Believe it or Not

What a very odd couple of days we've had. First off the weather has been going crazy. Then our researches have turned up some very strange stuff. And finally, I've been talking to the radio again.

In no particular order - well obviously in some order but not the order in which I listed them nor in reverse order - the weather. The wind had finally died away and the evening temperatures were falling away gradually. We had repaired all the wind damage. The FarmTwins had pruned all of the mature fruit trees in the front garden: apricot and plum as well as the Jacaranda (that isn't) and the spiny acacia (sounds like spiny Norman). They left the young cherry trees that we brought over from UK to see what winter does - they can always be pruned in Spring if needs be. They had re-arranged the log pit and its cover. They had even fastened the taller of the Yucca plants to the wall, proofing it, they hoped, against future southerlies. And then last night we had just settled down to watch Time Bandits on DVD (free with last week's Sunday paper), the stove was drawing nicely (just for comfort you understand), when we heard kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk and then hoooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwl. The south wind came back - from out of the blue - no warning -no time to prepare. It ripped the bottom out of the stove pipe and, in a moment all of our updraft was gone; the stove started belching wood smoke into the room and the washing line began terpsichorean manouevres in the dark. Panic stations! High alert. Plan 9 required! We damped the stove as far as we could. We retrieved the washing from the upstairs line and decided to leave the downstairs line to the mercy of mother nature. And still the stove belched. It was a full hour before some semblance of normality returned, although even then the view into the room must have looked like the prospect into a London betting shop.

This morning the south wind was still howling but the skies were clear and the temperatures were up. They crested today at 26º C and that on the 1st of December! Craziness indeed. The lounge still smells of wood smoke. The washing dried inside an hour when rehung. Outside, right now, the southerly wind is rushing past: gusting and roaring. The stove pipe end had been replaced but with the temperature as it is there will be no call on the stove this evening. Perhaps we will re-screen Time Bandits.

As for talking to the radio - what can I say? In London I worked much of the time from my own office where Radio 4 was my constant companion. I would talk to the broadcast signal regularly - it is after all a spoken word station. Since the re-entry of Radio 4 into our lives I've started doing it again but this time Gill hears it. Where previously it was a private eccentricity it has now become a public commonplace - the girls glance up occasionally when things get heated - Gill looks askance now and then. I am not embarrassed. Talking to, and arguing with, reasonable, intelligent, articulate, people speaking English and discussing moral and socially pertinent issues holds no shame for a lifelong debater. How refreshing to hear and take part in civilised, robust argumentation where nobody whines on and on about how they have been offended or upset by what the previous speaker said: where people address the issues raised: where, in a word, debate occurs. How very unlike the emotionally and intellectually immature spaces that pass for debating arenas in cyberspace. I fully intend to renew my friendships with the Radio 4 intelligentsia. I also intend to keep right on talking to the radio.

In defence of the internet I come at last to my third item. Having taken part in some fruitless and worthless debates online lately about religion and morals, and creationism versus evolution I was trying to find out whether it was possible to believe in both creationism and evolution at the same time or rather whether anyone did. I was also trollinghttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif around trying to get a bearing on Hitler's religious orientation - it had never occurred to me before to enquire - when suddenly bingo! What's that old saying about 2 birds? No, not At Swim Two Birds! The other one. A double whammy on Herr Schickelgruber!

It transpires that our Adolf believed in creationism and evolution. He believed that the Aryan race were the result of creation - God, Adam and Jesus were all Aryans and had, as a race been created by God. More specifically than race in fact, as a species they had been created by God. Other races (or species) had evolved a la Darwin! Young Adolf had apparently been brought up as a strict Catholic and had toyed with the notion of becoming a priest. The mature Adolf, inspired by the christian teachings of the Viennese Christian Social movement and inspired by Martin Luther, used his religious beliefs to inveigh against inter-marriage on the grounds that a union between an Aryan (created) and any other race/species (evolved) could only produce hybrids and that these hybrids could not then be "made in God's image" - an insult to God himself. So there you have it, a Christian justification for racism in general and anti-semitism in particular (despite the fact that he himself was seldom that particular) all in one powerful, if flawed, argument. Hitler the christian. Hitler the Darwinist. Hitler the Creationist. Was there no end to this mans ingenuity? The site that I discovered that contains all this material is here (Hitler page ) - it is worth a good look around.

And, with 3 oddities dispensed, we shall leave you for now.