buy another copy. Buy early and buy often is my advice. Don't forget to rate it and leave a review.

The third piece of news is that my second book, a novella of about 20,000 words called Spider Dunstan's Teeth, is complete and now with the editorial team at 138 Israeli Chikenz Inc. I expect it will be ready for publication in a few weeks. Stay tuned, I may post a preview next week!

Listed in the Premium Catalog

The big news for today is that my little foray into writerdom has been accepted into the smashwords "Premium Catalog".

Sadly, this is more a reflection of the fact that it is correctly formatted than a commentary on the content of the story, still it is a nice step forward.

And don't forget to get your order in at kobo-rakuten

Or ibooks

Or Barnes and Noble

Or at Smashwords itself

Birthdays

When you have only ever had two birthdays - and you don't really remember either of them - the impending arrival of a third birthday is a matter of some moment. For at least a month now, the Bullfrog has been eagerly anticipating her third birthday.

Belgium and Belgians

Since the resurrection of the blog, I have been getting a disproportionate number of hits from Belgium. I assumed that this is due to the many Belgians that now find their life oddly empty and shallow without my wit and bonhomie to enliven it.

The chikenz on the other hand observed that my erstwhile employer most probably has a small team of crack agents monitoring my every move to ensure that I do not do anything that would harm their endeavours.

I was amused to hear this and it did wonders for my self esteem, but I explained to the chikenz that my former employer is not sufficiently organised to undertake such an task and that, even if they were, the likelihood of them finding anything interesting on my blog is remote.

"Ah yes," says the chikenz with a tone of finality that brooks no argument, "but some other people find your blog interesting..."

The ellipsis hangs in the air ominously and I decide that this is the sort of logic against which I am completely helpless. I agree that a small coterie of senior personnel at my erstwhile employer are, at this very moment, secretly studying my blog (Hello Jos, Paul, Piet, Pete and Wim).

Oh Dear

I have just been told that the link to the bullfrog's karaoke version of Oni no Pantsu (The Demon's Underpants) in this post was not working.

I have fixed it in the post and here it is again just in case.

Updating the Scorecard

I mentioned earlier that I was undertaking a number of tasks during my extended vacation. In summary and in no special order, those tasks are;

• Improve my Japanese
• Spend more time with the bullfrog
• Improve my guitar
• Grow a beard
• Write more

So, I think it might be worthwhile to quickly recap my progress on these matters.

Regarding Satan’s Underpants

I recall, I would have been about 18 or 19, driving my brother to some place or another, being stopped at a traffic light and having my brother announce apropos of nothing much at all, that he knows a poem. My brother is 12 years younger than me, so he would have been only 6 or 7. At that age, I remember him as an intensely serious child, so when he said to me “I know a poem” I braced myself for all six stanza’s of John Donne’s A Nocturnal Upon S. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day.